X60 Battery Life <3 hrs

[Linthorn]

I have a 3-month old X60 with the 8 cell battery. l am running Vista. I have never been able to get more than around 3-3.5 hrs from a full charge. I have tried killing Aero and the radios but it doesn't seem to male a lot of difference. I keep the brightness as low as possible. Any ideas? Can I lower the Cpu speed ? Should I turn off some Vista features? What have you experienced? I are tablet mode almost exclusively. Does that make a difference?

[bluewale]

I have a 3-month old X60 with the 8 cell battery. l am running Vista. I have never been able to get more than around 3-3.5 hrs from a full charge. I have tried killing Aero and the radios but it doesn't seem to male a lot of difference. I keep the brightness as low as possible. Any ideas? Can I lower the Cpu speed ? Should I turn off some Vista features? What have you experienced? I are tablet mode almost exclusively. Does that make a difference?

I have a X60T (vista, 2GB mem) with 8 cell battery. It can last 5 hours in Maximum battery life mode, with wifi on and screen brightness about the middle. I have Aero on. How about your X60T's hard drive activity, is it constantly on, or just briefly on?

[SHoTTa35]

Well what most people tend to not mention is what's the capacity remaining on the battery. If your battery is worn then you wont get more than x amount of hours no matter what you do since that's all the capacity it has.

Comparing 8 cell batteries doesn't do much, compare the actual capacity. Check Power Manager for that information and then report back.

[Linthorn]

I tend to see a fair bit of hard disk activity, but it isn't running constantly. It flickers on me off a lot.

The battery is 68.84 Wh at full capacity.It's only a couple of months old so its capacity is still higher than the 66 Wh design capacity.

[hgilde]

I have noticed a couple of things about my own X60t with Vista:

First, when waking from sleep, all kinds of stuff happens that causes lots of HD activity, locks up the system and seems to wear down the battery. I have been slowly uninstalling the Lenovo Thinkpad applications like Access Connections and also Norton Utilities and this has (a) dramatically reduced the time it takes to wake from sleep and (b) improved the battery life.

Also, Microsoft claims that the Windows Search indexing service should respect power modes and not use the HD when in battery mode. This is not the case. I used pmon to monitor system activity over two hour-long periods and when in battery mode, the Windows Search service processes use the hard drive just as much as when plugged in. I have disabled the Windows Search service and am currently investigating the impact on my battery time. I certainly notice a lot less HD activity in general.

[SHoTTa35]

PMON and those monitoring software is what that sucks up battery and CPU cycles. Constantly monitoring everything in a system will do that.

The indexing does change tho, not that it stops, it just runs in a slower mode and lower priority when on battery.

Usually, what i tell people to do is if you're gonna index alot of data when you're done with the laptop, leave it on and plugged in and let it index it all and be done with it. When you put it to sleep it continues indexing next time which makes you think it will never finish. Add that to the fact you're using it when it's one it'll take forever.

[pianowizard]

My X60s with 8-cell (almost full capacity) and WinXP lasted for between 8 and 10 hours.

Vista should last much less than that.

[bluewale]

I have noticed a couple of things about my own X60t with Vista:

First, when waking from sleep, all kinds of stuff happens that causes lots of HD activity, locks up the system and seems to wear down the battery. I have been slowly uninstalling the Lenovo Thinkpad applications like Access Connections and also Norton Utilities and this has (a) dramatically reduced the time it takes to wake from sleep and (b) improved the battery life.

Also, Microsoft claims that the Windows Search indexing service should respect power modes and not use the HD when in battery mode. This is not the case. I used pmon to monitor system activity over two hour-long periods and when in battery mode, the Windows Search service processes use the hard drive just as much as when plugged in. I have disabled the Windows Search service and am currently investigating the impact on my battery time. I certainly notice a lot less HD activity in general.

I turned off microsoft's automatic update and do it manually once a week.

I also installed a utility called RMclock, that agressively adjust CPU voltage and frequency to save more power.

[45]

Would like to know, how one can reach significant more than 3,5h with X60T, 8-cell, vista, wlan on, and display brightness set to 5 with MV/MT, constantly using it - I don't believe, this is possible.

[SHoTTa35]

3.5Hrs is low for the X60 series with an 8 cell, You get that with a T series no problem with a 9 cell and close to it with a 6 cell. My 6 cell gives me like 3hrs 15mins or something granted this is low usage.

The X series is known to have long battery life as that's the point of the smaller screen (as well as being light). With a a 4 cell it's lighter and you're still supposed to get like 2-3hrs with that.

[45]

3.5Hrs is low for the X60 series with an 8 cell, You get that with a T series no problem with a 9 cell and close to it with a 6 cell. My 6 cell gives me like 3hrs 15mins or something granted this is low usage.

The X series is known to have long battery life as that's the point of the smaller screen (as well as being light). With a a 4 cell it's lighter and you're still supposed to get like 2-3hrs with that.

"Supposed to" is nice but under conditions mentioned in my posting above, you WILL not get more out of a X60T, I'am pretty shure about this.

[schmolch]

With max brightness i get

- a good 4h with the 8-cell or
- almost 2h with the 4-cell

(wlan on, 1GHz, x60t).

[45]

With max brightness i get

- a good 4h with the 8-cell or
- almost 2h with the 4-cell

(wlan on, 1GHz, x60t).

With vista, constantly surfing or email-writing, or doing other low-demand stuff? What are your settings? Why there are so many people complaining about battery life between 3-3,5h with 8-cell.

My batterys is new (19 cycles) and its capacity is above the specified value, but 4h with normal websurfing and email stuff was never possible - not for me. I've really switched all the stuff off, wich is not neccessary for me and have reduced the frequency to about a ghz and display brightness to 5 - so whats your trick?

p.s.: the one and only, I can think off, is that you have no MV/MT-XGA display and the SXGA- ones are using significant less power - perhaps because off the touch-layer?

[pianowizard]

Before this discussion continues, I think we need to remember that this thread is about running Vista on an X6*. Only people running Vista should contribute, to prevent any miscommunication.

[45]

Before this discussion continues, I think we need to remember that this thread is about running Vista on an X6*. Only people running Vista should contribute, to prevent any miscommunication.

Thats right. Statements about baterie-lifetime are totaly useless, without some addiitonal information. Someone wrote about 8-10h, no further infos, last statement was 4h - again - no further infos. Its nice, that I'am able to get 7h out of my X60T even with vista, perhaps - with display off in idle mode, but who is using his notebook this way? 4h with vista - no problem, when I take longer breaks while using it, so cpu can go into halt for a reasonable amount of time. My estimated time from lenovo power manager is max. 3:20 as soon, as I do anything on it, like surfing with firefox (no heavy-duty pages), or typing on thunderbird. Measured time is about the same.

Again: vista, 1ghz, wlan on (max power saving), indexing off, display to 5, bluetooth off, usb off, pcmcia off, 8-cell batterie (above specified capacity).

I think, most people will agree, that these are more or less conditions out off the real-world and not "up to 1000h" wonderland marketing bla bla.

[schmolch]

Thats right. Statements about baterie-lifetime are totaly useless, without some addiitonal information. Someone wrote about 8-10h, no further infos, last statement was 4h - again - no further infos. Its nice, that I'am able to get 7h out of my X60T even with vista, perhaps - with display off in idle mode, but who is using his notebook this way? 4h with vista - no problem, when I take longer breaks while using it, so cpu can go into halt for a reasonable amount of time. My estimated time from lenovo power manager is max. 3:20 as soon, as I do anything on it, like surfing with firefox (no heavy-duty pages), or typing on thunderbird. Measured time is about the same.

Welcome to the superficial and dumb world of Windows.
I could tell you exactly which processes consume what amount of power on my X60T running Linux but since this thread is about Vista now good luck with that.

3:20 is still a bad time, most people do get 4h doing these almost-idle things on their Tablets.
There is a thread on gottabemobile or tabletpcreview where they claim they got it down to 10W (on vista) with max brightness, that would be easily 5+ hours, so maybe just look there.
The title is something like "maximize battery life for lectures".

[45]

Welcome to the superficial and dumb world of Windows.
I could tell you exactly which processes consume what amount of power on my X60T running Linux but since this thread is about Vista now good luck with that.

Could you tell a bit about your experience with linux and X60T - I mean batterie lifetime in comparison to vista and what of the special hardware-features you got running and what not? If you have multitouch - does it work for you with linux?

Thanks for the advice regarding the gotta mobile tips - wil search for it, but can't imagine that there is somewhat stated, I've not allready tried.

p.s: perhaps it has something to do with hardware revision - my X60T is some early brand I think, with core-duo (not core2duo).

[schmolch]

Could you tell a bit about your experience with linux and X60T

I don't want to hijack this (vista-) thread, use the linux-subforum or send me a pm (im german too).

p.s: perhaps it has something to do with hardware revision - my X60T is some early brand I think, with core-duo (not core2duo).

I dont think so because the tdp has been raised for the core2duo:

mCore Duo LV-L2500
(1.83GHz - 2x 2MB) 1.2V
(1.0V~1.2125V) 1.6V 19A 15W

mCore 2 Duo-L7500
(1.6GHz - 2x 2MB) 1.2V
(0.9V~1.3V) 1.55V 23A 17W

[krypticide]

Not quite an X60, but my two month old X61 tablet with 8-cell on Vista gets over 5 hours of battery (I've never actually had to run it down all the way). My full charge capacity is currently 72 Wh.

Have you done a battery reset operation via the Power Manager utility since you got your X60?

[schmolch]

My full charge capacity is currently 72 Wh.

Are you sure about that, my 8-cell says 14.4V 4.55Ah which is 65.5 Wh and thats also how they are still labeled in the shops.

[45]

My full charge capacity is currently 72 Wh.

Are you sure about that, my 8-cell says 14.4V 4.55Ah which is 65.5 Wh and thats also how they are still labeled in the shops.

My battery has 69,9 Wh and is software-labeled with 66.24 so 72 seems realistic. But 5h is a value, I can only dream of with my X60T.

A little bit curious is the fact, that the lenovo energy manager shows about 50 minuts less remaining time than the windows-integrated one, when the battery is full. But lenovos estimation seems correct to me.

When I do nothing with the X60 I have more than 4h remaing, when I start to click on bookmarks and type something, it drops to exactly 3:20 after less than a minute. (with lenovo energy manager) - I have no clue, why user experiences are so different. I had this values out off the box and it got not better after serious tweaking.

[45]

I've did a recalibration overnight and battery liefetime seems to have slightly improved, but only slightly. Following data allways refer to thinkpad power manager estimated time, not vista's own one.

My Battery has a full charged capacity of 71.22Wh now, so it had improved after recalibration a bit. (before it was 69.9)

I have reduced firefox-windows size, while typing this, so I can have a look onto my battery-info at the same time. My typing sucks 13.6-14.3 W. My estimated battery time is now on 3:20 with 82% capacity level. When I divide (82% of 71Wh) by 14W I get 4.1h.

All this with display to 6, cpu 1 ghz, no other (user)-programs, wlan on, constantly typing.

A reason for this differnce could be that lenovo's energy manager's estimation is incorrect, or the battery information is incorrect. According to the data above, vista's own estimation seems more accurate.

My last ontime-measurement with a clock seemed to approve lenovo's estimation, but I've did it only one time, Possibly my measurement was inaccurate.

Perhaps someone could follow my "labor-test" and tells his received power while typing only with his browser. (but while CONSTANTLY typing)