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3500U laptop 0.4 Ghz when on battery

biostud

biostud

Lifer
I have a Lenovo E495 3500U which if on battery runs @ 0.4Ghz and when connected to power runs normal. Is it a sign of a dying battery?

The battery charges and dischages normally.
 
I don't normally install any extra Lenovo software on Lenovo laptops (I give them all a clean Windows install then drivers only), but it might be worth checking whatever you have installed for any "energy saving" settings.

The only other reason I can think of that would cause a laptop processor to clock that low is if the CPU fan had failed, I saw that once on a Lenovo laptop with a Core i3-6006. If it's happy to clock up while on the mains then it can't be the fan.
 
mikeymikec said:
I don't normally install any extra Lenovo software on Lenovo laptops (I give them all a clean Windows install then drivers only), but it might be worth checking whatever you have installed for any "energy saving" settings.

The only other reason I can think of that would cause a laptop processor to clock that low is if the CPU fan had failed, I saw that once on a Lenovo laptop with a Core i3-6006. If it's happy to clock up while on the mains then it can't be the fan.
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I've seen people with similar problems, but as it clocks normally when on power I doubt it is heat related.
 
In2Photos said:
What tasks are you performing when you encounter this?
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Just booting up the computer. Which takes forever @ 0.4Ghz. 😛

When looking at ressorce manager it simply goes from 0.4 GHz to 2.6-3.0Ghz when plugging in the cord and back to 0.4 when I unplug it.
 
That's weird. Is this a new laptop? I saw some mentions of a setting in BIOS to set the laptop for "maximum performance" when on battery. Most said it made no difference but maybe it will for you?
 
In2Photos said:
That's weird. Is this a new laptop? I saw some mentions of a setting in BIOS to set the laptop for "maximum performance" when on battery. Most said it made no difference but maybe it will for you?
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It's an old laptop +3 years, I already went into the BIOS, and no interesting options to change.
 
In2Photos said:
OK so this is a new problem then?
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No, a colleague got the laptop exchanged about a year ago because he was experiencing slowdowns, and I've had it lying around as a spare computer students can borrow if their computer is in for reparation. I just had to use it myself for a task and then tried to look into why it felt so sluggish and found out why.
 
biostud said:
No, a colleague got the laptop exchanged about a year ago because he was experiencing slowdowns, and I've had it lying around as a spare computer students can borrow if their computer is in for reparation. I just had to use it myself for a task and then tried to look into why it felt so sluggish and found out why.
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Gotcha. It's wild that there are no real fixes mentioned anywhere on the web. I agree with some others that believe it may be a battery capacity issue. Maybe try and run this battery report built into Windows?

community.spiceworks.com

Laptop Battery Testing Tool

FWIW - After reading Bikerpete’s post, I ran it on my laptop without problem. Laptop was plugged in at the time. You get no error message? When I ran it, the file was placed in a not much used location, directly in \users[username]. FWIW #2 - Not, that it will help, you can change the report...
community.spiceworks.com community.spiceworks.com
 
Throw in a Linux live CD/USB and see whether the problem occurs with that? Alternatively, do a quick Windows install onto a spare drive (I'd recommend 11 just so it has enough drivers without needing to install anything), don't bother connecting it to the Internet.

My bet is Lenovo software doing weird things.
 
In2Photos said:
Check your power options in Windows settings.
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Did you do this?

I realize you stated it takes forever to boot, suggesting lower speed from the start, but perhaps it just takes forever to finish booting once the processor speed is stepped down?

What if you put it under full load, like running Prime95, does it not step up frequency then?

If you don't have a Lenovo app installed to manage power, what if you install one (if you can find one), and see if that allows changing this behavior? How about a bios update?
 
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mindless1 said:
Did you do this?

I realize you stated it takes forever to boot, suggesting lower speed from the start, but perhaps it just takes forever to finish booting once the processor speed is stepped down?

What if you put it under full load, like running Prime95, does it not step up frequency then?

If you don't have a Lenovo app installed to manage power, what if you install one (if you can find one), and see if that allows changing this behavior? How about a bios update?
Click to expand...
Yes, I've tried max performance and min CPU frequency to 50% on battery, it still drops to 0,4 as soon as the cord is unplugged.

I've sent it up to our IT guy he said he might have a battery he could swap from another old laptop.
 
A laptop clocking down the processor because of a faulty battery would be a new one on me; not saying it's 100% wrong, I would just be very surprised if it was a thing.
 
mikeymikec said:
A laptop clocking down the processor because of a faulty battery would be a new one on me; not saying it's 100% wrong, I would just be very surprised if it was a thing.
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Yeah, could be software glitch somewhere reducing CPU clock to 0.4Ghz on battery, no matter what.
 
Setting CPU profiles

To set the CPU power profile between performance and powersave, you can use the cpupower command provided in kernel tools.

sudo cpupower frequency-set -g performance

Where the -g is a power governor, the most common being 'performance', 'powersave' and 'ondemand'. Performance will turbo the CPU and run at max clock if it can. Powersave will try to drop the clock speed to save power, and ondemand is a mix, where the clock only ramps up if needed.

https://wiki.tonytascioglu.com/reviews/lenovo_thinkpad_e495
 
C1 said:
Setting CPU profiles

To set the CPU power profile between performance and powersave, you can use the cpupower command provided in kernel tools.

sudo cpupower frequency-set -g performance

Where the -g is a power governor, the most common being 'performance', 'powersave' and 'ondemand'. Performance will turbo the CPU and run at max clock if it can. Powersave will try to drop the clock speed to save power, and ondemand is a mix, where the clock only ramps up if needed.

https://wiki.tonytascioglu.com/reviews/lenovo_thinkpad_e495
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It runs windows 11...
 
Another thing I would consider checking is the Lenovo Vantage software. Usually in my experience it's a culprit because it gobbles CPU time like no tomorrow, but I wonder if there might be some "intelligent" power-related setting in there causing your problems.
 
biostud said:
It runs windows 11...
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Yes but it could easily run Linux. Running from a live CD was one of my favorite ways to differentiate between hardware and software issues.

If a problem persists with 2 different operating systems you most likely have a hardware or firmware issue.

If your system runs fine on Linux but not Windows you likely have a software or storage issue...

Nothing has an optical drive anymore but the same thing can be accomplished with a USB drive.
 
+1 live cd - I once diagnosed a faulty touchpad in a laptop where Windows wasn't giving me anything useful and just liked to crash randomly.

With Linux, one look at dmesg pointed out that something in touchpadsville was fishy.
 
mikeymikec said:
+1 live cd - I once diagnosed a faulty touchpad in a laptop where Windows wasn't giving me anything useful and just liked to crash randomly.

With Linux, one look at dmesg pointed out that something in touchpadsville was fishy.
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Maybe I'll give it a try when I return after my four weeks of holidays 🙂
 
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