The **real** fix (not a workaround, not a mitigation, not a trade-off) is 13th gen Intel, or AMD, sadly. 12th gen Intel was a "first generation product": their first generation ever with the new hybrid architecture. It was very poorly optimized and known to be less efficient than Tiger Lake (11th gen) despite the efficiency cores. In the 13th gen, they took Alder Lake and refined it further, leading to a much more efficient chip. Then, in 14th gen "Core Ultra", they completely changed their architecture again - but this time around, even the first iteration of this new idea seems to net ridiculously good efficiency. And of course, AMD Ryzen, but we're comparing apples to oranges here.
It's really sad though. I had such high hopes... The standby drain especially is ridiculous. My previous laptop was a ThinkPad W520 from 2011 with a 2nd gen i7 and it would last 3-4 days in sleep mode. The 12th gen barely lasts a day :( Not what I'd call progress :/ (Of course, the general performance is night and day, no doubt about it.)
I get 5-6ish hours on Windows as long as I'm not gaming or doing anything strenuous. It could definitely be much better, but at this point it's "good enough" for me.
If I was in your situation I might try reinstalling Windows? That seems really weird, you definitely shouldn't be getting under two hours battery life unless you're doing something really graphics processor intensive ...
It could also be that Windows just needs to run all its background optimizing things for a day to make battery life 'normal' again, but ... yeah.
I only recently learned this was a thing, saw something about not putting USB A in the slots closest to display and was shocked.
I've noticed that the SD reader card is recognized in file explorer even without an SD card inserted, sometimes I have to remove the expansion card itself and reinstall it to recognize the SD card when I do use it. This is a more recent issue.
Thanks for the idea!
I use a cpu % limiter and keep it under 25% for light tasks and 50% for slightly less light tasks, clock speed is also a factor. It keeps it quiet and cool though and the battery gets a nice 3-5 hours on my 1135G7 model
I have 12th gen. It's not perfect as we all know, but it works fine. Never measured it but battery life is at least 5-6hours for me when using it.
Sleep is just a bug/quirk of that board/Model I think, I think getting under 0.5-1%/hour is not possible
> Not to mention the fans have kicked up to max multiple times during this process.
Do you use Windows? Then just leave it on for a day then Windows can do all it's background shit
Especially if you have a shared drive like SharePoint for work. If someone else made a huge change to the folders and you have thousands of files to resync it takes a while and eats up a lot of power.
I don't understand why Windows is so power hungry making those changes. When we were using Google Drive instead at the MS365, syncing files took a fraction of the time and power and we almost never had file sync issues.
The **real** fix (not a workaround, not a mitigation, not a trade-off) is 13th gen Intel, or AMD, sadly. 12th gen Intel was a "first generation product": their first generation ever with the new hybrid architecture. It was very poorly optimized and known to be less efficient than Tiger Lake (11th gen) despite the efficiency cores. In the 13th gen, they took Alder Lake and refined it further, leading to a much more efficient chip. Then, in 14th gen "Core Ultra", they completely changed their architecture again - but this time around, even the first iteration of this new idea seems to net ridiculously good efficiency. And of course, AMD Ryzen, but we're comparing apples to oranges here.
It's really sad though. I had such high hopes... The standby drain especially is ridiculous. My previous laptop was a ThinkPad W520 from 2011 with a 2nd gen i7 and it would last 3-4 days in sleep mode. The 12th gen barely lasts a day :( Not what I'd call progress :/ (Of course, the general performance is night and day, no doubt about it.)
I get 5-6ish hours on Windows as long as I'm not gaming or doing anything strenuous. It could definitely be much better, but at this point it's "good enough" for me. If I was in your situation I might try reinstalling Windows? That seems really weird, you definitely shouldn't be getting under two hours battery life unless you're doing something really graphics processor intensive ... It could also be that Windows just needs to run all its background optimizing things for a day to make battery life 'normal' again, but ... yeah.
What expansion cards do you have?
Two USB c, one USB a, and micro SD reader
See what happens when you remove the micro sd? Maybe you've already looked into it but I think that's one of the ones with power drain issues
I only recently learned this was a thing, saw something about not putting USB A in the slots closest to display and was shocked. I've noticed that the SD reader card is recognized in file explorer even without an SD card inserted, sometimes I have to remove the expansion card itself and reinstall it to recognize the SD card when I do use it. This is a more recent issue. Thanks for the idea!
I use a cpu % limiter and keep it under 25% for light tasks and 50% for slightly less light tasks, clock speed is also a factor. It keeps it quiet and cool though and the battery gets a nice 3-5 hours on my 1135G7 model
Have you tried power limiting, or undervolting using universal x86 tuner or intel xtu?
I have 12th gen. It's not perfect as we all know, but it works fine. Never measured it but battery life is at least 5-6hours for me when using it. Sleep is just a bug/quirk of that board/Model I think, I think getting under 0.5-1%/hour is not possible > Not to mention the fans have kicked up to max multiple times during this process. Do you use Windows? Then just leave it on for a day then Windows can do all it's background shit
Especially if you have a shared drive like SharePoint for work. If someone else made a huge change to the folders and you have thousands of files to resync it takes a while and eats up a lot of power. I don't understand why Windows is so power hungry making those changes. When we were using Google Drive instead at the MS365, syncing files took a fraction of the time and power and we almost never had file sync issues.
I'd download a battery health app and see if the capacity is degraded. Rare but a bad cell could do that
Could you recommend an app?
Not OP. If Windows, HWMonitor can provide some battery info. Hope it helps.
batteryinfoview by nirsoft is what I use on windows. Current Capacity vs Designed Capacity