this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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Laptop battery goes flat, when powered off, only on Debian (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml to c/linuxhardware@programming.dev
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Hi all,

I had this laptop (Lenovo Carbon X1 Gen 6), and when it had Debian, it would just go flat on sleep, and even when powered off. So strange. I checked all BIOS settings etc, but could never figure it out.

I moved it to Fedora, and it was perfect. Battery life was boosted like crazy, acted as it was meant to.

However, I have tomove away from Fedora, due to them dropping X11 (it's an accessibility issue I'm facing with my tools) and I forgot about said issue with Debian.

Back on Debian now, woke up, powered on laptop, which was fully charged last night, and it's flat again.

What is it, that Debian is doing differently, that is making it go flat, when powered off?

Please note, I am doing a proper shutdown. Not just closing lid, sleep, hybernate, etc.

Any advice greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!

UPDATE: I booted into a fedora live disk, and shutdown. This time the battery did not go flat at all when shutdown, indicating that it is absolutely debian related, not BIOS or anything else.

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[–] glitching@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

holup - you shut down the laptop and in such a state it drains the battery?! I mean, that's so outside of the OS' functionality, it don't matter which one you got. the only sensible conclusion is that shutting down the laptop in debian doesn't turn it off, there are no other explanations.

fedora is more modern by way of kernels and DEs and whatnot, but I've looked up your hardware, that's an 8th gen i5/i7, that's plently supported even in old bookworm.

one thing to lookup is in BIOS, my T480s (same generation) had a power management setting in BIOS that was either Windows or Linux, so make sure yours is set correctly.

edit: to add, the other issue, standby, blows on any hardware I've tried so what you need to do is implement suspend-then-hibernate by setting up a swap file that's RAM + 4 GB (or RAM * 1.5, if you run zram) and then enabling first hibernation and then configuring suspend-then-hibernate. so in that setup, your laptop sleeps normally, and if you don't touch it in say an hour, it dumps the RAM to the SSD and powers off. when you power it on, it restores from swap and that's faster than cold boot and your shit is how you left it.

naturally, alla that's pointless until you fix issue #1, the drain when it's supposedly off.

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Just an update, for interests sake, for those that helped me. Get this, it's if I have the laptop plugged into power as I turn it off. I then unplug it, and it drains like crazy when OFF. But, if I unplug power, then power down, it keeps its battery beautifully. How strange.

[–] glitching@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

so what you're saying is that the firmware powers off when on battery and just suspends if on AC? I have to say I've never heard of such a thing. could be a setting in the DE; e.g. Plasma has a buncha stuff to set up separately for when on battery and when on AC, maybe your issue is there. does it behave the same when you power down from terminal (sudo shutdown -h now)?

also, not to hamper your impressive research, but what's with the powering down of things? all my hardware (desktops and laptops) get powered down or restarted like never or rarer. when it's time for bed, they get suspended and then woken in the morning, ready to go as I've left em. the one laptop that spends days without power, ready to go when I have to leave, has the suspend-then-hibernate thing implemented so its power drain iz zero.

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

the only sensible conclusion is that shutting down the laptop in debian doesn't turn it off, there are no other explanations.

I mean, there are other explanations, like having Wake on Lan activated. But yeah it is very suspicious. It shouldn't drain that fast, even with WoL.

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Just an update, for interests sake, for those that helped me. Get this, it's if I have the laptop plugged into power as I turn it off. I then unplug it, and it drains like crazy when OFF. But, if I unplug power, then power down, it keeps its battery beautifully. How strange.

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Jesus Christ, there is something very wrong going on in there lmao. So, if you just turn it off (no unplugging) I'm guessing it's chugging your electricity for no reason? Does it have any logs of something it could be doing while it's "off"?

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

Nope, nothing. And only on Debian. It never did this on Fedora. Madness, but, I have no time to further spend on it. So, unplug, send shutdown signal, and happy life. haha, weird!

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, I have checked all those settings in the BIOS, and they are fine. I have no idea where to go now.

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago

OK, a little bit of an update. I booted into the fedora live USB disk. I then shut down from there. A day later, and the battery is still on 98%. This shows that it is actually debian causing the issue, not a system issue like the BIOS or similar. Now, just to try and figure out what it is with Debian and shutdown.

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Thank you for your response. I very much appreciate it.

I will definitely try whatever I can first before creating a bit of a workaround of suspend then hibernate. What I really want is just for the laptop to shut down properly, so that when it boots it still has the same, or very similar amount of battery.

My BIOS settings are definitely correct, I've gone over and triple checked them. Wake on land and all of those kind of things are turned off as well. I am fully stumped.

[–] glitching@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

not familiar with the usability issues that you need X11 for, but fedora has spins for xfce, cinnamon, etc. that are gonna keep X11 around for a long time.

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago

OK, a little bit of an update. I booted into the fedora live USB disk. I then shut down from there. A day later, and the battery is still on 98%. This shows that it is actually debian causing the issue, not a system issue like the BIOS or similar. Now, just to try and figure out what it is with Debian and shutdown.