My laptop freezes when on battery?

windows ubuntu hardware-failure battery

26,774

Solution 1

Summarizing comments:

Since the issue is only seen when running on battery, it sounds like this might be due to some power saving setting, e.g. a device not entering/exiting a lowered power state correctly. One way to try and troubleshoot this would be to inspect the power setting options.

So, go to the Power Options in the control panel, and select "Change plan settings" for the active power plan you're on. From there, make sure to select the "Change advanced power settings" option. You should see a large list of items that have on battery and plugged in settings - make sure the on battery matches plugged in for all of them, and save the plan.

If no lock ups are seen this way when running on battery, then slowly enable options, until the lock up is seen again, which will isolate exactly what device or setting could be causing issues.

Solution 2

Go to:

Control Panel
Device Manager
Battery
disable Microsoft AC Adapter and Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery

After you do this, you will see that the battery notification thing on the bottom right of the screen goes away.

Solution 3

I had the same problem with my laptop. When I unplugged it, started it from sleep while on battery, or started it up while on battery, it would freeze solid. I tried the caps lock, nothing changed. I went into bios, and looked at the system information. It said that it didn't detect any integrated graphics. I reset the bios to "Optimal default" or something like that, and it started using my integrated graphics card again, and stopped crashing. It appears that what happened was this. My computer was only using the nvidia graphics card. When I was running it on battery, it stopped using the nvidia card, to save power, and since the integrated graphics wasn't running, it would crash. With the bios reset, the integrated graphics started working again, and everything was fixed. I hope this helps any future people reading this.

26,774

Author by

Mark Said Camilleri

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Mark Said Camilleri over 1 year

So, first and foremost I have an HP2510p with 4GB ram running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (I had Ubuntu 13.04 64-bit before but the problem was there so it has nothing to do with the OSs).

I also know it is not a virus as I formatted the hard-drive and re-installed my OS.

Whenever I use it on AC, everything works perfectly, but when I switch to battery, or boot initially on battery, after a few minutes it completely freezes such that I have to press the power button to turn it off.

Any help?

Maybe a hardware failure?
- Nullpointer42 almost 11 years
  
  Could you describe "completely freezes" in more detail? Do you have anything on the screen? Mouse/keyboard stop responding? Video stops updating? Screen goes blank? Music stops playing if it was playing? etc, etc, etc
- Admin almost 11 years
  
  This could be a hardware error.
- magicandre1981 almost 11 years
  
  Press the CAP LOCKS key when you get the freeze and look if the light on the keyboard toggles. If it toggles, it is a software issue, if not, you have a hardware issue.
- Mark Said Camilleri almost 11 years
  
  @ernie when I say "Completely freezes", I mean that what's on the screen remains on the screen and the mouse won't move (so no mouse input) and no keyboard input either.
- Mark Said Camilleri almost 11 years
  
  @magicandre1981 no it won't light up, so I guess it is a hardware issue
- Nullpointer42 almost 11 years
  
  No definitive answer, but my first suggestion would be to check the power settings. Try changing the Power Options when on battery to match the plugged in settings - my theory is that something is going into a power saving state, and something goes wonky. If that prevents the freezes, you can start enabling various power saving options one by one, till you isolate what's causing the lock-up
- Mark Said Camilleri almost 11 years
  
  last time I tried it and it hanged, 100% battery
- Mark Said Camilleri almost 11 years
  
  @ernie The power settings are on balanced... which I think are good. The thing is that my sister has the exact same laptop model, same OS (Windows 64-bit) and same RAM but different Hard Disk..... could it be the Hard Disk? I am finding that a bit too far fetched.. Anyways, the point is that hers works just as fine on battery as on AC. No matter what the power plan is.
- Nullpointer42 almost 11 years
  
  Same model could have different hardware inside (different revisions, even different part numbers). My suggestion for switching your power settings was to change the on battery settings to match the plugged in settings. That way, if the laptop doesn't freeze when unplugged, you've isolated the issue to some power saving feature, likely in some hardware, and you can work to further isolate by enabling power saving things (screen dimming, processor throttling, etc) step by step.
- Mark Said Camilleri almost 11 years
  
  @ernie Ok, sorry if this might sound stupid, but can you tell me how? If with the windows power management tool, I've switched it to High Performance and checked the settings, they were both the same yet it still froze.
- Nullpointer42 almost 11 years
  
  In the power settings, go to Edit Plan, and then make sure to select the "Change advanced power settings" option. There'll be lots of items that have on battery and plugged in settings - make sure everything matches. If you still have issues, then @magicandre1981's battery theory might be right?
- Mark Said Camilleri almost 11 years
  
  @ernie Thanks for your help you were right, I had minimum cpu speed at 0%, simply raised and it worked like magic. If you want please right your answer as an answer below so that I can upvote and mark it as the answer that helped. Thanks again
- committedandroider almost 9 years
  
  @ernie what if windows right after you login and you can't get to power settings? I am experiencing right now.
Mark Said Camilleri almost 11 years

Thanks for your help.... Upvoted and accepted as promised
committedandroider almost 9 years

What did you raise your min CPU speed to?
committedandroider almost 9 years

Ernie how did you know if the caps lock key doesn't toggle, it's a hardware issue? Doesn't OS(software) manage input(keyboard) and act as an intermediary between software and hardware, like telling the hardware to toggle the light because of keyboard input it received?
Mark Said Camilleri almost 9 years

@committedandroider Since this question and now I have changed my laptop and I don't remember to what I raised it. I believe it was over 50% though
Davidenko almost 9 years

Please eliminate the commentary and just provide a simple straightforward answer.
redbeam_ almost 9 years

I edited it, for the good of humanity
alfC over 5 years

@MarkSaidCamilleri, did this worked at all for you?
alfC over 5 years

I tried this with an Asus q200e laptop with the same problem and it didn't help.
AliSafder almost 3 years

It did help a lot... so looks like it is software issue...