X60T/Vista - Tips to reduce power-consumption?

[45]

Hi,

I've wondering if there are some special tricks to get some extra minutes out of my battery.

So far I've switched off bluetooth, limited processor speed to the lowest, switched off pcmcia and usb-ports, switched off indexing, removed most of the not so neccessary lenovo goody-software, have set wifi to 'maximum battery', but all that not really seems to have significant influence on my battery life.

I know - the biggest battery-killer is a high setting for display-brightness, but I can't live with a setting under 6 (one step down from max) - 6 is still somewhat dark to my eyes, but I get no headach from it at least.

Perhaps anyone knows a way to reduce cpu-power to a lower value than 0.95V - I spent some time on it, but did not find a way.

Or perhaps there are some not so easy to find vista settings - switch off drm-management for example, I could imagine, thats a real power-eater - or whatever.

I have a 17" Sony notebook with display bright enough for a light-therapy and a ludicrous tiny battery, wich has now only 75% of its starting capcity but it breathes as long as my thinkpad with a 4-cell - perhaps vista calculates some kind of world-formula in the background or so, or perhaps it is the security-chip in it, wich sucks and sucks power - I really have no clue.

Be that as it may - I would be happy about any advice to reduce the power consumption of my beloved thinkpad!

[SHoTTa35]

yeah that 17" Sony is probably a 12 Cell battery compared to your thin and light Thinkpad with a 4 cell. You are getting what? 3hrs now with your 4 Cell? Well an 8 Cell is out there that can give you like 7hrs if you want that or add extra stuff and get even more battery runtime.

I'm a battery miser too and love unplgged runtime. My T42 14" SXGA+ with Wifi and screen brightness turned down low can get 3hrs on a new 6 Cell battery... with a 9 Cell i'm sure i can get 5hrs Add the UltraBay battery and get a total of about 7hrs or even more.

[zaimek]

You could switch off dwm/aero. It takes up to 90MB of your RAM and puts some pressure on the graphic card. There is a handy app called Vista Battery Saver which would automatically disable aero once you unplugged your notebook.

[SHoTTa35]

you know it's funny that people say DWM and AERO uses so much power. It's not like when you turn off AERO it goes back to GDI or something. Vista Classic is still generated by the GPU. Surely the GPU works a lil more to do all the effects and transparencies but it's not like it's 2% vs 80% usage.

I've noticed maybe a loss of 10-15mins or something with AERO on vs off. That extra 10mins is easly worth my comfort and what they call "eye candy." Which would you rather, driving a BMW and stopping for gas every 2hrs or driving a honda and stopping every 2 1/2hrs? If you said Honda , seriously?

[mazzer]

you know it's funny that people say DWM and AERO uses so much power. It's not like when you turn off AERO it goes back to GDI or something. Vista Classic is still generated by the GPU. Surely the GPU works a lil more to do all the effects and transparencies but it's not like it's 2% vs 80% usage.

The OP has an X-Series, which has integrated graphics (meaning shared system ram) and maybe only 1 GB of RAM. With limited resources, Aero will do more harm to battery life than 10-15 minutes, especially if with reduced system RAM it causes more pagefile activity.

[45]

yeah that 17" Sony is probably a 12 Cell battery compared to your thin and light Thinkpad with a 4 cell. You are getting what? 3hrs now with your 4 Cell? Well an 8 Cell is out there that can give you like 7hrs if you want that or add extra stuff and get even more battery runtime.

I'm a battery miser too and love unplgged runtime. My T42 14" SXGA+ with Wifi and screen brightness turned down low can get 3hrs on a new 6 Cell battery... with a 9 Cell i'm sure i can get 5hrs Add the UltraBay battery and get a total of about 7hrs or even more.

Are you joking??? 3 hours with a 4-cell and X60T/Vista? Thats the marketing statement "up to 3 hours with 4 cell, up tu 7 hours with 8 cell". But its only 1:40 with 4-cell and web surfing only - if I do installs and such stuff it gets ways below that with a full battery. Thats the same what my sony does - and its battery isn't bigger than the 4-cell of my thinkpad. I would never complain, if it where 3 or just 2,5 hours with a 4-cell.

[tomh009]

The OP has an X-Series, which has integrated graphics (meaning shared system ram) and maybe only 1 GB of RAM. With limited resources, Aero will do more harm to battery life than 10-15 minutes, especially if with reduced system RAM it causes more pagefile activity.

Shared system memory is a separate issue from the graphics chipset -- that's common with both integrated and discrete graphics these days. And it does not do any harm to battery life.

Really, based on my experience of running Vista on an X61, the loss of battery life with Aero is minimal, unless you spend your days doing 3D-flip through your applications.

[45]

Really, based on my experience of running Vista on an X61, the loss of battery life with Aero is minimal, unless you spend your days doing 3D-flip through your applications.

Thats my experience too - its not really effective on power.

I didn't want only complain about things without any benefit for the community - perhaps it sounded like that, than I'am sorry. I like my X60T - it's great in things like handling and all in all it has a very impressive built-quality. But I have the impression, that particulary in product-specific communitys bad criticism has no good standing all in all, but perhaps it would 'help' the industry to develop their products with more care.

So - even if it goes beyond the thread-title I would like to subsume my criticism on the X6OT/MV/MT:

1. Battery life is only half of that, what is promised by manufacturer. So it is normal, that you don't get the marketing-values - what they promise are 'best condition'-values, with low brightness, wlan off etc... - but my experience is, that under normal working conditions I got about 70-80% of the 'marketing values', not only 50%. Perhaps it would be more fair from the industry to declare 'working-condition' lifetime and not unrealistic 'best condition' values all in all. Examples: Sony Vaio A217 - promised: 2:30 / real world: 2:00 (now, after a couple of years only 1:40, as I allready mentioned. Macbook Core2Duo: promised 5:00 / real world: 4:00. Now Thinkpad X60T (with vista): promised 3:00 / real world: 1:40 with 4-cell, 7:00 / 3:20 with 8-cell (but with much more decrease under stress than competitors, from my impression. I know, vista is more power hungry than xp, but other brands have not that much decrease with vista, perhaps a driver issue but not solved yet.

2. MV/MT XGA Display is much to dark. To dark for good outdoor-reading, and in my opinion even to dark for indoors, but the later is only my imression. It is nice that I can read it from nearly any angle, but from a 'multiview-screen' I expect a good outdoor readability too.

3. Temperature can get uncomfortable - at least on the bottom, even on battery with all possible throtteling of cpu. But that doesn't wights so much like point one and two. Nevertheless it seems to be a hard point for many other users.

4. I've had a bad fan-bearing, wich made terrible noise in some working conditions and it seems, I'am not the only one. The thing with 'unglued' display frame and all the SXGA+ storys are nothing wich should be heard from such a relative expensive device - but it is not so much like for example what can be heard from macbook pro, I have to admit.

5. Multitouch (finger usability) is not usable at all - not without to be afraid to destroy the screen, because of the force you need to get any feedback.

So - all in all I am very happy about the possibilitys of my new and first tablet, but i wouldn't buy it again - thats fact. Please don't ask, why I did not returned it within 14 days - some points I thought are solvable, some points I did not realized early enough in the right relation - my mistake, I know. But nevertheless I am shure that I will have a good time with the X60 and besides - I ever wished to have a thinkpad!

Sorry - that was somewhat longer and perhaps boring for most of you - but now I am really finshed - hurray.

[zaimek]

That extra few minutes might save the day. I rarely use that app (but I think it's great it's here) since I have the possibility to recharge whenever I want. As for wireless I found (looking at the watt meter) that it has also almost no effect on power consumption if you use it to check your email only.

[proaudioguy]

Well I am quite pleased with my X60T. It appears there are more issues with the X61T. My battery life with an 8 cell is nowhere near 7 hours. 2 to 4 hours is the most I get only watching a movie from the hard drive and WIFI turned off.

[jimc]

have you looked at your battery in power manager? such as capacity, etc.