Asus EeePC 900 Battery Drain Woes
A thread on the EeeUser forum details how some (or most?) EeePC 900 units drain battery even when turned off.
I was just wondering if anyone else has been having this same problem. Now when my eee pc 900 is fully charged and i leave it for a couple of days not using it the battery still drains when even not in use.
And I agree that this is a serious reliability issue. For many people, the Eee serves as a mobile work machine, and for some, as a travel companion. Some just turn on their Eee for a few minutes to check on email and read news, and then off again. But if you lose 10% to 20% of your charge each day then you’d have to plug it in often, which beats the purpose of having a portable computer with a three-plus hours battery life.
I have yet to test this on my machine, but I’m curious to know how Asus will deal with this. Is this perhaps just a BIOS issue? Or is this a battery issue?
August 13th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I have experienced the same issue with my brand new eeePC 900.
Battery drains even when switched off.
Does anybody have a remedy. Any settings to be changed.
August 14th, 2008 at 6:39 am
I have an eeepc 900 running Linux, and my battery drains on average 10% per day when not in use. I have tried installing the latest BIOS, but this does not help. I believe the issue is with the USB ports remaining active after shutdown. I have tried disabling the USB in the BIOS you loose the camera and SD card functionality. Not a very useful solution….
August 17th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Guys i think the problem is on battery. I fully recharged the battery and removed it from the laptop. after 2 days i plug in again the battery and still has the same problem. it was at 80% remaining.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:11 am
There are long threads in german and english EEE PC forums about this issue. It seems as the motherboard is faulty since there is a current leak of about 14mA while beeing switched off. This leads to the experienced situation. At least in Switzerland the EEE PC gets a new motherboard with the issue fixed on guarantee if sent back to Asus. Rgds, Twain
September 18th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Same problem with my 900.
The only way to deal with this is to start sending back your PCs, get an RMA and force Asus to fix the problem. If it takes three attempts then make them do it. If they fail demand a refund as the pc is not fit for use as intended.
They seem to be quite happy to have everyone talking about this problem as long as it does not cost them money.They appear to have fixed the problem with the 901 and 1000, use that as an example when they try and tell you that it is normal for your battery to discharge 10% per day.
A Li-ion battery should hold its charge longer than 2 weeks. Normal self discharge should not be more than 5-10% per month.Don’t let them tell you that the cmos/bios is sucking it down the draw from this would be minute.
September 29th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Same problem with my 900/XP. Battery goes flat after about 3 days when left switched off and not connected to external power. Bought mine to use on my canal boat where power supply is a real issue. A notebook with 25% the power consumption of my full size laptop was to have been a major help, but this makes it worse than the laptop, and no use at all for what I bought it for! Won’t be buying from Asus again unless they fix it fast, and nor will anyone I know. Will tell you how I get on with them.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:05 am
Wish I had read this before. Had I know the battery self-discharges, I wouldn’t have put on storage with the battery attached.
My battery is now DEAD probably due to over discharging. And the warranty just expired.
The least ASUS could have done was put a warning NOT to do this. Oh well.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
i have the same problem as well..
i have fully charged my eeepc 900, but once i removed it from the charger and started using it, it only took me about 2 – 3 hours using its battery, eventhough i already decreased its volume and light.. any advice how to prolong its battery life?
thanks.. ^__^
October 31st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
my asus eee pc900 was bought a month ago and yet my battery last for only 30 minutes. it takes long for it to be fully charge but when i use it i can’t even finished a document, it goes off.
November 1st, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I have a problem were when I charge my eee I have to hold the charger in and really push does anybody have a solution for that?
November 15th, 2008 at 3:31 am
No Ben, no solution, my eepc 900 battery drains quickly too. I bought an expensive new 4-cell bat from Expansys Belgium, received it after FIVE months, and the result is just te same: 10% loss every day.
You won’t see me buying another Asus or any cheap Notebook, for that matter. And send it towards an Asus Service Point? Rather not, thanks, I need this working tool. Just look for a quality replacement: Apple Aero perhaps?
November 26th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
what hans is riting seem to be absolutley correct and I agree. any such crap shouldnt be sent out into the market befor everything is OK
January 16th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Same problem here, with my new 1000H.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Just for information: my 900 (12GB) does NOT drain the battery when turned off. Is that just luck?
March 7th, 2009 at 1:34 am
Same problem on my recently purchased 1000HG
March 9th, 2009 at 6:05 am
Hi
I bought an Eee900 in October and was disappointed with the battery life. Less than 90 minutes from fully charged. When the battery was full and the 900 not used for 2 weeks the battery was totally flat. Back to Asus twice for repair. First time new motherboard and battery life seems a little longer. Second time all they did was reinstall windows but the battery still discharges itself.
I have asked for a refund or to pay for an upgrade but am getting nowhere.
My advice is to stay away from ASUS. PC World seem to have stopped selling them
March 30th, 2009 at 2:51 am
Same issue with my new 1000H. Tech support says there is no CMOS battery which accounts fo rthe battery drain. WRONG ANSWER!! I removed the battery and it keeps time perfectly even after 3 days with no battery pack attached. Battery kept 100% charge when disconnected. ASUS needs to fix the issue since this will effectively shorten the life of the main battery pack!!
April 5th, 2009 at 4:54 am
I have one and i charge it all the time and it only lasts 2 hours. that was half the time of my flight time. i chrged the whole day before i left did i do somthing wrong or was my lapto[ a waiste of money.
April 8th, 2009 at 6:09 am
HI ALL -OK, This might help:
Bought my 900 almost one year ago & have used it nearly continuously ever since : )
Yes, there is/was a BIOS update thingy and it helped extend battery life from 1.5 to 3 hrs = doubled!
But one day the whole unit was dead – for me it turned out that my CHARGER gave out! I took it to a retailer and asked them to plug it into Their charger to see if it was the battery or the charger AND IT WAS THE PLUG-IN CHARGER! So the store sold me theirs, and it’s all been good since. I never reported it to ASUS because I am in school and just don’t have the time… Curious to learn if this info helps anyone. Hope so!
August 26th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
I have same problem with Eee 900 .
The battery drains 10% in every 20 hours even the unit is off .
Sent twic to Asus , they changed motherhood nd also replaced battery still the same .
you can not relay on battery .
August 26th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
I bought this 900 series in June 09 ( big mistake ) since day first have problem with battery life
It drains even the unit is off . sent to Asus twice . First replaced some part !!! . again sent and replaced he battery . still the same .
My advise is stay away from Asus is a piece of Junk .
September 30th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Wish I had found this website before buying two of the pieces of junk the other day.
Used one today after the first full charge.
2 minutes test in the morning, then got 10 minutes out of it in the afternoon when it died.
So much for the falseley advertised 5 hours.
Returning both of the things to Harvey Norman tomorrow for our money back. Whats the point, may as well use my desk top if the thing only lasts that long between 8 hour charges.
Wish I knew ASUS made them before I purchased them, the laptop I have from them is equal garbage quality wise. Problems from early in the piece there to.
Will be sure to advertise their quality on all my websites and forums. People need to be warned early.
Brad
November 9th, 2009 at 8:18 am
I am glad to see that I am not the only person that owns an anchor for a small boat in a quiet lake. Unfortuantly I live in South Florida and the ocean waves a too strong for this little eee pc anchor. I would offer it to someone on a calm lake with a row boat for shipping cost, but then again you would be getting screwed due to the fact that a row boat on a calm lake really has no need for an anchor.
December 14th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Had 3 assus laptops . the first ne died after 3 years of the kids pulling the charging plug out by the cable. The second was an acer one which came with linux and I updated to win xp. The battery died after 4 months and while I was looking for a new battery on the net when I found a fix in the form of a bios update. 10 minutes later it was charging the battery and is now lasting around 3 hours.
the new one is a tesco 399 job with 4 gig ram 320gb hhd and duel celeron. nice screen too. No real probvlems with reliability and belleive me my laptops get used and abused.
December 14th, 2009 at 11:17 am
I got the Asus 900, it looked so compact and I was hoping to use it as an ebook reader as well as a writing tool. The battery power is very poor, if I’m lucky it’ll last an hour. The only way around it is carry that charging cord wherever you go, find places that have a plug. It’s too bad it’s such a lemon this way.
December 17th, 2009 at 5:43 am
We’ve given up on having a battery-powered EEE PC (4G Surf) as the battery pack is about as watertight as a collander with a housebrick in it.
It sits on the coffee table powered by mains adaptor for quick web visits and is the perfect little PC for that. But it’s quite useless for highly mobile use.
January 29th, 2010 at 5:09 am
Had the same problem on my eee pc 1005HAB. I recently updated the BIOS listed as “Sept. 09 battery performance” and that did the trick.
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:58 am
@ medeiom
Where do you get the BIOS update and do you know if this update also works for the 1001HA? I have the same problem.
I have a new 1001HA. I turned the netbook off when I had about 13% remaining. 2 days later I turn it on again and directly when Windows was loaded it showed I only have 1% left!!!! this is crazy.
If I cannot fix this I will send it back. I’m not willing to accept this at all.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
I also have this problem with my 1001HA. I updated BIOS to the newest version 21.12.09. Unfortunately it did not help at all.
April 23rd, 2010 at 4:22 am
i have the same problem with my 900, which i use for work in my car, i was going to buy a powerful battery but on reading this, i will just have to keep it plugged in all the time. it sucks! its not a mobile device if the damn thing has to be plugged in forever.
i do not think i am having the same problem with my 1005HA, at least it seems to hold most if not all of its 10 hour life when turned off.
May 16th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
my new eepc 900 with lineux broke down and it was the charger and my battery and we wanted a replacement and wouldnt give us one
June 20th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
My Eee1000H has a label which states 7 HOURS COMPUTING I have never got 7 hrs however from new I was getting about 5! The USB certainly is live when switched off’
The problem now is that the max hours after full charge is about 2 hours but when the alarm comes up stating that the batt is discharged iT IS NOT AND CARRIES ON FOR ABOUT ANOTHER HOUR SOMETIMES MORE I guess it is poor design.
You could purchase a second batt and keep that charged!
Some years ago I purchased a MITAC lap top in Singapore had major problems with it found the MITAC people to be dishonest (sent it back to TWIAN they sent it back minus my modem card and would not accept it was their mistake. Found the Australian company directors and took them to the SMALL CLAIMS COURT in Queensland and won!The little china men were very upset.
August 20th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Hi, I have asus 1005P with ubuntu lucid installed.
Last night I fully charged my battery to a max of 6 hours 50minutes. After a few minutes of using, the indicator applet gave me 5 hours 10minutes battery status. I’m really worried now because my battery is discharging this fast. So I shut down my pc with 5hrs in mind. This morning I turned the pc on and checked my battery status has depleted to 3 hours 10 minutes.
I just lost 2 hours overnight! The battery discharged 2 hours overnight. I dont know if the problem is with the indicator applet of ubuntu which is inaccurate. Or is it the bios? Or the battery itself?
Asus promised 11 hours of battery life for this model but i’m only getting 5 hours! And worse the battery discharges abnormally.
September 7th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Just got a 1005peb only getting around 4-5 hrs not the 9-11 which is advertised. (this is in low power mode) The manual says the bat will only reach its full potential after several cycles of complete discharge and recharge. Then I read online that this will damage li-ion bats. Wth? Any one else do this based on the manual and notice a decrease in performance? Thinking I’ll try for a bat replacement, don’t really want to send the whole machine in. Bought it solely for mobility.
October 3rd, 2010 at 7:16 am
Battery has 5 hrs charge not 11 hrs.
Battery drains to flat when unit is switched off.
No review I read mentioned anything about this issue, even though this thread has been around since August 2008. All the reviews I read said this was a great unit. I only found this thread by searching for the problem.
Asus is junk big regret buying this rubbish I will stick to Dell for low-end computing they have great quality control and good after sales (so far). Thanks for this thread with the real review details.
October 13th, 2010 at 11:27 am
i have a problem with my asus Eee series pc 900 the green light is off even if power cord is plug in , why? can somebody help me solve my problem?
November 9th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Looking at all the forums all over the net that speaks of the battery problem of Asus EEE PCs, I guess, there really IS no solution to the issue. So, I keep my 1001HA pretty much plugged in at home. I guess that’s the way it will remain.
And, man, it’s slow. I mean, slow to respond. That, however, may be caused by the fact that I try to match it with my other laptop (the one they gave me from office) a Core 2 Duo with 2 GB RAM.
So, no worries, low expectation, zero frustration, no use crying over spilled milk (money I mean)
December 24th, 2010 at 10:42 am
need some help. (ASUS Eee pc 900) my battery is not charging at all. the icon does not show that it is even plugged in and i am at 2% left! the light on the adapter is off too. i have plugged and replugged everything, changed outlets, and reseated the battery pak. suggestions???
thanks,
p
January 10th, 2011 at 5:17 am
HORRIBLE PRODUCT AND HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE! MY COMPUTER IS LESS THAN ONE YEAR OLD AND QUIT WORKING.
May 21st, 2011 at 4:24 pm
It is certainly better than dirt, mud or stone. Due to better construction materials and labor they are a sound alternative for housing.
January 30th, 2012 at 9:29 am
I don’t think there’s actually a problem with the battery discharging. I’ve kept a close eye on my son’s PC 4G recently – he was complaining he could only run it on mains power because after a few minutes it would go from 100% down to 10%.
It turns out that WinXP is reporting the battey life incorrectly and it’s a long running problem with XP. I’ve today sat and watched a whole 2-hour movie spooled across our wireless network with the battery life stuck at 7% the whole time. In the end I left it switched on but missed the point at which it ran flat and turned itself off.
So, okay maybe *some* people genuinely have a battery problem, but I also think there must be a lot like my son who are only looking at what WinXP is reporting rather than actually trying to use the machine to see how long the battery really lasts.
-Frank Haywood
February 2nd, 2012 at 10:03 am
I think Frank is right. The problem is actually with xp rather than with the pc. I too saw almost an entire movie with the battery showing just ten percent.