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I have a laptop where the battery has reached a state of being pretty much useless. Neither Windows 7 nor Ubuntu 14.04 is able to correctly estimate the actual power percentages or lifetime of the battery, which results in sudden power loss somewhere around 10 minutes after the charger is unplugged.

I have tried to recalibrate the battery, but with no luck. That however is besides the point.

What I'd like to know, is the following:

Is it possible to make it so that my laptop hibernates either instantly or shortly after the charger is unplugged, and if so, how? I've tried messing around with the power settings, but so far, I've only succeeded in making it go into standby, and not hibernate, after a minute.

I'd firstly like to know how this is done on Windows 7, but explanations for doing the same on Ubuntu 14.04 are welcome as well.

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  • I guess buying a new battery is out of the question?
    – DarkEvE
    Commented Oct 9, 2014 at 15:20
  • Yes. This isn't a question of how to fix the faults of my current battery, but rather how to cope with them. I'm expecting to buy a new laptop in the near future, so I really don't wanna buy a new battery for the current one. :-)
    – phaz
    Commented Oct 9, 2014 at 22:35
  • ok, my answer pretty much solves your problem
    – DarkEvE
    Commented Oct 9, 2014 at 22:44

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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After looking around for some more alternative approaches, I've come up with the following solution:

This site shows how to set up a shortcut that triggers hibernation, namely by making a shortcut to

C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0

Next up, I came across this question, in which the accepted answer mentions an application called PowerSaver. Using PowerSaver, I can set it up, so what when "SwitchToBattery" is triggered, a process is started.

In this case, the process I'm starting is

C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe

with working dir

C:\Windows\System32

and the arguments:

powerprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0

In other words, I have made PowerSaver produce the same result as the shortcut mentioned earlier.

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Just an idea:

WINDOWS

In Power Options, choose your current plan and go to Change Advanced Power Settings. Find Battery>Critical Battery Level and set the value for Battery to 100%. Also make sure Battery>Critical Battery Action>On Battery is set to Hibernate.

Reason: Since you say that your battery level is inaccurate, and you want the computer to hibernate immediately after you unplug your charger, I'd think that no matter how inaccurate the percentage is it wouldn't be 100%. And even if it is, it'd drop a few percent in no time given your battery's current condition.

By the way, your way actually does work: In Sleep>Hibernate After>On Battery you can set the value to 1 minute; but since you want it to be instantaneous, it wouldn't be the best method.

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  • 1 minute is fine. However, I've tried both of your methods, and neither worked for me. :-/
    – phaz
    Commented Oct 9, 2014 at 22:46
  • @Phazyck Hmm I don't see how it won't work...try applying that settings to all the plans(maybe your laptop automatically changes the plan to PowerSaver once on battery), save settings, reboot. What battery level is shown in Windows when you immediately unplug it? Could you post a screenshot of your Advanced Power Settings with the Battery>Critical Battery Level categories expanded?
    – Rsya Studios
    Commented Oct 10, 2014 at 4:07
  • I've tried setting it on all power plans now, still no effect. However, I've come up with my own solution that seems to work just fine. :-)
    – phaz
    Commented Oct 15, 2014 at 11:12
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If you go within the power options as shown on the screenshot, you can change the on battery setting to 0mins, so as soon as the laptop detects it is running on battery power it will obviously go into hibernation.

enter image description here

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  • "0 minutes" is automatically corrected to "Never". I've tried setting the value to 1, but that doesn't help either. It doesn't hibernate after 1 minute, as should be expected. :-S
    – phaz
    Commented Oct 9, 2014 at 22:54
  • Did you have the corresponding power setting on?
    – DarkEvE
    Commented Oct 10, 2014 at 0:09

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