2gB ram kills battery life?

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Bgradid · #1 Post by **Bgradid** » Fri May 19, 2006 12:38 pm

I'm just curious, is it normal for adding a lot of ram (I went from 512 to 2gB) to kill the battery life of a laptop a fair bit?
I had a good 6 to 7 hours estimated battery life (and it seemed to be draining over a couple hours period to match that estimate) on 512 megs of ram, now on 2gB of ram, its rare to see that estimate go beyond 5 hours. I'm using the laptop the same way as before, and, to my knowledge, nothing else has changed. It's been one hour on 2gB with the screen dim, wifi on but low power, minimal laptop use, and i'm already down 25%
on 512 i would have been down probably at most 18% using the same power scheme

I know laptop battery life is a huge variable, but, has anyone else noticed similar behavior after upgrading their ram?

DIGITALgimpus · #2 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Fri May 19, 2006 4:45 pm

Sounds unlikely to me... only way to test is to remove the RAM and see if that helps.. though even that test has flaws (since some programs modify behavior based on available memory).

If anything, more RAM tends to improve battery life as it causes less stuff to be paged to the HD, which means less HD churning (which is very power hungry).... RAM's power consumption is really pretty small.

Do you have a background process running? Or have you installed anything recently? If your cpu is running just a bit more than it did before, it will consume more power, and that can eat away at battery life very quickly. This would be my bet. Even a slim SW firewall eats away at battery life a bit, since it causes more CPU load on download.

#3 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri May 19, 2006 4:53 pm

Bgradid wrote:I had a good 6 to 7 hours estimated battery life

Unless you are using both a 9 cell battery and an additional battery in the Ultrabay, there's no way you could expect to get 6 to 7 hours actual duration for any practical purpose, even running in minimal everything mode. Are you running two batteries?

Cheers,

Bill

nirvana0001 · #4 Post by **nirvana0001** » Fri May 19, 2006 5:52 pm

wondering how could you get 6-7 battery life

cmarti · #5 Post by **cmarti** » Fri May 19, 2006 5:53 pm

With my set up and the two batteries 9 cell and the ultrabay one i got around 7:30-8hrs with the lcd backlight set to lowest.

Bgradid · #6 Post by **Bgradid** » Fri May 19, 2006 6:01 pm

9 cell, 0.7V at 600mhz, hard drive normally spun down, wifi off, very fresh battery, dimed screen were the settings that were getting me a good 6 and a half hours
no ultrabay battery.

But I am wondering if its just predicting things wrong as I was able to squeeze 3 hours out of 50% usage today (with wifi on, but at lower power, backlight at 40%)

#7 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri May 19, 2006 6:16 pm

Bgradid wrote:But I am wondering if its just predicting things wrong

That is my suspicion!

I can get ~ 5 hours or so of normal (for me) note-taking on a T43 with 2GB of RAM installed, with of a 9 cell that's done ~12 cycles, if I'm careful with settings..... but the duration indication is not exactly linear. It seems to vary between being overly optimistic and overly pessimistic throughout the actual achieved duration.

I've learned how to interpret readings for my usage patterns over time and haven't been unexpectly caught out without power.

By the way, if you haven't done so already, you may want to change the battery meter display over to time remaining when running on battery power..... I find it more useful than the remaining percentage display mode. Single click on the power meter display in the task bar, then select the "Show" option off the menu, then click on "remaining time when on battery".

Cheers,

Bill

gunston · #8 Post by **gunston** » Fri May 19, 2006 6:45 pm

yeah,
same situation over here.
i can get around ~5hours with my 9cells battery.

davidspalding · #9 Post by **davidspalding** » Sun May 21, 2006 12:25 pm

The time remaining estimate is just that: an estimate. And over time I suspect it gets inaccurate unless you do that "reset battery gauge" conditioning thing with T43's Power Manager. Alas, the T40/1/2/p Battery Maximizer doesn't offer that. I only got the estimate you see in my sigline with practically new batteries (yep, two: 9-cell + ultrabay slim LiPoly).

BTW Bill, I don't believe the Batt. Max. 1.38 for older TPs offers "show time remaining"; that's a Power Manager thing.

mikek · #10 Post by **mikek** » Sun May 21, 2006 1:01 pm

I'd love to see time remaining - but it only shows %ge, and there is no Show menu item. however if I hover the cursor over it, it shows time remaining in a tooltip.

Is there a later version to download, or is it machine specific?
Thanks

gunston · #11 Post by **gunston** » Sun May 21, 2006 4:42 pm

mikek wrote:I'd love to see time remaining - but it only shows %ge, and there is no Show menu item. however if I hover the cursor over it, it shows time remaining in a tooltip.

Is there a later version to download, or is it machine specific?
Thanks

yup, latest version got that

mikek · #12 Post by **mikek** » Mon May 22, 2006 4:19 pm

Hi - in relation to my last post, I have latest ACPI drivers (1.33) and latest Battery Maximizer (1.34) but I can't select to display time remaining - only %ge. Is this a hardware limitation (surely not...) or what am I doing wrong....

Thanks

davidspalding · #13 Post by **davidspalding** » Mon May 22, 2006 4:44 pm

I was gonna post but held my tongue (keyboard).

I've only seen the "time remaining" with Power Manager 1.12, for T43. Battery Maximizer 1.38 for [edit] T40/1 does not offer it. (Yes, my sigline is from my T43.) I don't think the ACPI (1.33 or otherwise) has anything to do with the taskbar gauge applet.

Now I've installed Power Manager 1.12 on my T41, but not all functionality worked (battery conditioning). The "Time remaining" option did. Install only at your own risk.
______________
Mod, I wonder if this should be a sticky for this forum, or even in the FAQs. I've fielded 3-4 PMs about this. Lotsa people wanna know. ... Just a thought.

gunston · #14 Post by **gunston** » Mon May 22, 2006 5:10 pm

yeah,
i think so,
my T43 also offer that time remaining on the power gauge bar

#15 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon May 22, 2006 8:31 pm

davidspalding wrote:The time remaining estimate is just that: an estimate. And over time I suspect it gets inaccurate unless you do that "reset battery gauge" conditioning thing with T43's Power Manager. Alas, the T40/1/2/p Battery Maximizer doesn't offer that. I only got the estimate you see in my sigline with practically new batteries (yep, two: 9-cell + ultrabay slim LiPoly).

BTW Bill, I don't believe the Batt. Max. 1.38 for older TPs offers "show time remaining"; that's a Power Manager thing.

While on battery power, my T42 will show time remaining if I mouse over the battery icon - either the Battery MaxiMiser one, or the Windows one. Oddly, the two don't quite agree. Also, it appears I can reset the battery gauge by left click on the Battery MaxiMiser icon, choose Improve Battery Health > Recondition Battery Now. I haven't yet tested this feature though. It is my understanding that reconditioning the battery resets the gauge. I have Battery MaxiMiser version 1.38.

davidspalding · #16 Post by **davidspalding** » Mon May 22, 2006 10:25 pm

It may well be the battery conditioning feature was intro'ed with the 42. I only know of what I've tried on a T43, and a T41.

Yeah, you get the time remaining by mouseOver.

cmarti · #17 Post by **cmarti** » Mon May 22, 2006 10:43 pm

And for those of us that have T40 how can we condition ours batteries? Mine are working ok but i would like to know if that is possible.

#18 Post by **bill bolton** » Mon May 22, 2006 11:03 pm

cmarti wrote:And for those of us that have T40 how can we condition ours batteries?

Extending battery life - ThinkPad A Series, G Series, R Series, T Series, X Series, Z Series - "The Lithium Ion battery pack for the these systems is an intelligent battery. It contains a microprocessor to monitor its capacity. Information of remaining battery capacity is passed to the system from the battery pack, and the system indicates the capacity in 1% steps from 0% to 100% with high accuracy. If the indicator appears to be incorrect, it is recommended that you cycle the battery (fully charge, then fully discharge) three times. This may occur when the battery is over charged or discharged."

However, before you do that, keep in mind this other piece of advice from IBM.....

Troubleshooting battery issues - ThinkPad General - "Conditioning Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries may improve their capacity, but will not help Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) batteries. To condition NiMH batteries completely discharge them (also called a deep discharge) and recharge them every few months. Do not do this to Li-Ion batteries because it will actually damage them."

My take on that is to only follow the first piece of advice when you have a really strong need!

Cheers,

Bill

cmarti · #19 Post by **cmarti** » Mon May 22, 2006 11:25 pm

Thanks for the speedy reply!!

Excelent information.

2gB ram kills battery life?

2gB ram kills battery life?

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