T43 Battery Help - Life, Additional Batt Questions, chargers

[sk33]

I'm basically very unimpressed with my T43's battery life, so I have a list of questions here that I hope this awesome community can help me out with...

Currently, I'm getting ~2.5 hrs out of box without any meaningful software installed yet on a 6 cell. I need the thing to run for over 4 hours, or (see below)...

I'm considering one of two options: Picking up a 'lightweight' travel charger if that exists and taking that along with me. It might just be my brain playing tricks on me, but I'm pretty sure my X40 came with a lighter/smaller charger than my T43. IF that's true, is there such a small charger I can pick up for the T43 that's smaller than the one they give me?

Second, how much real improvement does the CD-bay battery give? I'd consider taking one of those with me and popping it in should I need. How much weight does it add too?

the 9 cell isn't really a great option for me, as I don't like the way it sticks out of the back.

Next, what software/computer modifications can I make to increase battery life? From my searches on the topic, it seems that changing voltage/speeds and such is what most people do, but I'm really way too unfamiliar with laptops/computers in general to feel comftorable doing something too complicated in that regard, and I definitely don't want to risk my investment.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me

[mysbca]

The ultrabay slim battery has about 45% capacity of the T43 6-cell battery, so I would expect about 1 hour more with your current usage pattern. The spec says it is about 0.48lbs, about the same weight as the cd/dvd drive that it replaces.

In power manager, have you set your CPU to adaptive or low? Have you set your display to a lower brightness setting? If you are not using wi-fi, turn it off (Fn-F5).

Undervolting with the Centrino Hardware Control software is actually pretty easy. Just check the CHC thread for some recommended voltages to start. If there is a problem, just set the voltages a little higher. If you want to be very safe, just pick a value that is about half of the difference that others are using versus the default. You probably can extend your battery life by 5 - 10%.

[Jmmmmm]

2.5 hours? Wow, I get about 6 hours on my 9 cell, which means you should be getting 4 hours on the 6cell. What are you doing? If you use wifi, cd/dvd drive, or don't dim your screen, you will take a huge chunk out of that time. Or I guess if you're gaming or something like that.
You should also close all background programs you don't need. You do have your power manager set to maximiza battery life when off a/c, right? I made a new profile where I basically selected the lowest for everything when I'm on battery. The power source optimized one is alright though.

The media bay battery is 3 cells. I can't imagine it's as light as the cd drive, though, it certainly doesn't seem to weigh half a pound. I haven't see a media bay battery, though.

Downloading chc and underclocking the cpu sounds complicated and whatever, but it's really simple program. I just went to the area for voltage and selected that at the lowest speed (which my computer will be at when on battery) and .748volts. I could go lower, but I'm playing it safe.

CHC also allows you to see the wattage being used by your computer realtime, so you can see for yourself how quickly your battery is draining, and how changes you make affect that. My battery drain is usually at ~ -12-13watts (or whatever the units is). What is it on yours? Maybe you could figure out the problem that way.

[eigh]

i get 3.5hrs and this is how


1. undervotlt lowest cpu settings (and all of them for that matter)
2. turn screen brightness down to lowest (this save about 40 mins for me, great bonus)
3. throttling back vid card gpu and ram (dont know if that halped batt life, but im sure it helps with heat).


i leave wifi on though. now that i know you can press fn+5 or whatever to turn it off, i might just do taht.

[sk33]

thanks for the input guys..

I downloaded CHC, but I'm completely ignorant as to what to do with the settings... I'm using a 1.86 T43 though.. if anybody can tell me what is OK to plug in. I want it to be as 'safe' as possible. I'm considering getting the media bay batter anyways to push me over 4 hrs...

Also, my drain rate seems to be in the -16W range.