Ok so I made more tests, I can still reproduce the problem (not always but sometimes after 2-3 attempts). I tried checking dmesg to see if the laptop was changing state (leaving s2idle or something like that) but unfortunately no, when the high consumption sleep state is reached, nothing different appears in dmesg, I see the normal s2idle state on sleep and the resume line when I resume (also the power led is always pulsing as usual for a sleep state). Another thing I tried is to measure the consumption (at the outlet) when this happens. To achieve this I put the laptop to sleep but plugged in like before, which gets me about 1w consumption when all is well, then I try unplugging, wait a couple minutes, plug again, wait for the top up charge if any and then read the consumption. In the last try I made I got 1w at the first sleep, 1w after the unplug/replug, and the third time 7w !, the laptop is now sleeping (pulsing power LED) but warm and has a 7w consumption as opposed to the expected 1w. This is not the top-up charge because it’s been stable for hours, not decreasing any more. I did this test twice (resuming, make sure it’s fully charge, then sleep again and unplug/plug a couple times until I get something else than 1w and a warm laptop), and reroduced both times after just 2 or 3 unplugging. The LED on the side near the power plug is still blinking orange like when I put the laptop to sleep. Though when I unplug and replug as the battery is full the first time, it usually becomes white, it goes blinking orange when I wait a bit more and replug once the battery is no longer “full”.
I’m not sure what else I can do to debug this problem, I don’t have the HDMI apdater which is know to cause some issues, only 2 USB-C, 1 USB-A, and one microSD. Maybe I’ll try unplugging those but I don’t have much hope.
Edit: while the laptop was sleeping in this 7w consumption status (7.1w to be precise) I just tried hot-unplugging the microSD and USB-A ports, and noticed a drop of about 0.4w for the USB-A and 0.2w for the microSD (which means they do have a visible impact here although it’s not causing the whole extra 6w). After unplugging both I am down to 6.5w average. Unplugging the USB-C doesn’t have any impact because it’s passive I suppose. BUT THEN if I plug them back, I get +0.9w for the microSD and +0.4w for the USB-A, so now I’m up to 7.9w consumption now. Pretty weird an not consistent, I suppose the plugging/unplugging wake up some internal components which are now going to consume more?
For the record I tried doing this again when the sleep is working fine (1w) and got -0.05w for the microSD and -0.35w for the USB-A. Removing both I am down to 0.6w consumption in s2idle which is great actually, so a bit sad to learn that having an USB-A port is reducing sleep duration by 35% in my case. Plugging the USB-A back brings back the expected +0.35w and plugging back the microSD actually brings back +0.75w ! so I’m up to 1.75w now
I’m sure this is tricky business to handle power state of all these devices espcially if you can hot-swap them during sleep, and honestly that is understandable to me I don’t care much if doing this is increasing the consumption. What I care though is the power consumption begin sometimes 1w and sometimes 7w without touching anything else than the power cord. Effectively making sleep unusable because you don’t know if it’s gonna drain your battery and heat up a lot in your bag.
Card consumption when idle (not sleeping):
- USB-A: +0.45w
- Micro-SD reader: +1.2w
Unplugging both card gets me down from 6.4w to 4.75w idle, that’s 25% battery life gain!
- Also I measured HDMI card at +0.35w (I’m not using this one by default)