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Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming - correct battery?
Have just bought a new Inspiron 15 Gaming and noticed that the battery doesn't seem to last nearly as long as the reviews I read. I haven't done a formal check but seem to get only around 4 hours of use, and not particularly hard use (I don't use it for gaming or much in the way of graphics) as it's for business.
Is there any way of checking whether the battery is actually the battery that the configuation says it is? This should be a 451-BBPZ : 74 WHr, 6-Cell Battery (Integrated). I would expect a 74 WHr battery to last a full working day, especially when new. I guess I could take off the bottom cover to check but wondered if there was some other way. There didn't seem to be anything in the BIOS that identifies the battery.
I should add that I'm running Linux.
ejn63
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November 9th, 2017 03:00
Your power management settings should list the battery type - there's only one for this model. And 4-5 hours is about all you'll ever get from a gaming system like this - especially if it has an i7 CPU and/or a 4K screen.
Even the 97 WHr battery in the XPS 9560 doesn't do much more than 6 hr. with integrated video and a 1080p screen.
If you're looking for all-day battery run, get a system with the smallest, lowest resolution screen you can live with -- and an i3 or Celeron CPU.
sofistek
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November 9th, 2017 20:00
Thanks for that. I thought I'd checked the power management settings in Linux but obviously not as the battery type listed there is very close to the product number of the battery shown in my system configuration in Dell support (which has two less numbers in it). So it should be a 74 WHr 6 cell battery. According to this review that should give me over 11 hours use for continuous web browsing over wi-fi: www.laptopmag.com/.../dell-inspiron-15-7000 and my work isn't too far removed from that, though I do, from time to time, run databases, local web servers, for testing, and some software development tools (which is just glorified text editing). So I would expect it to last at least 7 hours on a charge. In fact, a new high capacity battery on my old Lenovo laptop did just that.
Battery life wasn't at the top of my list and I can live with using the laptop plugged in most of the time but it is a little disappointing, given the reviews (the one linked above was typical of the ones I found on battery life).
sofistek
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November 12th, 2017 15:00
OK, I checked the back and it is the right battery. Although "normal" Inspiron 15 7000 laptops come with a lower rated battery (max 4 cell 54 WHr), the gaming laptop comes with an uprated battery (6 cell 74 WHr). To me, this implies that the gaming laptop battery should last significantly longer than a standard similarly configured gaming machine. If I'm only getting about 4 hours for a modestly used laptop with the larger battery, I hate to think what users of the lower rated battery laptop get, especially as those are touch enabled (the gaming laptop isn't). It's a modest resolution (1080p), no touch, and undemanding use, so I have to ask whether 4 hours seems reasonable or whether I should ask for a replacement battery.
sofistek
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November 15th, 2017 02:00
Well, it looks like Linux is the problem. I switched back to Windows and have been running on the battery for the last 6-7 hours, with stil a third of the battery capacity left. I had been also running Linux on my previous (Lenovo) laptop without that severe drain being noticeable, which fooled me into thinking there was a battery issue.
I guess I will have to run with Windows if I want to have a decent battery life. Or find a Linux distro more optimised for laptops. Shame, as I use Linux for most of my work, but will have to run in a VM (which doesn't seem to have the same battery draining effect).