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 5 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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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[–] Supercrunchy@programming.dev 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

It's a bit hard to debug without the laptop in the front, but i think the issue is that your laptop supports some sort of "connected standby" and it enters that instead of fully powering off, or debian fails to properly remove power to some of the hardware.

If you want to search on the internet more on this, the terms you are looking for is for "system power state" or "s5". As a sanity check, first to see if running systemctl poweroff in a terminal actually powers off the system fully.

If that works, it's a problem of your desktop environment not telling the linux kernel to shutdown properly, but instead go into standby/connected hybernation.

If that doesn't work: Debian usually ships only older packages (including the kernel) and probably the kernel debian ships lacks the compatibility with some of your hardware. You can look up how to upgrade it, but it's not a procedure for the faint of heart. The easiest option is probably to understand why you want to use debian, and find a similar distribution with more up-to-date packages. There's also ways to customize your kernel and building your own, but I would keep it only as a last resort (in the case you really really want to use debian)

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days 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 3 days ago

Thank you for your thorough reply. I'm working my way through each of people's replies here, hopefully I can find a fix.

I have done systemctl poweroff, and it does switch the system off.

What I do find interesting, is when my laptop goes to sleep by just leaving it, I can't wake it up by pressing any key, or wiggling the mouse, or anything like that. I have to actually press the power button for it to come back to life. This is unexpected behaviour, and not normal. That might give me a clue to research further.

I will report back as I find something. Hopefully I will be able to help someone in the future. I'll definitely leave kernel stuff until the bitter end.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

I think he first thing to check is, is the OS actually shutting down? Or is it appearing to shut down but actually staying on and running down the battery due to some error. I.e. Wheb you come back to it, the laptop just happens to be off as the battery finally ran out some.poijt over night

I'd check the log files first to see what happens when you shut down. Is debian shutting down or is it stuck with one process running? Does the system off time match the time you sent the shutdown message?

The other thing to consider here is not that the battery is running down but rather that it is not charging up properly. The OS may be telling you the battery is full when in fact it's not so you're actually always teetering on the edge of 0%. I.e. Maybe youve stimbked across a bug with power management in Debian with your hardware.

Given you had no issues with Fedora, maybe use a USB stick with Fedora on it to boot the laptop up and see what it says about battery. Does it match what Debian told you? If not then maybe close to diagnosing the problem. If they do match have to keep looking.

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days 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 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Thank you for your very detailed response.

Here are some logs for the shutdown, showing recent startups and shutdowns:

$ last -x | grep -E 'shutdown|reboot'
reboot   system boot  6.1.0-37-amd64   Thu Jul 17 10:27   still running
shutdown system down  6.1.0-37-amd64   Thu Jul 17 10:20 - 10:27  (00:07)
reboot   system boot  6.1.0-37-amd64   Thu Jul 17 07:24 - 10:20  (02:56)
reboot   system boot  6.1.0-37-amd64   Thu Jul 17 07:22 - 10:20  (02:57)
shutdown system down  6.1.0-37-amd64   Wed Jul 16 08:35 - 07:22  (22:47)
reboot   system boot  6.1.0-37-amd64   Wed Jul 16 06:03 - 08:35  (02:32)
reboot   system boot  6.1.0-37-amd64   Wed Jul 16 06:01 - 08:35  (02:33)

Here are the complete, detailed logs, showing that a full shutdown is happening: https://pastebin.com/sxrdZRHc

Regarding the battery, I will have to make up a Fedora boot stick to test the battery percentage. It is definitely charging, as I can unplug it and it will last a good long time, whilst using during the day. It does not last nearly as long as on fedora, but it is definitely running for many hours.

Update : I created a fedora bootable use stick, and it reports exactly the same battery.

I am completely stumped, but it is still happening

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

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 days ago (2 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 2 days 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 2 points 3 days ago

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