Many of the older posts on this forum recommend removing the USB-C expansion cards from an 11th gen Intel Framework to maximize battery life.
It seems like BIOS version 3.20 has made numerous fixes to the expansion card power drain problem, but did not completely eliminate it.
So, if I have BIOS version 3.20, is it still necessary to remove expansion cards to maximize battery life on an 11th gen Intel Framework? How much of a difference does it actually make?
I would also like to know the answer to this. The battery drain on my 11th gen Intel Framework is terrible! The HDMI expansion card is the worst for this, accounting for an additional -4 watts or so drain rate. If I leave it plugged in and shutdown my laptop, it will be completely drained by the next morning! I’ll try unplugging all expansions cards and see if I have any battery tomorrow morning.
I have BIOS v 3.20 and the latest drivers. I’ve attached a snapshot of my battery readings. Does this seem normal?
They did improve it but depends which on cards you have, say if you have a gen 1 HDMI or gen 1 Display Port card you still need to disconnect them.
I don’t know why I didn’t just do this in the first place, but I removed the HDMI and SD card expansion cards. After doing this, the battery life is significantly better. I have no concrete numbers, but it’s very noticeable.
It’s especially noticeable when suspending the laptop. I used to never use suspend overnight, because it would almost certainly be dead by the time I wanted to use it the next day. Now there is hardly any battery drain overnight.
