Battery performance

[gulyasm]

Dear All!

I have a T61 ( T8300(2.4GHz), 2GB RAM, 160GB 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1440x900 LCD, 128MB nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11agn wireless, Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint Reader, 6c Li-Ion, Windows XP SP3 ) , but my battery can hold 2 - 2:20 hours most, with WiFi online, and power management set to Power Source Optimzed, which means I have LCD set to 20%, and almost all performance related settings set to minimal.
Is that normal, or I am missing something. According to Lenovo, with this battery I should have like 3-4 hours on battery. :S

Chears,
Mate

[ssd_thinkpad]

My T60 15 inch Flexview ATI x1300 Vista WLAN has around 2.5 hours battery life with a full capacity 6 cell battery on full brightness. As you have a 14 inch non-Flexview display you should get much more battery life.

To check your battery:
Start > Programs > Thinkvantage > Power Manager > Battery. Here you can see the designed capacity and the actual left capacity for your battery. Battery capacities decrease within time and use.
If you do not have this program, you can download it from lenovo.com

You can also increase battery life by turning all battery life features on your operation system and undervolt your cpu (rmclock, nhc) and gpu. I removed pcmcia, modem, system speakers to get some more battery life, but this is for the more battery life concerned users.

[gulyasm]

I know these things, but what should I see in Battery Management? It says I have a 49,03Wh battery, and it decreases as I use the my notebook. But my question is, what may be the reason, that I can get only about 2 and a half hour battery time, when it should be about 4 hours, according to Lenovo. I turned off every unused parts (Firewire, optical drive, LAN), but the main reason for this was faster boot time.


Mate

[sktn77a]

If your battery is new, you should be getting a little more time out of your T6. What is the design capacity of the 6 cell? Look to setting your power features to max battery life, but be sure to go back in and adjust the wireless setting to max performance (if you use wireless).

You never get what Lenovo say you will get (4 hours) but you should be good for 3 hours with full battery power (ie the design capacity), unless you're watching a DVD or have everything cranked up to full performance.

[732]

Your configuration will get 4h 30min maximum when under minimum load (brightness lowest; WiFi off etc). If you use wifi and higher brightness 3-4h is normal. Under maximum load you should get 2h 30min. This is most likely a configuration issue. Sometimes when you have older drivers, which especially applies to Windows Vista, the battery will run out quickly.

What does your power manager show for your battery? If your battery condition shows as GOOD, then it's a software problem. If it shows FAIR, then the battery has only about 60% capacity left from the original amount.

[gulyasm]

Well, I recently (2 months ago) have performed a clean install, and all the drivers were downloaded from Lenovo support site, so I assume they were all the latest, and I take most of them are still. At the time I got the same off-grid time. :S Hereby I attach my battery status:



Windows XP can be the problem? I've got SP Pro SP3.

Which driver can cause it? 4:30 seems to be impossible for me, judging from my current experiences. Should I go to the official support service and ask them?
Thanks for all the help, I really appriciate it!

[732]

I can't see the second half of your battery specs but it seems you have 48.95Wh left of the original 56.16Wh which is 87% percent. So if your computer was new and the battery lasted 4h=240min then now it would be 0.87*240=209min=3h 29min

87% is still good. If you're running your computer on the battery, what's the "wattage" in battery details? It should be about 12-14W, if it's more, then your computer is wasting energy and isn't in the max battery mode. The lower the wattage (currently used), the longer the battery lasts. So if your battery has 56Wh and spends 14W at this time: 56Wh/14W=4h

XPSP3 is definitely not the problem.

I'm afraid official support doesn't really care about such problems and can't help.

[gulyasm]

I can't see the second half of your battery specs but it seems you have 48.95Wh left of the original 56.16Wh which is 87% percent. So if your computer was new and the battery lasted 4h=240min then now it would be 0.87*240=209min=3h 29min

87% is still good. If you're running your computer on the battery, what's the "wattage" in battery details? It should be about 12-14W, if it's more, then your computer is wasting energy and isn't in the max battery mode. The lower the wattage (currently used), the longer the battery lasts. So if your battery has 56Wh and spends 14W at this time: 56Wh/14W=4h

XPSP3 is definitely not the problem.

I'm afraid official support doesn't really care about such problems and can't help.

Your right, I think this is the main reason. I only got the 87% of my original capacity, so the 3 hours top is sort of the reality. The consuption is about 16 W a little bit higher, but it is reasonable, I guess.
I attach the whole screenshot just in case, but I think my question is answered. Thanks for that.

[bill bolton]

Your battery cycle count (310) is quite high, so you are doing well in terms of the battery duration you are achieving.

Cheers,

Bill B.

[sktn77a]

Your current draw is 1.38A. Look into your power scheme to see if there's anything you can do to lower this and prolong battery life. But I'd be very happy with 90% battery life left after 300+ cycles!

[gulyasm]

Yeah, thanks for all the advices, it's getting clear now, I think I am quite killing my batteries. 300+ is [censored] much, but I use my laptop as my main computer, I use it every night at home, at the labratory, and at the University, so I guess this is what this current technology capable of. The only sad thing is, that I have this laptop for 10 months now. I quess this christmas is an excellent time to ask for new batteries.

[sktn77a]

Given you usage, the computer is doing well. Try to see if there are any adaptive settings for CPU and GPU to save battery power. Be careful with the wireless, though, as adaptive settings can turn the card off just when you don't want it! Also look at having the LCD at a lower setting in low ambient light setting - you can always tuen it up if you need a brighter setting. And switch off anything you aren't using routinely (wireless, bluetooth, MS Office/Vista indexing, etc, etc). You can get the larger battery for your next battery, although this one sounds like it will last another 2 years!