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Poor battery life

post #1 of 16
11/7/05 at 4:04pm
Thread Starter 
I got my Inspiron 6000 about 4 months ago. It's the basic Inspiron 6000 with the regular battery and WXGA screen. I can barely get 2 - 2 1/2 hours worth of battery time with this laptop. I'll charge my battery completely and then take it off of the charger. After about 30 minutes the battery display will show about 1/2 full. Also the battery % will be at about 93% and then about 5 minutes later, it'll jump down to 87%. Does this sound normal?? The only thing I have running is the WIFI. Any opinions??
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post #2 of 16
11/7/05 at 4:19pm
What brightness do you have your screen at? The supposed 3 hr battery life is with the screen brightness turned way down, so at full brightness, you'll get a significantly shorter battery life.
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post #3 of 16
11/7/05 at 4:19pm
Well did you get a program called centrino hardware console. Try to set the laptop on the 600mhz at the lowest voltage you can.
Also try to lower screen brightness, going all the way down really saves the battery.
I have the same laptop as yourself, and i get about 8 hours of battery life if i turn everything off (except for wifi).
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post #4 of 16
11/7/05 at 4:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by osofast
I have the same laptop as yourself, and i get about 8 hours of battery life if i turn everything off (except for wifi).
8 hrs? You must have a 9-volt battery, right?
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post #5 of 16
11/7/05 at 4:30pm
8hrs? impossible.


i have a 9cell and get at most 5.5hrs.
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post #6 of 16
11/7/05 at 4:35pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keane3
What brightness do you have your screen at? The supposed 3 hr battery life is with the screen brightness turned way down, so at full brightness, you'll get a significantly shorter battery life.
I'm not sure what my brightness is set at but, the brightness level seems pretty low on my screen. The WXGA screen is so grainy that turning down the brightness any lower on this screen will make it impossible to see anything.
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post #7 of 16
11/7/05 at 4:36pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by osofast
Well did you get a program called centrino hardware console. Try to set the laptop on the 600mhz at the lowest voltage you can.
Also try to lower screen brightness, going all the way down really saves the battery.
I have the same laptop as yourself, and i get about 8 hours of battery life if i turn everything off (except for wifi).
Where would I go about downloading this centrino hardware console?? Also, what exactly does turning down the voltage do?? Any harmful effects to my laptop??
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post #8 of 16
11/7/05 at 4:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by swy81
I'm not sure what my brightness is set at but, the brightness level seems pretty low on my screen. The WXGA screen is so grainy that turning down the brightness any lower on this screen will make it impossible to see anything.
If you press the Fn and the up/down arrow keys, a yellow bar should come on the screen and show you the level of brightness. I leave mine turned up all the way whether I'm plugged in or on battery because otherwise it's just too dark.
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post #9 of 16
11/7/05 at 5:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keane3
8 hrs? You must have a 9-volt battery, right?
small car battery!
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post #10 of 16
11/7/05 at 7:44pm
wow, didn't think it was that weird. I do have a 9 cell battery. But i turn off everything (e.g. the cd/dvd drive, firewire, lan etc).

Not too sure if this makes a difference, but my laptop cpu runs at about 28 degrees when iam just doing my work on it (no movies), so i turn off the fan and i have the hard drive reduce its speed via centrino hardware console.

Btw, the time i posted is just internet browsing/typing things out. I havn't really been watching any movies on the go so iam not too sure how battery life would suffer in that case.
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post #11 of 16
11/7/05 at 7:54pm
found it

http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm
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post #12 of 16
11/7/05 at 9:04pm

battery

I get considerably more time and I do not have the brightness turned down. I did opt for the battery upgrade so maybe there is a considerable difference there. I think I get about 4 hours, depending on what I'm doing.
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post #13 of 16
11/7/05 at 10:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by chevyrulz099
8hrs? impossible.


i have a 9cell and get at most 5.5hrs.
8hrs - no way

I have a 9cell battery and I can get maybe 5 hours.

Lou
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post #14 of 16
11/7/05 at 11:13pm
It seems that there is alot of resistance to the idea of 8 hours of battery life. Its not too hard to achieve, if you set the monitor to 16 bit instead of 32 bit color, reduce brightness, turn off all the hardware you're not using (e.g. cd/usb/firewire/lan/bluetooth etc).
It is important to realize that iam using the laptop mostly for word processing and internet usage, usually no music.
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post #15 of 16
11/8/05 at 12:42am
from what ive heard, setting monitor to 16-bit takes more power for some odd reason.

you are not getting 8 hrs. no way. when i first bought my lappy, i did what you suggest, and only achieved 5.5

get real.
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post #16 of 16
11/8/05 at 2:54am
I have all that done plus having 1 gig of ram, and having undervolted my computer to .700 \ 0.956 and I can barely get 4:30 out of it with the screen set to 3 from the bottom, and all hardware except wi-fi and the CD/DVD drive turned ooff.
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