Battery running time over 7 hrs

[pekka]

Great, I read a notebook comparison from local pc magazine and T60 was also there. My personal T60's battery running time is practically max 4 hours in light use and in test the T60 gained 7 hours 14 minutes in Bapco MobileMark reader test (using normal battery power management profile I believe). Also in dvd playing test it gained a bit over 4 hours. The notebook in the article had GMA950 and 14" XGA. I have X1300 and 14" SXGA+. My sharper display draws a little more energy sure but I bet the real battery eating monster is Ati's GPU which runs way over 60 C even in normal 2D use. This sucks since there's over 3 hours difference in running time just because of 3D capable GPU I don't even need

Have you found how to underclock or even undervolt GPU? Atitool is so buggy that it's not usable and NHC doesn't seem to work yet either.

[darrenf]

I've been biotching about the short battery life in the T60p since I got it but judging from the lack of reaction I think I'm the only one that cares. I came to the same conclusion that you did -- it's got to be the ATI GPU. What's odd is that ATI claims to have made great strides in the GPU power usage yet it's hot and power-hungry. I mean, if having an ATI GPU cuts battery life by 40% when doing 2D work then that GPU is drawing a helluva lotta power (8Watts?!?)

I was getting 8-9 hours on my T42 and T42p with ATI GPUs (7500 and 9600 respectively) but now I only get 4-5 hours max. Lenovo's TABOOK says that the T60p gets up to 5.4hr on the 9-cell where the T60 (presumably with GMA) gets up to 9 hours!!

I really think ATI should design a dual-core GPU, one that runs like a GMA on battery (in 2D) and draws the juice only when running 3D. Either that or Lenovo should find a way to do it on the mainboard.

To answer your question, I underclocked the GPU to 110/90 and saw no appreciable decrease in power consumption. Let me know if you find any more information.

I'm secretly holding out hope that Lenovo will come out with a yellow jumper wire to correct this.

-darren