Poor battery life on new machine

[pjc30943]

I've had my new w530 for about a month now, with about 15 charge/discharge cycles. The 9-cell battery still only provides at most 5.5 hours (usually 4.5) of light wifi use. This is quite far from the 9-11 that others are quoting for some configurations.

I've set lenovo power manager appropriately with all low power settings under the Maximum Battery Life settings, but I still am getting about half the life of other users.

What's the secret to configuring the machine for long battery life operation?


On a side note...the keyboard types nicely...but the layout is a disaster


EDIT: i use a bluetooth mouse. However i did some tests where i disabled all radios (wifi and bluetooth) with no real change in projected battery life.

[pjc30943]

also, I"ll add that I've read all the threads online that I could find, but they have not been useful.

[alvanorichie]

I have the 9 cell battery and the life is pretty good if you set it up to optimize battery life. I've gotten 4-5 hrs of run time from it which is pretty dang good for a high powered laptop. The 9 cell battery does stick out the back an extra inch or so. If you want a flush fitting battery you need the 6 cell which would also make it slightly lighter to carry. If you carry it around a lot I'd suggest the 6 cell and 90w power supply, the two would shave off more than a pound from the combo I think.