I regularly use Fedora but recently got curious and installed Big Linux. In Big Linux's power management settings, I used the option to limit the battery charge to 80%. Now, after reinstalling Fedora and not disabling that option, my battery only charges to 80%. There's no option in my BIOS to change this. I'm using a Lenovo Yoga 7i. I'm considering reinstalling Big Linux, adjusting the battery setting back to normal, and then reinstalling Fedora. Do you think this will fix my issue, or am I stuck like this?
2 Answers
A lot of Lenovos only allow charging up to a certain point for safety. If your laptop's BIOS doesn’t have any options for this, you should look into whether there's a hardware issue with the battery itself. Sometimes, a bad battery can cause this kind of problem, too.
You might also want to see if you can find any manufacturer-specific tools for managing battery settings outside the standard OS options.
It sounds like your battery charge threshold might be controlled by a software daemon rather than being permanently set in hardware. You can try using a tool like TLP or directly writing to a file in the `/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/` directory to change that limit on Fedora. Reinstalling Big Linux isn't necessary!
If you're going to use TLP, it's pretty easy to change the charging threshold. You can access the settings directly in the TLP configuration files once you have it installed.
Also, make sure to check if your battery has any firmware safety settings that limit charge, just to rule that out.
Thanks for the heads up! I hadn't thought about the battery potentially being faulty.