Suddenly increased battery consumption on X60

[donzoomik]

I wrote about it earlier in another thread, but decided to start another one as original one focused on Tablet version.

Original thread:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 651#364651

I bought a refurbished X60 with 1GB RAM and no hard drive. I added 2GB RAM and 250GB HDD. When checking, battery consumption was normal, going below 8W on Vista Ultimate loaded with required software and loads of stuff running on background. Battery life went beyond 8 hours, going past 9 hours with WiFI and Bluetooth disabled.

Indexing service is enabled. I simply wouldn't throw away instant fle and email (Outlook) searches. Indexing is finished, so this cannot be the source of drain.

Aero is disabled. It's a bit sluggish on 945GM and seems to draw a lot of battery (2W drop when disabled).

I didn't really notice when, but at one point consumption increased by almost 3W, cutting battery life by at least 2 hours, now being 6:30 max. The drain never goes below 11W, even with communications disabled and all background programs closed.

Resource monitor shows CPU running at 53% maximum frequency, 3% usage (ResMon itself), no disk usage and no communications. Basically no load at all. The fan also spins up much more often, stopping for a minute and then spinning up again for a minute of cooling.

I haven't checked HMM yet, but i presume area right of fingerprint reader seems to correspond to WLAN card. Well, as i've read, heating is a known problem (AC load only - max performance), but when on battery, it emits buzzing or whining noise from that area. It's not fan or HDD, as i know these noises more than good. I thought about servicing, but i'd hate to give away my computer for that long.

I've reinstalled Vista several times and consumption stays up even after reinstall. I haven't tested with PowerTOP yet, but i'll try to find time anytime soon.

I've installed ThinkVantage software (Power management driver, system interface, Power manager, hotkeys etc.) and finetuned Power manager for maximum battery life, but no use so far.

If PowerTOP also shows increased drain, i'll service it, but so far - any ideas? Personally i'm thinking of malfunctioning motherboard or WLAN...