Help Traded B50 dock for B70...worse battery drain!

[brperson]

I have a B50 tablet and until today I was living with the battery drain of my B50 dock (about 1.5 - 2% per hour when docked in sleep mode). I had been waiting for Best Buy to get in a new batch of docks and hoping they would be the "battery issue-free" B70 version. So yesterday they had a couple and sure enough, they were B70's. So I traded my B50 for one, thinking I would finally be rid of the dock battery drain issue. Charged it up last night to 100%, unplugged it and went to bed (with tablet in airplane mode, wifi OFF). I check it about 8 hrs later and it is down to 60%!?! I think well maybe the tablet didn't go into sleep mode properly so I reboot it, manually put it in sleep mode and...6 hours later the dock is down to 30%! So my new B70 drains at 5% per hour as opposed to my B50 at 2%. BTW I have the mobile dock battery saving mode checked and it does NOT wake up the tablet when I press a key...which was supposed to be the indicator of the problem. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't these B70 docks supposed to have NO issues with battery drain?

 

[chimphappyhour]

If you're on 3.2 Honeycomb, under battery options, it finally tells us what is consuming the most power expressed as a percentage. I had huge drain on my old B4 tablet and B5 dock combo. It was replaced with a B6 of each. I do believe whatever it was in earlier docks has supposedly been fixed. Check the battery info and see if there is an app that might be doing something. If not, you might need to contact Asus.

 

[brperson]

If you're on 3.2 Honeycomb, under battery options, it finally tells us what is consuming the most power expressed as a percentage. I had huge drain on my old B4 tablet and B5 dock combo. It was replaced with a B6 of each. I do believe whatever it was in earlier docks has supposedly been fixed. Check the battery info and see if there is an app that might be doing something. If not, you might need to contact Asus.

Yeah I checked the battery meter and it said wireless was using the most, even though it was switched off?! I rebooted and turned off everything in settings that might cause battery drain ...the problem seemed to go away, I now lost only 2% overnight. However I discovered a new issue. It seems that when the tablet charge goes below 95% and the dock has to charge it, it only gets the tablet to 99% and keeps charging and draining the dock. The tablet never gets to 100%. Weird.

 

[Deleted User]

Yeah I checked the battery meter and it said wireless was using the most, even though it was switched off?! I rebooted and turned off everything in settings that might cause battery drain ...the problem seemed to go away, I now lost only 2% overnight. However I discovered a new issue. It seems that when the tablet charge goes below 95% and the dock has to charge it, it only gets the tablet to 99% and keeps charging and draining the dock. The tablet never gets to 100%. Weird.

I notice similar charging behaviour, but the tablet charging seems to stop when it's asleep at 99%. And once the tablet is awake, charging continues to 100%. Either that or the last 1% takes a fair bit longer to top off completely. Anywho, while I've seen it act like this, I've also seen it hit 100% many times. And remember that once the tablet hits 100% it doesn't stay at 100% as there is always some battery drain. And also the battery calibration may be off a bit?

 

[mihaelb]

All TFs do this. I think this is in part what what bfksc says. Specifically, there's the trickle charge that tops the tablet part off all the time. These types of batteries (like most newer phones) reach 100% then go down to about 90%, even when on the charger. leaving your tablet docked means that it's behaving as if it's on the charger all the time--goes from 90 to 100%, with the trickle charge, which eventually drains the dock.

as to why this is the case, you'll have to read up on this on the net. I'm not a battery expert, just repeating what I read.

So this behavior is normal. when I separate the dock and tablet, the dock stays charged for many days.

 

[brperson]

All TFs do this. I think this is in part what what bfksc says. Specifically, there's the trickle charge that tops the tablet part off all the time. These types of batteries (like most newer phones) reach 100% then go down to about 90%, even when on the charger. leaving your tablet docked means that it's behaving as if it's on the charger all the time--goes from 90 to 100%, with the trickle charge, which eventually drains the dock.

as to why this is the case, you'll have to read up on this on the net. I'm not a battery expert, just repeating what I read.

So this behavior is normal. when I separate the dock and tablet, the dock stays charged for many days.

Just to clarify, my dock only gets the tablet charge up to 99%, and hasn't been hitting 100%...it may take only 7-8% of the dock's charge to get the tablet up from 95% to 99%, but then the dock will completely drain itself trying to get that last 1%, but never does. If this is "normal" it's certainly not a very good design. I would rather have the dock stop charging the tablet at 99% instead of draining itself trying to get 1% more.

 

[Deleted User]

Just to clarify, my dock only gets the tablet charge up to 99%, and hasn't been hitting 100%...it may take only 7-8% of the dock's charge to get the tablet up from 95% to 99%, but then the dock will completely drain itself trying to get that last 1%, but never does. If this is "normal" it's certainly not a very good design. I would rather have the dock stop charging the tablet at 99% instead of draining itself trying to get 1% more.

Ok, no that's not normal.

I would backup and do a "Factory Reset" to wipe the tablet and reset it back to original specs. You will lose everything on the internal memory like music, videos, images, etc. But it will reset the device. Then test it to see if it charges to 100% properly without draining the dock.

As a side note...the dock battery is about 30% smaller in capacity, so it takes more out of it to charge the tablet, plus a bit of loss in the process.

 

[brperson]

Ok, no that's not normal.

I would backup and do a "Factory Reset" to wipe the tablet and reset it back to original specs. You will lose everything on the internal memory like music, videos, images, etc. But it will reset the device. Then test it to see if it charges to 100% properly without draining the dock.

As a side note...the dock battery is about 30% smaller in capacity, so it takes more out of it to charge the tablet, plus a bit of loss in the process.

OK after factory reset I have been able to confirm since my last post that the tablet will eventually hit 100% charge, and it requires about 15-20% of the dock's charge to get it from 95% to full, depending on usage. This is actually not bad at all. Still not sure why I was getting such bad drain at first but everything seems good now.

 

[mihaelb]

OK after factory reset I have been able to confirm since my last post that the tablet will eventually hit 100% charge, and it requires about 15-20% of the dock's charge to get it from 95% to full, depending on usage. This is actually not bad at all. Still not sure why I was getting such bad drain at first but everything seems good now.

Hmmm...I might have to do the same then...so can you confirm that now, if the tablet is fully-charged, the dock no-longer discharges over a few days, if connected to it?

thx

 

[brperson]

Hmmm...I might have to do the same then...so can you confirm that now, if the tablet is fully-charged, the dock no-longer discharges over a few days, if connected to it?

thx

I can confirm that the drain is now down to less than 1% per hour when connected and the tablet is fully charged, in sleep mode and airplane mode. I haven't gone without using it for more than about a day, not sure how long it would take to fully discharge the dock but I would guess about 5 days if unused...mainly due to the fact that the tablet charge has to be "topped off" by the dock about once a day. If the tablet was connected and turned off I'm sure it would take much longer.