Question Linux laptop locks up when on battery

[Jratzlaf027]

I really don't know if this is a laptop question, a Linux question, a battery question, or an SSD question. Anyway... I have a Toshiba Satellite E305-s1995 laptop (it's a Core i5 with 8GB RAM). I recently upgraded the Windows installation to Win 10 and it appears to be solid. Then I took the spinning HD (with Win 10 on it) out and put in a 64GB SSD drive (happens to be an Adata SP900) that I happened to have on hand, and installed Linux Mint (Cinnamon) on it (just to play around with). It too appears to be working well. Except... I noticed that when it's running on battery, it will lock up pretty predictably within a few minutes. Usually the mouse pointer will continue to move but nothing will respond if I click on anything. It's rock solid when the charger is plugged in.

This makes no sense to me... There are two variables here, the SSD and the OS, so I don't know which is responsible, and I don't know any easy way to isolate it to one or the other, short of buying another SSD and trying it. Just to be sure, I put the spinning HD back in, with Windows on it, and it is rock solid even on battery. It almost feels like the SSD is powering down when on battery, and so rendering the OS unresponsive. But that could be wrong. And I don't know how I would test or detect that.

Any ideas?

 

[Jratzlaf027]

One idea I had would be to boot Linux from a USB thumb drive, thus taking the SSD out of the picture, and see if the same version of Linux running from the thumb drive is stable or flaky when running on battery. I’ll try that next...

 

[Jratzlaf027]

I've booted Linux from a thumb drive on battery and so far it seems stable. So I'm beginning to think that Adata SSD is somehow suspect--although I still can't fathom a flakiness that only shows up when on battery! Anyhow... I have a cheap replacement SSD on order... will report ASAP...

 

[Grobe]

Too little information to pinpoint any cause. Can you do some tests:

• Boot Linux from usb image, then disconnect main power, see how it responds as battery level decrease. Does the computer behave the same now?
  • If yes : then do the same, but this time you remove the ssd (disabling it from bios meny should have same effect)
  • If no : Need to use another storage unit to test if it indeed is because of the Adata ssd.

 

[Jratzlaf027]

Followup to close this thread... I got a different SSD (Samsung, 128GB, used, on eBay, for $18) and it works great! Linux Mint is great! It's pretty clear the Adata SSD was flaky.