UNSOLVED

Hemant.M.S

updated

20 years ago

HM

Hemant.M.S

46 Posts

0

14172

February 18th, 2007 23:00

Vista and battery life ??

I upgraded to Vista ultimate. the Battery which was coming for 4 hrs approx (on hig battery life mode) now comes for max 1.45 hrs... !!  i know vista has lots of graphics and all... but any way to increase battery life.. !!
  • flamenko

    336 Posts

    555

    0

    Posted February 18th, 2007 23:00

    Welcome to the new Vista!!!  If I turn all the toys off on Ultimate (Sidebar/Aeroglass/quikset/lower brightness/etc)  I can pull 2 hours out of my brand new extended 85wh XPS battery.
     
    Ive heard others brag about 7 hrs with XP...  I just wanna watch one full DVD!!!
     
    Ide like to see this thread become a comparison amongst users with tips though
  • MaximusHQ

    218 Posts

    555

    0

    Posted February 19th, 2007 01:00

    I am lucky to get a an hour on my laptop with a 6 cell battery with Vista. It basically cut my run time in half over XP. Now if someone would design longer running batteries that are reasonably priced we could be happy. I can't wait to see how much power the next windows will use. Maybe we are heading towards nuclear powered laptops.
  • flamenko

    336 Posts

    555

    0

    Posted February 19th, 2007 02:00

    You answered your own concern with the letters AMD.  The processor has alot to do with it.  When I was in NYC last Dec, I saw a sign near times square.  It was adding up the energy saved through use of AMD processors which made me curious.
     
    I subsequently read an article that hyped AMD processors demonstrating that they can get as much as twice the battery life from portable laptops....
     
    This is the first real life example I would probably relate this too though
     
    SIDENOTE:  What would be nice is for posters to state if their system is on performance/balanced or power saver mode and if they shut anthing off such as sidebar/quikset/adjust brightness/bluetooth/network etc...and then state their maximum batt life...
     
    Oh a, dont forget to ID the size batt you have.


    Message Edited by flamenko on 02-18-2007 10:19 PM
  • pcgeek11

    2 Intern

    1874 Posts

    555

    0

    Posted February 19th, 2007 02:00

    That is strange. I have the 6 cell battery on 1501 AMD processor MK36 single core and I get roughly the same battery life ( about 3 hours ) as I was with MCE 2005. And I usually keep it set to Max Performance even on batteries.
     
    pcgeek11
  • MaximusHQ

    218 Posts

    555

    0

    Posted February 19th, 2007 09:00

    pcgeek are you running all the effects like aero glass and also is your wireless enabled and screen brightness up. I actually have an AMD ml-32 processor and run wireless and screen brightness on full. With xp I could get about two hours but now about 1 with vista. I didn't mention that the laptop is a compaq not a dell and it will also be the last compaq I ever buy as it is el cheapo. I do have 4 dell desktop computers, two of which will get vista installed or probably a dual boot with xp and vista. oh the option is on balanced, but the ati video is on max acceleration.

    Message Edited by MaximusHQ on 02-19-2007 05:55 AM
  • pcgeek11

    2 Intern

    1874 Posts

    555

    0

    Posted February 19th, 2007 11:00

    MaximusHQ
     
    Yes I am running in Max performance mode, Max Brightness on the LCD, Wireless adapter on, Aero Glass effects with the Sidebar running with 3 Gadgets, and the video at full acceleration.
     
    I ran it unplugged tonight for just short of three hours ( 2 hours and 50 minutes ) and it still was showing the battery at 30%. During the time I was surfing the web, and I burned a 500 MB CDR. I think it would have gone over three hours if I hadn't needed to bail out for work.
     
    Granted the time may have been shortened had I been watching a DVD or playing a game.
     
    The notebook is also only two months old, as that would also have some bearing.
  • flamenko

    336 Posts

    555

    0

    Posted February 19th, 2007 12:00

    Is there a specific way to adjust the acceleration of Video ( you stated running at full acceleration).  I have been having trouble lately with playback of video or live streaming ... it always seems to be buffering which then stops and starts the video (pain in the but).  I am on cable internet so its not the connection.
  • Rounder1984

    13 Posts

    555

    0

    Posted February 19th, 2007 13:00

    Just switch to Power Saver mode in Windows Mobility Center.  I get about 2.5 - 3 hrs with my new Inspiron 6400(and that's with nothing disabled).  Don't expect to get full battery potential if you are running the goodies.  i could probably pump out about 4 hours off the battery if I really wanted to.  Play with the settings in Mobility Center, that's what it is there for. :)
  • flamenko

    336 Posts

    91

    0

    Posted February 19th, 2007 15:00

    The update driver is posted by Dell for this graphics adapter.... Im hoping the prob with my video lies in the background activity which I believe is because I am still using RC2; there is alot of debugging utilities and whatnot for tracking and recording events.
     
    Tx though for taking the time...
  • MaximusHQ

    218 Posts

    555

    0

    Posted February 19th, 2007 15:00

    Don't know about yours, but mine is an ATI 200m graphics. I installed the vista drivers directly from ATI and on mine they were found under driver downloads in the vista 32 bit, integrated/motherboard since mine is integrated. They work fine and give you the ati catalyst control center where a lot of stuff can adjusted including something called powerplay where you are able to choose max performance or max battery life. If you have a nvidia video graphics I would look it up on nvidia.com and see if they have a compatible version as those will likely have more options than the dell drivers. At least the last time I tried dell's nvidia drivers some years back they were limited very much compared to the nvidia.com ones.

    Message Edited by MaximusHQ on 02-19-2007 11:19 AM