I think that there is some issue with battery drain/status on thinkpads.
I have two thinkpad's: X280 and Carbon X1 gen 9 and they both have the same issue on Zorin 18.1.
I can use them and they work ok but when battery drops to below 50% (sometimes it is around 30% and sometimes it is around 50%) then battery suddenly dropps to 5% or 6% and I have to plug the laptops.
I also noticed that when I use "sudo powertop --calibrate" it is ok and battery shows correct percentage but once I will do any system update, the issue comes back, and I have to do calibration again.
As for my intuition this is like some kind of bug as it happens on two separate devices.
I just wanted to report it as I think this should be addressed by developers.
Hello and welcome,
I may be wrong but I remember seeing an option in Thinkpad BIOS to disable battery, if you have it disable battery if you are plugged, shutdown, remove charger, stay 10 seconds on power button, re-plug charger, go to bios and enable battery, it should re-calibrate. As you are in Bios and if you don't have dual boot with Windows you can disable secure boot.
Hello,
Another option might be, i asked Leo (Brave’s AI) briefly.
My question to Leo: ThinkPad with Zorin 18 – how do I recalibrate the battery?
His reply:
On Zorin OS (which is based on Ubuntu), the standard tool for ThinkPad battery calibration is TLP .
Method 1: Using TLP (Automated & Recommended) TLP is a pre-installed or easily installable power management tool that supports native ThinkPad battery recalibration via the Linux kernel.
Install TLP (if not already installed): Open the terminal and run:
Note: acpi-call-dkms is often required for the recalibration feature on ThinkPads.
Verify Support : Check if your specific ThinkPad model supports recalibration by running:
sudo tlp-stat -b
Look for the line Supported features: charge thresholds, recalibration . If it says none available or misses recalibration , your kernel may not support it, or you may need to install the tp-smapi-dkms package (though modern kernels usually use thinkpad_acpi directly).
Run Calibration : Plug in your AC adapter. Ensure the battery is charged (ideally near 100%). Run the recalibration command:
sudo tlp recalibrate
The system will automatically discharge the battery to 0% while plugged in, then immediately recharge it to 100%.
Do not interrupt this process. It can take several hours.
If you have dual batteries (e.g., main + ultrabay), specify the battery: sudo tlp recalibrate BAT1 .
I just think that there should not be a reason to do above as it should work without problem (especially, that it works ok in mint and in other distros).