[RESPONDED] Battery life troubleshooting

[Travis]

I’m running Pop!_OS 22.04 and trying to figure out why my battery life isn’t very good.

The only apps I had open were Firefox and Terminal, and my screen at the lowest brightness.

❯ sudo tlp-stat -b
--- TLP 1.5.0 --------------------------------------------

+++ Battery Care
Plugin: generic
Supported features: none available

+++ Battery Status: BAT1
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/manufacturer                   = NVT
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/model_name                     = Framewo
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/cycle_count                    =     16
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/charge_full_design             =   3572 [mAh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/charge_full                    =   3195 [mAh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/charge_now                     =    404 [mAh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/current_now                    =    567 [mA]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/status                         = Discharging

/sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/charge_control_start_threshold = (not available) 
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/charge_control_end_threshold   = (not available) 

Charge                                                      =   12.6 [%]
Capacity                                                    =   89.4 [%]

How can I figure out if there’s a background process causing this or what?

[Travis]

I think my graph is misleading. For example this morning I have been using it for ~2.5 hours and the battery has dropped from 95% to ~25%

What are you running to generate the graph in your post?

Also, is there a way to see what applications or services are using the most power?

I’ll try depleting and recharging to see if that helps.

[Matt_Hartley]

@Travis If you’re running TLP on Pop OS, you’re going to be in for a bad time. It uses system76-power and it is not compatible with TLP. They may even cancel each other out. Uninstall it and reboot, try Battery Life setting from the Pop OS pull down menu on the right.

Once tlp is removed, rebooted, then:

@anon81945988

My Power Statistics has a more 'reasonable graph grid

…is correct and a good standard to use.

[Travis]

OK, TLP uninstalled, thanks for the tip!

I think powertop should be useful in trying to figure out if there is something else going on.

[AMoonRabbit]

@Matt_Hartley

If you’re running TLP on Pop OS, you’re going to be in for a bad time. It uses system76-power and it is not compatible with TLP. They may even cancel each other out. Uninstall it and reboot, try Battery Life setting from the Pop OS pull down menu on the right.

Once tlp is removed, rebooted, then:

@anon81945988

My Power Statistics has a more 'reasonable graph grid

…is correct and a good standard to use.

Hi @Matt_Hartley, can I confirm something here as I believe you have worked with Pop OS before. In the Battery Optimisation guides, we mask the existing power-daemons to make way for TLP. Can we not do the same for com.system76.powerdaemon.service?

I am experimenting with this myself, and setup TLP with the guide. Fully understand that I am on my own here but just looking for an answer as to whether it’s possible.

[Matt_Hartley]

@AMoonRabbit

Hi @Matt_Hartley, can I confirm something here as I believe you have worked with Pop OS before. In the Battery Optimisation guides, we mask the existing power-daemons to make way for TLP. Can we not do the same for com.system76.powerdaemon.service?

I am experimenting with this myself, and setup TLP with the guide. Fully understand that I am on my own here but just looking for an answer as to whether it’s possible.

It may work, but, honestly for Pop OS, you’re going to best suited to use their power profile tool and service on Pop itself. It’s pretty deep into the distro and merely disabling the service on Pop is untested.