Just upgraded to an Ultra 3 series: is this battery life normal?

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
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Just updated my mainboard to the ultra series 3 Cpu. Was expecting a much better uplift in battery life. I’m getting about 30% drain on an hour of video playback through jellyfin. This with the screen on the dimmest setting. Is there something obvious I’m missing?

Bluetooth is turned off. I’ve updated firmware. Haven’t forced hardware acceleration.

Which Linux distro are you using? Nobara

Which release version? 44

Which kernel are you using? 7.2.6-201.nobara.fc44.x86_64

Which BIOS version are you using? 03.02

Which Framework Laptop 13 model are you using? Framework 13 upgraded to Intel Ultra series 5 325

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I’d say that was a faster drain than I would expect. Would you post your battery health information here?

Also, there are several power-saving approaches noted in this thread: they might be worth a try as well:

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If you’re seeing a lot of power usage playing video, then hardware accelerated video playback is probably not working.

Using CPU decoding, 30% charge per hour seems very reasonable, since that’s 21.3 watts, assuming nominal capacity for the 71Wh pack.

It is probably not configured for new Intel chips (Intel VPL/libvpl) by default on Nobara.

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Output from battery health check

native-path: BAT1
vendor: NVT
model: FRANGWA
serial: 02E1
power supply: yes
updated: Sun 20 Sep 2026 00:37:22 BST (22 seconds ago)
has history: yes
has statistics: yes
battery
present: yes
rechargeable: yes
state: discharging
warning-level: none
energy: 12.802 Wh
energy-empty: 0 Wh
energy-full: 55.8673 Wh
energy-full-design: 60.6042 Wh
voltage-min-design: 15.48 V
capacity-level: Normal
energy-rate: 7.38396 W
voltage: 14.704 V
charge-cycles: 188
time to empty: 1.7 hours
percentage: 23%
capacity: 92.1839%
technology: lithium-ion
icon-name: ‘battery-low-symbolic’
History (rate):
1789861042 7.384 discharging
1789861012 7.446 discharging
1789860982 7.632 discharging
1789860952 8.266 discharging
History (voltage):
1789861042 14.704 discharging
1789861012 14.545 discharging
1789860982 14.802 discharging
1789860952 14.772 discharging

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This seemed to have been the bulk of the problem in usage. There was also higher battery drain that just sorta… went away. I think Nobara must’ve updated something that fixed that. NOW the battery life is excellent.

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Is this an Ultra 3 in the original Framework Laptop 13 case? (Saw 61Wh in the stats above)

Does the battery need to be cycled once or twice to be recalibrated to the new main board or does it automatically understand the charge calibration because the battery management system (bms) handles that? (Asking of anyone who might know not just the OP)