Average Battery Life? - T500, Win7 64bit, 6 Cell

[Marked_0ne]

My battery life is quite pathetic, and doesn't seem to align with reviews saying the T500 has excellent battery life. Some reviews state up to 6 hours, while my T500 only gets 2 hours max (cranking brightness and everything down). With medium brightness and all the other "battery settings" in Power Manager set to power saving rather than performance, I usually only get around 1:30.

Shot of my power manager, says battery is in "good" condition, but look at that pathetic battery life...
http://www.cubeupload.com/files/560800untitled.png

Once again, its a:
T500 (purchased fall 2009)
Windows 7 64 Bit (was installed over Vista 32 bit using 'Custom Install' at the beginning of this year)
6 Cell battery

To any of you with a similar setup, what kind of battery life are you getting?


Also two interesting things to note:
1) I seem to remember getting much more battery life (3hr+) when I got the system and was using Vista, and I think the big decline was around when I installed Windows 7. What could have happened here?
2) There seems to be no difference in battery life when I use Intel integrated graphics or ATI Radeon 3650 graphics, even though the integrated is supposed to be a "power saving" option.

[ThinkRob]

Hm. There's something wildly wrong with that picture.

I can hit 4+ hours with a 6-cell on integrated with Linux (Debian stable w/ 2.6.33.3)

[Colonel O'Neill]

Sounds familiar.

Try uninstalling all of your display driver software (both ATI and Intel) and running System Update so it pulls the latest switchable graphics driver from Lenovo. Otherwise, BOTH of your graphics cards would be powered on and draining power. That probably would also explain why you note no difference running on dedicated or integrated; both are powered and ergo draw the same power on either mode.

Also, if you use standby a lot, the issues still persists where both graphics cards turn on when resuming regardless of which one was active when it went to sleep. You'll have to toggle between High Performance and Energy Saving to get the ATI card to power off.

Check all your other drivers too.

My T400 6-cell gets 3.5 to 4 hours on the 6-cell. 4.5 if I'm using it right. I do hear people getting 6 hours, though.

[Marked_0ne]

Alright I uninstalled and then reinstalled all the video drivers but to no avail. Battery is still maxed out at 1hr 40

Is this just an ongoing problem of Lenovo's Win7 Support? Because it's a bit silly for such a glaring issue

You'll have to toggle between High Performance and Energy Saving to get the ATI card to power off.

Could you elaborate on this method?

[Colonel O'Neill]

Try running System Update 4...

I assume you've installed the Lenovo version of the ATI Switchable graphics drivers? The ATI ones don't really work from my experience.
Also, make sure you've installed the Windows 7 version of Power Manager (ver 3.20) which will put that nifty battery on your taskbar that you can right click. In that popup menu is an entry called Switchable Graphics that will let you switch between integrated and discrete. (The names should be fairly evident.)

If this doesn't work... Try setting the graphics to Integrated from BIOS to see if the issue is elsewhere.

[Marked_0ne]

Try running System Update 4...

I am, got the ATI driver through there

I assume you've installed the Lenovo version of the ATI Switchable graphics drivers? The ATI ones don't really work from my experience.
Also, make sure you've installed the Windows 7 version of Power Manager (ver 3.20) which will put that nifty battery on your taskbar that you can right click. In that popup menu is an entry called Switchable Graphics that will let you switch between integrated and discrete. (The names should be fairly evident.)

Yes using all these settings, switchable graphics through the power manager set to Energy Saving, but I just checked and I'm getting 1hr 21min on a full charge..

If this doesn't work... Try setting the graphics to Integrated from BIOS to see if the issue is elsewhere.

I tried that earlier; in the bios I set intel integrated graphics and disabled the switchable graphics but this didn't help at all either.

Any other things to try? I'm considering getting XP and installing that, I could really use the battery life for classes and such. Would this help? Also, what is the cheapest option to get XP.. everything seems absurdly expensive. I'm a college student if that helps (discounts etc..)

[Colonel O'Neill]

Is it possible that your battery is already starting to go?

Look under the Battery tab of Power Manager, and look for the Full Charge Capacity entry.
On the 6-cell, it should be around 56.16 Wh. Depending on your usage habits, this value will vary; fully charging and discharging it seems to decrease this value, as does heavy usage.

At the moment, my 6-cell after 141 charge cycles reads a Full Charge Capacity of 56.14 Wh.

If this value is too low, then it suggests the battery may have a failed cell or some other issues, and that your hardware setup is probably not an issue.

[ThinkRob]

Any other things to try? I'm considering getting XP and installing that, I could really use the battery life for classes and such. Would this help? Also, what is the cheapest option to get XP.. everything seems absurdly expensive. I'm a college student if that helps (discounts etc..)

Linux is cheapest. In addition to supporting your hardware just fine, it'll also give you unlimited upgrades to the latest and greatest software for life.

(All kidding aside...) If you're determined to use a 9 year-old OS, you might want to check if your university gives you access to MSDNAA. If so, you can get any of the last three Microsoft OSs for free. Failing that, I'd check eBay as you can often pick up cheap licenses there.

[Marked_0ne]

Linux isn't really an option, I use lotss of windows only programs for architecture school (Rhino, Adobe CS4, Form Z, etc) and compatibility with others to work on projects is at a premium.

And even on ebay, XP liscences are pretty expensive (around $100)