4

After a recent upgrade to Linux Mint 22.3, my laptop battery has stopped charging beyond 60%.

When I checked the battery health, it showed "Excellent".

However, when the charger is removed, the laptop shuts down immediately.

What could be causing this issue?

enter image description here

Improve this question
New contributor
An unfinished seeker is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering. Check out our Code of Conduct.
1
  • 1
    Could you clarify “immediately shutdown”. Does the system appear to hard power off (immediately switch of as the power is disconnected). Or does it enter an immediate shutdown cycle and safe shutdown in a matter of seconds? Commented 11 hours ago

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
5

That the laptop shuts down immediately even though 60% is displayed means the chance of a battery defect is very high, or:

  • a hardware problem

    • internal battery defect

    • the battery is effectively not delivering any power

  • the percentage display is very likely incorrect

  • safety shutdown inside the battery protection circuit or a charge thresholds

  • firmware or a software/OS problem

    • BIOS, ACPI, Drivers, other tools, etc..

  • calibration problem

Battery health Excellent only indicates the level of wear, not whether the battery can actually deliver power, in most cases.

Many laptops (ThinkPads, ASUS, Dell, etc.) have charge thresholds, e.g. stopping at 60%, which can be set via the BIOS, ACPI, or other tools.

A complete discharge / recalibration cycle plus a BIOS reset may help.

1. Let the battery drain completely until it reaches 0%.

2. Then remove the battery and start the laptop without it, and reset the BIOS. After that, insert the battery again and start the system with both the battery and the power cable connected, and check whether it can charge to 100%.

3. If it gets stuck again at 60%, repeat steps 1 and 2 After that, if possible, try booting a live OS with the battery and power cable connected and see whether it can charge to 100%.

If this is still not possible, the battery has likely developed some kind of lock or defect or the issue is likely related to the firmware, such as the battery controller, embedded controller, or BIOS/UEFI

If the battery charges in the live OS, you have a software / OS problem

If it does not charge there either, you have a hardware problem

Check whether anything from these posts can help you further.

At our company, I could check this much faster because we often have the same model multiple times. I would simply take a battery from another laptop to test it, and also put the supposedly defective battery into a different machine to see what happens

Improve this answer
3
  • If the OP's machine shuts down immediately as soon as they disconnect the battery, doesn't that suggest that the battery is already at 0%? Commented 14 hours ago
  • @terdon Yes, if the laptop shuts down immediately as soon as the power adapter is unplugged, the battery is effectively not supplying any power. This means the displayed 60% is very likely incorrect. The most likely cause is therefore that the battery is defective or internally disabled, e.g. due to a protection circuit, cell damage, etc. I would say with 99% certainty that this is a battery failure, but strange is since this behavior appeared after the upgrade to Linux Mint 22.3 Commented 14 hours ago
  • 2
    The suggested calibration cycle plus a BIOS reset and a test with a live OS is exactly the right approach to clearly distinguish between a software and a hardware issue. So step 1 can effectively be skipped. Commented 14 hours ago
2

It seems unlikely that the upgrade for Linux Mint was to blame. It seems more likely to be unlucky timing. So you might want to check an alternative distribution first to convince yourself of it being hardware or software.

If you have a USB stick available you could try a Live USB to boot an alternative distribution (eg Ubuntu) to see if it behaves differently. And even try an older version to ensure that it’s not a new kernel bug.

I spent 5 years managing Lithium Ion batteries used as power plants on the UK power grid. While consumer grade laptop batteries are a bit different, one thing is still true: measuring battery health and state of charge are a dark art and liable to be wrong for any number of reasons. But state of charge is certain when the battery is full or empty.

In laptop batteries, a battery that won’t charge more than 60% is a near certain sign of a bad battery, and there are not really alternative options but to replace the battery.

The fact that it reports “excellent” health may just be that the measuring algorithm can’t detect this specific fault. These algorithms usually rely on measuring charge in/out against state of charge changes. But some faults fool the state of charge measurement which are amazingly flaky to begin with. So fooling SOC also means fooling battery health.

Improve this answer
0

Your battery is dead.

The symptom (battery stuck at particular state of charge, not charging and not delivering any electricity) is neither rare nor limited to particular brand or model.

The problem is unrelated to Linux, BIOS or any other software.

This is the "graceful failure" of the modern laptop batteries.

It may not look this much graceful for someone who needs their laptop, but it is compared to older battery packs that bulged (up to and including cracking the device open) or did other dangerous things.

How and when the battery management chip decides that the battery is no more, what battery aging model is used and how much of this is a planned obsolescence is worth a whole another discussion.

Replace your battery. Or your laptop.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.