64 bit Windows 7 and battery life

[adrianaitken]

I've installed it on my X61 (and upgraded the RAM to 8 GB) but the battery life is abismal. Getting 2 hours from my 8 cell battery would be a luxury. When running XP Pro (32 bit) , I would often get double that.
I should point out I have the brightness up and no 'power saving' settings - I have a powerful laptop and so want it to run fast. I realise that eats batteries but still, it seems awfully low.
Does anyone else run 64 bit and have the same issues ?

[matram]

What kind of wattage do you see in the Power Manager.

My T400s with 32 bit Win 7 shows about 11-12 Watt being consumed with light load. This is about the same or slightly less than for my old X61s running XP.

If I set performance to maximum I get double the consumption.

Of course then it depends on the capacity of your battery. My T400s has about 43 while the X61s has 66 WattHours.

I can not see that there should be a substantial difference between 32 and 64 bit?

Mats

[adrianaitken]

Hi, it says 72watts. I've just put a brand new 4 cell battery in, fully charged says 32watts and just lettng it run the battery down (ie not doing anything), it lasted 2.5 hours !! I think my 8 cell has either taken a nose dive or Windows 7 can't read it properly.

[matram]

Based on your four cell battery this indicates 12.8 W consumption which I would say is reasonable.

Your 8 cell battery may have lost capacity due to many charge cycles. You should be able to see this in PowerManager.

I tend to buy a new battery after 3 - 400 cycles when capacity is down 30% or so.

What is surprising is the 72 WattHours from your 8 cell?

PowerManager should show both initial design capacity (new battery) and also the actual current maximum capacity which will be lower and lower as you use the battery.

It sound like you need a new 8 cell battery.

Mats