Thinkpads Forum

Hi - I just upgraded my X61t from Vista to Win7 (32-bit) and I've taken a big hit on battery life. My 8 cell battery now gets just over 2 hours, down from about 4. That's totally unacceptable. i installed the Lenovo power manager and that didn't seem to help. Any ideas?

That just isn't right. I'm able to get about 5 hours on mine with Windows 7.

Besides the Lenovo Power Manager did you also install the ThinkPad Power Management Driver here? Which power profile are you using? The native Win 7 "Balanced" power profile gives 4 - 5 hours while the "Power Saver" gets closer to 6 hrs on my X61T. I do not use the Lenovo Power Manager; just the ACPI power management driver and native Windows 7 power management.

As far as I know, that shouldn't happen. Could be an unfortunate coincidence of battery failure right when you got 7.

I'm also disappointed with win 7. My results are:

Win 7 (idle): 9:33Hrs @ 8.4 W
XP (idle):11:40Hrs @ 6.8 W

In both cases: All drivers and power managers installed (including fan control). Wireless was off, brightness at min.

See this thread http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... 71&start=0

That's really rough.

Anyone compared vista to XP battery life. I feel like it shouldn't be an issue, so it is a shame to see that it is.

It is hard to even buy a real copy of XP these days and my laptop came with Vista and I was planning on upgrading to 7. I feel like I am stuck in no mans land

Just got a 4 cell battery and after it's first full charge, running Windows 7 64 bit, no power saving,no Lenovo power software, wifi on full power, I streamed Classic FM TV for 1 hour 50 minutes. That's the processor showing music videos full screen. When I checked the battery on the taskbar, it said it would last 2 hours, right up until the last 10 minutes when it decided it ran out of juice and put the computer to sleep.
Once it's charged up again I'm planning on doing it again a few times just to see if it improves after a few charge/discharge cycles.

edited to add:
2nd time: 1 hour 30 minutes until it went to sleep

I just did a battery benchmark on my aftermarket 8-cell battery under Windows 7 and got 2:11:31 out of it with a full load before it completely ran out. I intend to do an idle test later. I'm satisfied with the load test, seeing as I'll almost never use it like that on battery, especially for that long without access to a plug.

First off, did you install Lenovo's power managment driver for Win7?

Secondly, did you upgrade to Windows 7 or did you do a fresh install?
Upgrading to Windows 7 screwed up my boot time, shut down time, hardware drivers, battery life, and wifi. A fresh install and my battery lasts for hours and hours and hours with no issue at all.

I am very curious about this. It doesn't -seem- like there should be issues with 7 as long as all the right drivers are in place. I'd hate to have to STAY retro.

I have Windows 7 Pro on the same machine (different drive) as Vista Busineess. I don't see any difference in battery life, or hit because of Windows 7 Pro, and I have the up-to-date power management device and power manager applicable to each OS installed in each OS. ... JDH