Sounds like a bad battery
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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When you say you need to connect the charger to get it to boot up again, do you mean boot to Linux or even to just show the BIOS? If the former, it might be that the battery level isn't being read correctly by the OS, but if it's the latter, the battery or its related circuitry is likely failing and you'll need a replacement battery.
I dosen't show BIOS no signs of life until charger is plugged in.
In that case, I don't think the problem is with Arch. The battery is likely shot, as going from partly charged -> dead that quickly is a very common symptom of one that's reached the end of its life.
Honestly, why isn't there a thinkpad community here
To find communities, use this:
https://lemmyverse.net/communities?query=thinkpad
Searching a Fediverse instance will only find communities that that instance knows about. This indexes all of them.
Thanks Ill use that in the future.
Are you using battery thresholds and keeping your laptop connected? There is a bug in ThinkPads, at least with my t480, in which the batteries get discharged over time but doesn't get reported which causes the sudden power off. If you are using TLP I suggest you to either force a full charge or a recalibration to charge your battery properly. Also don't discard the possibility of having a broken battery.
That sort of sounds like whatever is displaying battery remaining is somehow getting things wrong, assuming that the battery is actually discharged. I can't think of much that would prevent you from at least being able to power up to the BIOS if you honestly had battery charge.
You can see what the kernel is telling userspace in:
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_full
And
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_now
Other things that might cause it...there is some software that will auto-hibernate or similar when your battery reaches a certain threshhold. If you consistently have the thing go down at 50%, that could do it. But I don't know why that would prevent you from booting the thing without charging it. You tried holding the power button for seven seconds or so to make sure that the thing is really powered off and not in some suspend mode or something and ignoring taps on the power button?
Oh, wait. 50% and Thinkpad. I used to have a Thinkpad with two batteries.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Lenovo+ThinkPad+T470S+Batteries+Replacement/140443
That looks like the T470s has a dual battery, and unlike mine, they look like they're the same size. Does your T480s have dual batteries?
EDIT: The T480 apparently does. Does the T480s?
https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/a4iben/t480_confused_on_how_to_charge_2nd_battery/
EDIT2: I don't see anything that looks like a second battery myself in this:
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Lenovo+ThinkPad+T480s+Battery+Replacement/144009
So I'm guessing not.
I use Fedora on my T470 with no issues. It might just be Arch. Have you tried other distros? I wish there was a ThinkPad community here.
I also use Fedora on a 2008 Mac Pro with no issues. I'm really surprised how good it is because I've been using Linux since the 90s and never had it just run smoothly on my older hardware.
Fedora and arch should run the same kernel.
Yeah I think that's a battery issue. If you can run the computer fine without it, that might eliminate the probability. Maybe check if a firmware update is needed, but I think simply if the battery hasn't been swapped, it's probably due for one.
yeah very helpful, the first community has 36 members, the other has 4
probably it's not even a thinkpad specific problem