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Battery warning icon in Game Mode after SteamOS 3.8.25 update — _BCT ACPI spam on new kernel (Legion Go S) #2702

Description

@Labaman

Your system information

  • Device: Lenovo Legion Go S 8APU1 (Model 83N6), AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme
  • SteamOS version: 3.8.25 (BUILD_ID 20260807.2)
  • Opted into SteamOS beta?: Yes
  • Kernel: 6.18.42-valve2-1-neptune-618 (built 2026-08-08 03:48 UTC) — regression appeared right after this kernel replaced the previous 6.16.12-drmexec7-valve24.5-1-neptune-616
  • Have you checked for updates in Settings > System?: Yes, fully up to date

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible

After updating to SteamOS 3.8.25 (which bumped the kernel from 6.16.12-drmexec7-valve24.5 to 6.18.42-valve2-1-neptune-618), a yellow exclamation mark now appears next to the battery indicator in Game Mode.

journalctl -k shows the kernel spamming this line continuously, roughly once per second:

ACPI: \_SB_.BAT0: _BCT evaluation failed: AE_NOT_FOUND

Over one ~4.5 hour session this produced 16562 occurrences.

I compared two consecutive boots on the exact same hardware/firmware:

  • Boot with the old kernel (6.16.12-drmexec7-valve24.5-1-neptune-616, before the update): 0 occurrences of this error.
  • Boot with the new kernel (6.18.42-valve2-1-neptune-618, right after the update installed): error starts immediately and repeats continuously for the rest of the session.

_BCT is the ACPI "Battery Charging Time" method. The Legion Go S EC/DSDT apparently doesn't implement it (AE_NOT_FOUND), which by itself may not be new — but the new kernel appears to poll it far more aggressively (about once a second, indefinitely) instead of failing silently/once, and this seems to be what's surfacing the warning icon in the Game Mode battery UI.

Battery health/charge itself looks fine — upower and /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/uevent both report correct values (99%, status Full, warning-level: none), so this looks like a UI/kernel-polling regression, not an actual battery problem.

I searched existing issues and didn't find a duplicate — closest related reports are #2458 (different device, different SteamOS version, different mechanism — battery draining under load despite charger connected) and #2674 (same device family but Z2 Go variant, charge-limit-overshoot symptom, pre-dates this kernel).

Steps for reproducing this issue

  1. Update to SteamOS 3.8.25 (BUILD 20260807.2) / kernel 6.18.42-valve2-1-neptune-618 on a Legion Go S.
  2. Boot into Game Mode.
  3. Observe the yellow exclamation mark next to the battery indicator.
  4. Confirm via journalctl -k | grep _BCT — continuous _BCT evaluation failed: AE_NOT_FOUND spam, roughly once per second.

Expected behavior

Battery indicator shows the normal icon; _BCT (or its absence) should be handled gracefully by the kernel without indefinite polling/error spam, same as on the previous kernel.

Actual behavior

Battery indicator shows a warning (yellow exclamation mark) in Game Mode. Kernel log is flooded with ACPI: \_SB_.BAT0: _BCT evaluation failed: AE_NOT_FOUND, roughly once per second, starting exactly at the kernel version bump and continuing indefinitely across the session. Actual battery charge/health data (via upower/sysfs) remains correct.

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