Thinkpads Forum

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.

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