What do you guys use to CONSERVE Battery life ?

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chefwong · #1 Post by **chefwong** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:57 pm

When on the road and just simply using the laptop for Outlook, Web browsing and remote desktop/ssh administration duties.

I'm currently running off the 6 cell main and ultrabay battery. LCD is generally at the second bar contrast setting.

If I am using my Verizon broadabnd card, I turn off the wireless modem. The BT is always turned off for the most part.

Any tips-tricks on maxing out the battery life while *UNPLUGGED*.
My buddy has a ultra-portable 10" Fujitsu and the battery life with the extended battery is AMAZING.........

christopher_wolf · #2 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:07 pm

I generally turn the LCD down to minimum, set the HDD to spin down, enable slient operation of the optical drive or the 2nd HDD if it is in the Ultrabay instead. Also, made a profile that underclocks the CPU...Then I use Wireless and Bluetooth only as I need them. I get pretty good battery life with a 9-Cell, a new one will take me for at least 4:30 hours if not 5:00 hours.

I have, however, seen T40s and T41s with utterly amazing battery life for any of the T4X Series machines, approaching and exceeding 6:00 hours in some cases.

HTH

Mr_Roboto · #3 Post by **Mr_Roboto** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:40 pm

If you are not afraid to tinker with the CPU voltages you could try Notebook Hardware Control. This is a handy little tool that allows you to make many system adjustments that may help you extend your batteries life. This topic has been pretty well covered Here.

Personally, I tend to go a little overboard with stuff like this and disabled any ports that I do not use (parallel port, IR port, ...).

Tinker at your own risk and enjoy.

~Rich

#4 Post by **underclocker** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 8:34 pm

Definitely use the IBM Battery MaxiMiser Wizard to create a custom power settings profile and set the CPU speed to "very slow" for unplugged mode.

This helps alot!

lithium726 · #5 Post by **lithium726** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 8:57 pm

i use RMclock... when im on battery i have it set to lock my processor at 600mhz and .7v.

dr. zoidberg · #6 Post by **dr. zoidberg** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:47 pm

If I want maximum battery life and I will just be using the laptop for internet searches or referring to documents while I'm working on something, I'll

Underclock to 600mhz and undervolt to 0.7v
turn down the brightness all the way down
set the hard drive to 3min spin down
cd rom speed to silent
set the power save mode on wireless card to high and reduce transmission power level to 50%

All this gives me about 4-4.5 hours on my less-than-new 6 cell battery

If I disable the wireless all together, i Usually get an extra 30-40 minutes. If i'm actively using the laptop though, ill turn the brightness up to halfway. that way, i don't destroy my eyes. In that case i'll get around 3.5 to 4 hours

RageRover · #7 Post by **RageRover** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:41 am

Dr. zoidberg,
what do U use (or how do U) to underclock?

Is there a Bios setting? software?

I just bought an X30 (which I am waiting to arrive in the mail). Since the x30 I bought is 1.2ghz, I won't need that speed. I plan using office, web surfing, and once in a while when I travel, watching Divx files.

I figure I can underclock to 600mhz? Maybe even lower.

Do you know how much extra time U get underclocking vs. not underclocking?

I plan on tweaking Winblows XP with XP-Lite. Reducing the size of XP and removing all of the bloat will hopefully save some battery life too. I'm also going to play around with some small Linux distros like Slax.

thanks for any tips.

dr. zoidberg · #8 Post by **dr. zoidberg** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 9:13 am

I use Notebook Hardware Control. With it, you can manually set the voltages and multipliers of the cpu when running on batteries and on AC.

I don't know the exact amount of extra time it gives but it is noticeable. Plus it reduces the CPU temperature significantly

jonnnny · #9 Post by **jonnnny** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 10:31 am

Another vote for NHC, it gave me extra 30-40 minutes of battery life with an extended battery.

rcrooks · #10 Post by **rcrooks** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:43 pm

NHC gave me an extra 3 hours or so, woo!!!

techflavor · #11 Post by **techflavor** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 6:14 pm

rcrooks wrote:NHC gave me an extra 3 hours or so, woo!!!

What model ThinkPad do you have?

rcrooks · #12 Post by **rcrooks** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 9:34 pm

Same as you... T43... 2668

christopher_wolf · #13 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:21 pm

rcrooks wrote:Same as you... T43... 2668

Impressive; and here I was thinking you had a modified T40 to get such high battery times.

naro · #14 Post by **naro** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:35 pm

i set my T42 to the lowest LCD brightness..

the NHC keeps showing 3 hrs but it works for longer than that..

so my 6 cell batt lasts mi abt 3.5hrs

What do you guys use to CONSERVE Battery life ?

What do you guys use to CONSERVE Battery life ?

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