X220 battery dies quickly with Win8.1

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mbressman · #1 Post by **mbressman** » Thu Jun 19, 2014 5:47 pm

I recently upgraded my X220 to Win8.1, and while most things seem to work fine, both of my 6-cell batteries seems to die very quickly (one of which was nearly new) - any ideas what might be causing this, or how I could troubleshoot it? Thanks.

brchan · #2 Post by **brchan** » Thu Jun 19, 2014 9:22 pm

Have you tried setting the power management setting to balanced or battery saver? It can be found in bottom toolbar by clicking on the battery icon. You can also customize your power setting to tailor your needs more.

mbressman · #3 Post by **mbressman** » Thu Jun 19, 2014 9:53 pm

brchan wrote:Have you tried setting the power management setting to balanced or battery saver? It can be found in bottom toolbar by clicking on the battery icon. You can also customize your power setting to tailor your needs more.

The Win8.1 power management is set to "balanced" - I don't have a Lenovo power management icon (I'm not sure if that was what you were referring to or not).

brchan · #4 Post by **brchan** » Thu Jun 19, 2014 10:09 pm

Hmm... Do you have any programs running in the background that could be eating battery life? It could be due to the lack of power manager from older OSs. Have you tried updating using lenovo system update?

#5 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Fri Jun 20, 2014 5:55 am

W8 and W8.1 are still only crippled tablet OS'es, rather unsuited for decent laptop use.
There is no Lenovo power manager (yet) for this OS (guess they don't like it either).
So I'm not surprised that your laptop's battery is incapacitated by Micro$haft.

OTOH, some strange things go on with batteries, or rather, laptops.
A T420 battery will work but NOT charge in a T430, but a T430 battery will work AND charge in a T420!
Maybe a similar story applies to the X220?

jcvjcvjcvjcv · #6 Post by **jcvjcvjcvjcv** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 12:52 pm

No, it makes sense. (nah, not really)

The newer laptops do that super fast charging, but the older batteries can't live with that. Hence you get no charging of older batteries in newer system.

pianowizard · #7 Post by **pianowizard** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 2:45 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:W8 and W8.1 are still only crippled tablet OS'es, rather unsuited for decent laptop use.
There is no Lenovo power manager (yet) for this OS (guess they don't like it either).
So I'm not surprised that your laptop's battery is incapacitated by Micro$haft.

I had Win 8 and 8.1 on a Panasonic Toughbook CF-Y7 for over a year, and since early March have been running Win 8.1 on a CF-Y9. Both laptops are Core2 Duo and much older than the X220. The Y7 used Vista drivers while the Y9 uses Win 7 drivers, and I never noticed any problem with battery duration. In conclusion, something is wrong with the X220. I think it's a crippled laptop.

BTW, in what ways are 8 and 8.1 "crippled tablet OS'es"? Windows RT is a tablet OS. In order for 8 and 8.1 to be "crippled tablet OS'es", they would need to be even more primitive than RT. If you dislike 8 and 8.1, or if you can't figure out how to use them, just say it, instead of making false accusations.

PS: My Sony Pro13 also uses 8.1 but of course it works fine because it was specifically designed to run 8.1, which is why I didn't mention it above. The discussion is about whether a laptop really needs Win 8/8.1 drivers to function properly.

jdrou · #8 Post by **jdrou** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:32 pm

pianowizard wrote: Windows RT is a tablet OS. In order for 8 and 8.1 to be "crippled tablet OS'es", they would need to be even more primitive than RT.

He probably meant that 8 and 8.1 are tablet OSes and all tablet OSes are "crippled" (at least if you aren't using them on a tablet).
I haven't used 8/8.1 yet but I have used Server 2012 which is built on the same core and I'm not a fan of the interface.

axur-delmeria · #9 Post by **axur-delmeria** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 1:40 pm

Have you installed the Power Management driver? http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=DS032258

mbressman · #10 Post by **mbressman** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 1:42 pm

axur-delmeria wrote:Have you installed the Power Management driver? http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=DS032258

Yup - doesn't seem to make any difference.

dr_st · #11 Post by **dr_st** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 1:50 pm

Have you tried monitoring the battery discharge rate while the PC is idle? Battery Care can be used to show it (there are other tools as well):
http://batterycare.net/en/download.html

mbressman · #12 Post by **mbressman** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 1:52 pm

dr_st wrote:Have you tried monitoring the battery discharge rate while the PC is idle? Battery Care can be used to show it (there are other tools as well):
http://batterycare.net/en/download.html

I will definitely give this a try and report back - thanks!

X220 battery dies quickly with Win8.1

X220 battery dies quickly with Win8.1

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