Laptop crashes often on battery but works plugged in

noeldemartin · 10-04-2019, 03:51 AM

I recently bought an Asus TUF FX504 laptop, and after having some issues with drivers I've finally installed everything and it works correctly... most of the time.

When I'm using the laptop on battery, it usually crashes after ~30 minutes, and I've noticed the graphic drivers need to be reinstalled. In particular, I'm getting an error after boot saying "ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS". In order to reinstall the drivers, I have to boot with `acpi=off` flag.

The thing is, if I use the laptop plugged in, then I don't have any of these problems. And even after a crash that would normally mess up the boot with that "ACPI error" message, I can use the laptop without any issues without setting the `acpi=off` flag nor reinstalling the drivers.

System info:
- Ubuntu 18.04 (kernel 5.0.0-29-generic)
- graphic driver: nvidia-driver-430
- lscpi:

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 8th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 07)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 3e9b
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem (rev 07)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/v6 / E3-1500 v5 / 6th/7th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
00:12.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH Thermal Controller (rev 10)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH USB 3.1 xHCI Host Controller (rev 10)
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH Shared SRAM (rev 10)
00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device a368 (rev 10)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH HECI Controller (rev 10)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Device a353 (rev 10)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port 9 (rev f0)
00:1d.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device a335 (rev f0)
00:1d.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device a336 (rev f0)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device a30d (rev 10)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH cAVS (rev 10)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH SMBus Controller (rev 10)
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH SPI Controller (rev 10)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile] (rev a1)
02:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Kingston Technology Company, Inc. Device 5008 (rev 01)
03:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)

business_kid · 10-04-2019, 08:59 AM

The most likely hardware suspect is the battery misbehaving on current spikes, obviously. Incorrect storage or other problems (dragging it really flat, high internal resistance) all can cause you to lose voltage on current spikes. Second up is motherboard, because they should have capacitative smoothing of some sort there.

Before you get into returning stuff, see if you can get any change out of acpi. I'd also check the spec on the CPU. What's the wattage? 35W? 55W? More? If you're over 55W that's a huge ask for a battery. Nvidia drivers have no mercy on the battery either, so you have a big cpu, and gpu draining things.

I'd seriously look into detuning while on battery power. Look at what your Android or Iphone does on low power. It reduces brightness, cuts back to one or two cores,etc. PCs these days just use too much power.

noeldemartin · 10-04-2019, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

The most likely hardware suspect is the battery misbehaving on current spikes, obviously. Incorrect storage or other problems (dragging it really flat, high internal resistance) all can cause you to lose voltage on current spikes. Second up is motherboard, because they should have capacitative smoothing of some sort there.

Before you get into returning stuff, see if you can get any change out of acpi. I'd also check the spec on the CPU. What's the wattage? 35W? 55W? More? If you're over 55W that's a huge ask for a battery. Nvidia drivers have no mercy on the battery either, so you have a big cpu, and gpu draining things.

I'd seriously look into detuning while on battery power. Look at what your Android or Iphone does on low power. It reduces brightness, cuts back to one or two cores,etc. PCs these days just use too much power.

Thanks for your help business_kid. I hate to say it, but shortly after writing this post the computer shut down again, and I haven't been able to turn it on. Not on battery nor charging :/ I have contacted ASUS support and since it's a new laptop they told me to return it. I guess I won't know what was happening but it seemed to be a hardware thing.

If I ever learn what it was I'll post it here!