HP Pavilion Battery Issues

I got my first laptop in 2019 when I was 19 years old. All I cared about was getting bang for the buck and something that will last longer. I wanted something from Acer because it was a shit ton of value back then (and even now I believe). However, a laptop in 2019 was a huge deal for my mom to get and me being just 19 years old, I wasn't 'mature' enough to spend her money as I wanted. So I got this HP laptop from some guy who probably had his commission because this device cost me ~₹68k.

It had these specs:

• i5-8300H
• 1TB HDD
• 8 GB RAM
• Windows Home
• NVIDIA 1050 - 4GB Graphics (The then entry-level graphics card)

I wasn't happy with the purchase but it is what it is. Windows boot up was incredibly slow and I managed for a couple of years as is, playing a few games now and then and for casual college assignments and of course, movies.

During this time I found out about Ubuntu and started disliking Windows for good. But being a cautious kid, I didn't delete Windows just yet and instead bought an SSD (Samsung NVMe 256 GB) and installed Windows in that SSD along with an Ubuntu dual boot. Eventually, I shifted completely to Ubuntu and Pop!_OS a while later. After 2022 I rarely used this device because I got a job and pretty much used my work device for everything. In 2025 I got a Mac mini. Life was good but as an engineer, you always want your old laptop to be a server for you. So I got an additional 16GB of RAM, totaling 24GB, and it was a damn fast machine that I can use as my daily driver as well.

The battery issue starts from here.

The battery was never good and I always used the AC adapter with it. So I decided to change it with a new one but then after installing it, it too was draining fast, so I asked an AI to diagnose it. Together we found that sudo powertop showed around a 120 W discharge rate (which is really high) and Ubuntu's power setting showed an 87 W discharge rate.

Gemini told me to not use NVIDIA, so I disabled it with prime-select intel.

The discharge rate is still high and the battery drains a percentage point every couple of minutes. ~80% of charge is predicted to last just 30 mins (similar to the earlier battery). Now I wonder, is it the OS issue or the battery?

I hadn't measured what the drain was on the previous battery and I still have it, so I will now measure the old drain rate. Btw both battery vendors appear to be HP (written on the battery as well, and from upower --dump information - I don't yet think this is a scam but we'll find out).

After a few days of digging, I think the root cause seems to be that this new battery that I installed had been sitting on a shelf for a long time as it was manufactured in 05-2023. However, the result is inconclusive and I am dreading opening up the laptop again and replacing the old battery just to check the discharge rate. Anyways, I think I shouldn't have replaced the battery as I plan to use this laptop to deploy my side-projects while always plugged in. On the brighter side, I have a spare battery in case of emergency.