Lenovo IdeaPad 330S - Battery Problems

gerard1970

My son is studying engineering and needed a new laptop, so I bought him a new Lenovo IdeaPad 330S last weekend in PC World - the i7 model with 8 GB RAM an 512 GB SSD.

He's brought it into college for the last couple of days and is complaining about the battery. He's only getting about an hour and a half before having to plug in and re-charge.

I'm just wondering if anybody else has a Lenovo IdeaPad 330S and if they're having similar battery drain problems?

Thanks!

Alanstrainor

Yeah that is not right at all. But it does depend on what he is running when using it. He needs to look at what programs he is running when on battery, and to make sure there isn't something like an anti-virus bogging down the machine at these times. Windows 10 has it's own anti-virus protection so I would remove any extras that are installed as a very first step.

Windows 10 is also very good at managing your battery usage and recording what apps use the most. There is a decent write up here that he should follow to find out if any one app is using the battery too much:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-tip-hunt-down-battery-draining-apps/

There is a chance that he is running a big power draining app for college, and unfortunately this would be hard to avoid and extend the battery life. Things like lowering screen brightness would help somewhat though.

gerard1970

Thanks for the quick response @alanstrainor. He said he's just running Google Chrome browser and Word.

I'll do as is suggested in that link you sent and see if there's anything hogging the battery.

does have a low quoted battery life on that model - 6 hours which is on the low side these days.


https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-ideapad-330s-14ikb-14-intel-core-i7-laptop-512-gb-ssd-blue-10185219-pdt.html

even still should be getting 3 1/2 to 4 hours even if quoted is usually over-stated / over-estimated

if you can swap it in currys due to a fault this one has 11 hours quoted battery life and similar power to the one that you bought (there is not much difference between the 4-core u chips in terms of i5 and i7 - the difference only comes in on the h chips really in terms of laptop chips)

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-14-ce0501sa-14-intel-core-i5-laptop-256-gb-ssd-silver-10184651-pdt.html

gerard1970

Thanks glasso. He's certainly not getting anywhere near 3.5 to 4 hours while it's unplugged.

I installed the Lenovo Service Bridge and got this to check for updates - and there were none - so all the latest and greatest software is installed. Even the BIOS is up to date. I turned off bluetooth as well to see if this improves things.

The fast-charge option is also turned on, and my son is saying is it's taking a very long time for the battery to charge. Even when he has it turned on and NOT using the laptop, it's taking a very long time for the battery to be charged. He said that the battery charge only went up by 5% after about 30 minutes charging. Is that normal?

Regarding swapping the device, would Currys actually do this? Surely they'd want to run some sort of diagnostics before doing this? My son has lots of assignments to do, so he really can't afford to be without the laptop while Currys run these tests.

I actually suggested the HP Laptop that you've suggested to him while we were browsing last week, but he wanted one with a 512 GB SSD, so that ruled that one - and a lot more - out. I asked him why it had to be a 512 GB SSD and not a "smaller" one. He wasn't able to give any real reason, apart from the fact that it was bigger.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions!

you can buy a 500gb ssd for 55 euro these days - usually the price of one in a laptop is way more than that.

i.e. cheaper to buy a smaller one and put a bigger one in.

if the laptop is unsatisfactory in terms of battery life you can bring it to them and demonstrate the fast discharge.

no point in the long term sticking to something that isn't working as stated.

they will give you a replacement within the near time frame but if you leave it longer they may send it away for repair.

at the least they will swap for same model but could also give you a refund (within first month I think as I did before) or credit against another one.

personally I'd swap for this model

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-14-ce0002sa-14-intel-core-i5-laptop-128-gb-ssd-silver-10180755-pdt.html

the 256 gb ssd one is gone - this is only 128gb

this laptop has either a spare m.2 or 2.5inch ssd slot free so get it, check what type is free checking the properties in device mgr and buy a cheap extra ssd and put in (should not void warranty adding ssd). e.g a 480gb ssd (i have this one and it's great) - 50£
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07F2J4S18/ref=twister_B078MGV62V?_encoding=UTF8&th=1
or 240gb for half the price on same page so even 240 + 128 existing = 360gb for 30 euro and it's only a few screws

either case act quickly and don't leave it and go back to currys. takes only 30 mins to show how battery is going down. afaicr things change after a month when you would not get a replacement but go to repair then

if you/ son goes in, demonstrates issue they should sort you out on same day within the hour

so copy user files onto usb/ drive and port to new laptop

gerard1970

Thanks glasso.

let us know how you get on if you bring it back.