Laptop battery draining and heating

[sofilofis]

Hey there, my recently bought Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X with AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS Creator Edition 3.20 GHz and RAM 16GB, with a battery normally lasting up to 6 hours, gets hot (especially when using the pen) and lasts 2 hours when I use photoshop. I just learned how to use it, it´s the 2023 version but I don´t know which exact update. What can I do?

It also heats up and drains the battery whenever I use premiere, I bet it will last way less when I learn AE.

Btw, this only happens with Adobe programs and sometimes with games. I think it´s a laptop issue but I wanted to post it on here either way. Thanks.

[Myra Ferguson]

You might check your GPU:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cc-gpu-card-faq.html

Some features are more GPU-intensive than others.

[sofilofis]

My GPU is apparently compatible! 🤔

[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

…gets hot (especially when using the pen)

By @sofilofis

It’s common for slim laptops to get hot when using professional applications and games, because heavy processor usage consumes more electricity, which creates more waste heat. The review of the Slim Pro 7 at notebookcheck.net says:

Surface temperatures can be quite warm due to the combination of a thin profile, H-series CPU, and discrete GeForce RTX GPU.

For a laptop to run cooler, it should have a better cooling system (difficult to achieve in the limited space in a thin/light laptop), or the CPU/GPU need to be more power-efficient.

…with a battery normally lasting up to 6 hour…lasts 2 hours when I use photoshop

By @sofilofis

This tends to be true of all laptops. If you read the fine print on the battery life ratings, manufacturers base the battery life rating on general tasks most people do at a home or office: Browse the web, work in some office apps, watch some video. The processor usage of those most common activities is relatively low; the computer has lots of opportunities to rest and not use energy. But pro graphics/video apps and games tend to require all available CPU and GPU power, often driving them to maximum load, which requires more battery power, so the battery doesn’t last as long.

It looks like the Slim 7 Pro has the option of discrete RTX graphics. If yours has that, that is highly recommended for making games and pro apps run fast…but the flip side is, discrete graphics consume much more power than integrated graphics, so battery runtime is shortened further.

I have a Mac laptop and it’s the same situation: Over 10 hours on battery if doing general home/office and online work, but only 3 to 5 hours if I am doing intensive work in any professional graphics or video editing applications (not just Adobe).

It’s kind of like a car or truck: You’ll get the stated mileage if you drive the same way they did in the tests. But if you like to drive fast and accelerate a lot, or if you make it do more work like filling it with cargo or pulling a trailer, of course you’ll get less mileage before having to fill up again. And under heavy load, like pulling a trailer up a mountain highway, a car engine is more likely to overheat…just as a laptop under load is more likely to get hot.

Your laptop may have different power usage profiles to choose from. If so, see if one is a better balance between performance and battery life.

[sofilofis]

Thank you so much for your detailed answer! I get it. It´s kind of a bummer tho, I bought this specific laptop to run Adobe programs smoothly, which it does, at the cost of its battery span. I´m kinda worried the heating will damage the battery in the long run. The power profile I always use it on is intelligent cooling, it works but works better when I close whatever is causing the heat.

[sheikh_fahad]

Hey, that actually sounds pretty common with high-performance laptops running Adobe apps  Photoshop, Premiere, and especially After Effects are quite demanding. They push the CPU and GPU hard, which leads to heat buildup and faster battery drain. Try tweaking your performance settings in Adobe apps (like reducing playback resolution in Premiere or turning off GPU acceleration temporarily) and check your Windows power profile — setting it to "Best power efficiency" might help.

Also, make sure your laptop’s airflow isn’t blocked. I had a similar battery and heat issue once, but with my car instead of a laptop 😅  turned out the power source wasn’t stable. Got it checked through Battstorm  (https://battstorm.ae/)here in Dubai  they’re pretty solid when it comes to car battery diagnostics and replacements. For your laptop though, maybe try monitoring temps with HWMonitor or Ryzen Controller to undervolt if needed.

Let us know if you figure out a good balance!

[Trevor.Dennis]

If it's a Windows laptop, the user can always used Resource Monitor to see exactly what is happening with CPU, Memory etc. useage.  If things are closed to maxed out, then they know why the laptop is getting hot and burning through its battery.

Blimey, that's about the most I have ever seen my RAM useage.

This is just Task Manager > Performance tab.  To find the Resource Monitor use the three dot menu top right corner.