W520 with (9-cell standard and 9-cell slice) battery life

[omarsg]

Hi guys,

I hope this topic has not been posted a hundred times

Just bought a W520 with a 9-cell standard and a 9-cell slice. With 2 batteries running, I got 7:10 hours with full charge? Is that normal?

I will flash BIOS and reinstall Windows PRO 64 and will post results again. I am expecting a longer battery life with 2 batteries.

[omarsg]

Hi again guys,

Reinstalled Win7 Pro 64, flashed BIOS, adjusted power settings... the 2 batteries now give me 12 hours... apologies for the false alarm... case close

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Now try with Wifi off, HDD suspended and screen brightness to the lowest possible. It should last you 24 hours

Please come back sometime later to report on the life of the slice battery. Does it degrade as quickly as the Ultrabay batteries did?

[omarsg]

You could be right... my first slice + extended combination on T410, my slice was faulty within a year...

[sgr1]

I get about 4 hours out of my 9 cell battery, doing average stuff. Try adding a battery in the ultra bay for even more battery life !

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

That would require a whole lot of modding....

There are no Ultrabay batteries for the W520

[omarsg]

Been using them about 3 weeks now... realistically, 9-cell standard plus 9-cell slice gave me about 8 hours usage everyday with internet always on display brightness mostly on 10 sometimes 11. Plugged in the LT1421 at times and it did not affect much either. I can't complain more, I don't like reducing the CPU power much when running on batteries, they say I can get more juice out of it by doing so.

8 hours of runtime on this beast... I am more than a happy customer... the weight? Nice workout for me though

[geoffrey]

I get about 8-9 hours with the one 9-cell battery, but that's using Optimus and with a Core-i7 in power-saving mode. For what I need, this is plenty powerful enough, including for full-screen video. On battery I usually have the screen on 10.

[omarsg]

Ok, that is something new for me, I can never achieve that long battery life on a single 9-cell no matter whatever settings I change. Do you use that ThinkPad power slider or it is manual seetings? Share with me... please? (post edited... grammatical errors)

I get about 8-9 hours with the one 9-cell battery, but that's using Optimus and with a Core-i7 in power-saving mode. For what I need, this is plenty powerful enough, including for full-screen video. On battery I usually have the screen on 10.

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

You really have to watch your graphics settings. Out of the box the nVidia card will be enabled for things like viewing a photo, having IE open or having the Power Manager open. That will cut away on your battery life massively.

Also: disable any wireless radio you don't need. Have your HDD suspend when you don't use it for some time and don't turn the screen brightness to maximum.

Right now I'm in a train typing this, screen on #12, WiFi on and Power Manager set to maximum performance, nVidia card off and on 88% remaining it estimates 3:18 left (that's with battery mode set to optimize for lifespan).

An additional drain in my W520 is that it has both an SSD and HDD, neither of which are suspended at the moment, probably because my .PST file is on the HDD and OS on the SSD

[geoffrey]

I haven't done anything special, but I know the Nvidia card is basically off all the time, and the DVD drive powers down and off within about 30 seconds of startup. I have maximum power saving settings under the advanced settings of power manager. I'm usually using Word, Outlook and Web, so not putting anything very strenuous on the CPU, which is Core i7-2640M @ 2.8 GHz (I think the M maybe stands for Mobile, so that may make a difference). I have the best screen available for the W520 (1920 x 1080). I have Wifi connected to a router that has robust power saving. And an Intel SSD, so the machine is very, very quiet -- the fan is either off all the time or on such a low setting that I can't hear it (occasionally I can feel cold air drifting out of it). Apart from that, and keeping the screen brightness around 10, I can't think of any special configuration.

(Before anyone asks why I got a powerful machine like this to do office work at low power, I got it because it's the last Thinkpad with a real keyboard , because of the incredible build quality, because I want a machine that will last several years, I want the option of high power when I occasionally need it, plus I needed fast USB 3 for connection to external hard disk and the T520 didn't offer that if I remember rightly.)