Short battery life on new X200...

[eosme]

i got my x200 with a 6 cell battery. the hours indicated on the battery bar shows 3.5hrs after a full charge. i'm running it on the default energy saver mode.

i've checked and even tried to reduce the brightness of the LCD and that didn't really help much.

i would think the 6 cell would last longer than that.

any suggestions on what type of setting to use?

[LenovoGringo]

3.5hrs does seem a little on the low side. Try updating the whole machine. Sometimes a BIOS fix can increase battery life. I've always bought Lenovos with the biggest battery option, so you may want to try out a 9-cell version. If you are running Windows Vista, you should let the laptop run for awhile from bootup before checking battery life. Vista tends to increase the battery life over time as it sorts things out after bootup and even more so as your PC gets older.

[visionviper]

You should easily be getting around 5 hours. Are you sure it's a 6 cell? They might have accidentally shipped it with a 4 cell instead...

[eosme]

3.5hrs does seem a little on the low side. Try updating the whole machine. Sometimes a BIOS fix can increase battery life. I've always bought Lenovos with the biggest battery option, so you may want to try out a 9-cell version. If you are running Windows Vista, you should let the laptop run for awhile from bootup before checking battery life. Vista tends to increase the battery life over time as it sorts things out after bootup and even more so as your PC gets older.

yup, i thought the 3.5hrs was a big low too, especially for energy saver. also, i didn't a full system update already so i think the bios should be the newest version. i'll check and see tonight.

also, i saw there's a way to config your battery mode. not sure if i shoudl do that first before charging or after it completes the charge.

You should easily be getting around 5 hours. Are you sure it's a 6 cell? They might have accidentally shipped it with a 4 cell instead...

i got it from tigerdirect, so i'm pretty sure it's a 6 cell. but i'll double check just in case.

EDIT: it's confirmed to be a 6 cell. i just finished doing a 100% charge and now on battery only (energy saver mode) @ 90%, i only have 3:23 hrs left. the weird part is.. right after full charge, i reboot and then it jumped from 3:45hrs to 4:30 to 6:01hrs left. as soon as i opened up firefox, all else starts to drop.

i'm running the following:
PC tool firewall plus
avast!
firefox with no script and adblock addon
energy saver mode with LCD brightness dropped down to only 6 green bars.

i don't know what else could be causing it. i've even done a full systems update and still nada. this computer is only less than a month old and battery life is really crapping on my honeymoon buzz with my x200.

[ahlip]

I'm using a X200 with 6-cell. My experience is that the estimated batt time left in the indicator is based on your previous energy usage history, so once you start to run some high-power sapping applications, the estimate drops bigtime as it extrapolates that to your future usage (within the same batt cycle).

For accuracy, just use the batt until its nearly drained (<5%). Then you will realistically know what is the amount of batt life you can get. I am getting around 5 hours on the 6 cell with wireless on. But I do change the power profile to "CPU - lowest". That gets a lot of extra batt time. Lowering LCD brightness also helps significantly.

[eosme]

I'm using a X200 with 6-cell. My experience is that the estimated batt time left in the indicator is based on your previous energy usage history, so once you start to run some high-power sapping applications, the estimate drops bigtime as it extrapolates that to your future usage (within the same batt cycle).

For accuracy, just use the batt until its nearly drained (<5%). Then you will realistically know what is the amount of batt life you can get. I am getting around 5 hours on the 6 cell with wireless on. But I do change the power profile to "CPU - lowest". That gets a lot of extra batt time. Lowering LCD brightness also helps significantly.

have you try resetting the battery meter? i saw in the power manager that you can reset the meter.

i'll try out your suggestion and let it run all the way down to 5%. the hard part is, the battery meter only shows the estimate time left on the battery. anyway i can change it to show the percentage?

[ahlip]

have you try resetting the battery meter? i saw in the power manager that you can reset the meter.

i'll try out your suggestion and let it run all the way down to 5%. the hard part is, the battery meter only shows the estimate time left on the battery. anyway i can change it to show the percentage?

Nope, no reset done b4... my machine is fairly new only abt 3 months.

There are at least 2 options available - percentage left or est time left. You can change them from the power manager options page. There is a hidden 3rd option to display the current power consumption in amperes, but I believe that requires a registry key mod.

[eosme]

Nope, no reset done b4... my machine is fairly new only abt 3 months.

There are at least 2 options available - percentage left or est time left. You can change them from the power manager options page. There is a hidden 3rd option to display the current power consumption in amperes, but I believe that requires a registry key mod.

thx. i just found out the easiest way was to right click on the battery icon and select the percentage.

[TJMacGyver]

I just wanted to bring my sad story to the table

I haven an x200 running of the smallest battery (capacity ~27w)
I'm running windows 7 and it only last for just over an our.
I just checked the power manager, and my system actually uses between 17-23 watts even on battery stretch

I could get my X61s down to about 10-12 watts running xp, so why is this machine pulling so much more?

/TJmacGyver

[eosme]

I just wanted to bring my sad story to the table

I haven an x200 running of the smallest battery (capacity ~27w)
I'm running windows 7 and it only last for just over an our.
I just checked the power manager, and my system actually uses between 17-23 watts even on battery stretch

I could get my X61s down to about 10-12 watts running xp, so why is this machine pulling so much more?

/TJmacGyver

did you try dropping the CPU down to the lowest?

with my 6 cell and cpu at the lowest and LCD brightness at middle, i can only use 3.5 hrs. now that's really sad on vista business.

[donzoomik]

I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 SP2 clean install and i easily achieve 5h plus. Just get rid on factory install, because they tend to be horrible.

[eosme]

I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 SP2 clean install and i easily achieve 5h plus. Just get rid on factory install, because they tend to be horrible.

i'm waiting for Windows 7's offical release to do the clean install. i've read good feedback about running win7 for long hours.

[TJMacGyver]

i'm waiting for Windows 7's offical release to do the clean install. i've read good feedback about running win7 for long hours.

Deffinetly not from me I have just done a clean install of Windows 7 64bit RTM, and I can only get about an hour on the 4 cell. The lowest wattage I have seen it draw on battery is ~17w and the highest is 27w

[eosme]

Deffinetly not from me I have just done a clean install of Windows 7 64bit RTM, and I can only get about an hour on the 4 cell. The lowest wattage I have seen it draw on battery is ~17w and the highest is 27w

holy cow... that's horrible if only 1hr on a 4 cell. probably only 2.5 on my 6 cell.

perhaps, the admin here can make a sticky so users can post up their model x200 with what cell and what OS and based on what configuration in the power manager setting to achieve the hours.

[visionviper]

i'm waiting for Windows 7's offical release to do the clean install. i've read good feedback about running win7 for long hours.

It is released, just not to retail yet

OEMs already have it and the TechNet/MSDN subscribers will be able to get their hands on it August 6th.

Those of us with MSDNAA access though will probably have to wait until retail like most people

Speaking of... I can't wait to see the Windows 7 forum lose the word "Beta"