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Problems with the battery work-time on I6000!!!

post #1 of 20
3/23/06 at 3:25pm
Thread Starter 
Hello!!

Here is the specs of my Dell Inspiron 6000:

Pentium M 1.73 MHz 533 FSB
1 GB Ram
100 GB Hard Disk
15.4 inch WXGA LCD Panel
ATI Radeon X300 128 MB Memory
CD/DVD Burner

I´m having problems with the duration of my battery. I have a 6 cell battery. When I´m running on battery power I can hardly work 2 hours. Only with doc processing, email, or internet, no video or audio playing. The brightness of the LCD set to a level 3!!. I think something is wrong!!

What I can do to increase the battery duration?? how can I work more time when on batteries??

PLEASE HELP. THANKS A LOT.
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post #2 of 20
3/23/06 at 6:20pm
The best option if you're willing to spend some money is to buy the 9-cell battery. It will definitely show a noticeable increase in your battery runtime.

You can also download a software called Centrino Hardware Control and underclock and undervolt your CPU.

I run my Inspiron 6000 at a constant speed of 1.006GHz with a CPU undervoltage of 0.908V when running off the battery and I get 4-5 hours of runtime when I'm only doing office work and Internet with the LCD brightness turned down by 2 notches.
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post #3 of 20
3/23/06 at 6:23pm
Can you simply change the settings to the settings you have specified for the CPU undervoltage or is it different for everyone? I have the program you listed, but am not sure on how to select the voltage for each clock speed. Thanks!
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post #4 of 20
3/23/06 at 8:57pm
Thread Starter 
I have the same problem that Storino03, I have the software Notebook Hardware Control, but I don´t know how to do the undervolting. Actually, I really don´t want to do anything wrong, ´cause I don´t want to cause more problems!!! Any ideas please?, any site where I can find a guide or something similar to help me through the undervolting process??
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post #5 of 20
3/24/06 at 2:18am
anyone know?
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post #6 of 20
3/24/06 at 3:14pm
The guide on how to undervolt and underclock your P-M CPU is here:

http://www.pbus-167.com/chc_guid.htm

And read this too:

http://www.pbus-167.com/chc_faq.htm

Since you have the same CPU as mine, the P-M 1.73ghz, perhaps you can try my voltage settings. They are:

Multiplier 6x = 0.812V
Multiplier 8x = 0.908 V
Multiplier 9x = 0.956 V
Multiplier 10x = 1.020 V
Multiplier 11x = 1.068 V
Multiplier 12x = 1.116 V
Multiplier 13x = 1.148 V

I set these voltage settings after many stability tests I've run on my laptop while multitasking. You set these voltage settings under the "CPU Voltage" tab.

Under the "CPU Speed" tab, I set the AC operation to "Max. Performance" and battery operation to "Dynamic Switching."

I enabled the "Enable Custom Dynamic Switching" option and for the battery operation part, I set the min. multiplier to 6x with min. load of 0%. For the Max. multiplier, I set it to 8x with Max. Load of 10%.

What this does is that it runs your CPU at 1.07ghz all the time with a voltage of 0.908 V. When your plug in your AC adapter, then your CPU goes to full speed at 1.73ghz.

I chose 1.07ghz because I found it to offer the best balance of battery-power savings + good performance when multi-tasking on the battery.
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post #7 of 20
3/24/06 at 3:50pm
Why would someone set the cpu to a constant frequency and not use speedstep?
If you would have set the highest to use multiplier in nhc to a value that matches 1ghz and use dynamic switching you would have the 1ghz if you need it but safe more energy at 800 (with 533 fsb cpus) or 600 (with 400 fsb cpus) when idle.

So locking the frequency (at lest if it is not the slowest possible) still is a waste of energy.
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post #8 of 20
3/24/06 at 3:51pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks a lot optimummind, I know you must have had a lot of work before you found the correct values, so I really appreciate you share with me your settings. Thanks a lot.

As you said we have the same CPU, so I will try your settings and will let you know how the computer works. Here we go!!!
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post #9 of 20
3/24/06 at 9:12pm
trial an error is all it takes. there are no "Wrong" V settings.

if it doesnt like it it wont work.

but, i have the 1.6 PM 533, and i have my 6x set to .700v, and the rest (yes 8-12) set to .988.

no worries.

high temp before was 55c, high temp now is 45.

no battery effect.
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post #10 of 20
3/26/06 at 1:16pm
Why would you set 8-12 to all the same voltage? I guess it doesn't really make that much of a difference most of the time since you're usually at 6x or full, but there are some times where you're sitting at 30-50% load with an app that could use a middle multiplier. In that case it'd help to run 8x at it's own lower voltage and 12x. I step mine up for voltage steps for each multiplier and it works pretty well. It looks similar to optimummind except I start out at .700 at 6x and go up from there. I noticed a decent battery increase of about 30 minutes when on medium light settings doing wireless internet browsing.
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post #11 of 20
3/26/06 at 4:31pm
i set them that way just because i didnt want to do the trial an error, but lower them. the Overall effect was achieved doing it this way. it keeps it cooler, and i dont have to mess with it.

since ive done this ive actually set the computer to use either 6x/12x, and nothing more. when its plugged in it doesnt really matter anyways, and when its on battery it uses what it uses.
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post #12 of 20
3/26/06 at 10:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by egalus
Why would someone set the cpu to a constant frequency and not use speedstep?
If you would have set the highest to use multiplier in nhc to a value that matches 1ghz and use dynamic switching you would have the 1ghz if you need it but safe more energy at 800 (with 533 fsb cpus) or 600 (with 400 fsb cpus) when idle.
As I already explained in my post, running the CPU at 800mhz and multi-tasking with all the programs I usually have open, the system slows down. I notice the lagging so I run it at 1.0ghz where there are no intermittent hiccups.

These are the programs I have open at all times: Firefox 1.5.01 with 20 tabs, Azureus (BT client) with something always being downloaded or uploaded, Microsoft Word 2003, Internet Explorer (1 window), ZoneAlarm Pro firewall, Kaspersky anti-virus with real-time running, windows media player, Intel Wireless, and Dell Quickset.

My minimum CPU speed is 800mhz (6 x 133mhz) and it can't handle the multi-tasking and 1.0ghz is the next step.
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post #13 of 20
3/26/06 at 11:48pm
Instead of NHC, i use RMclock which is a bit easier to you and lighter on loadup. I run a PM2.0.
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post #14 of 20
3/27/06 at 1:43am
main reason i use NHC 1.10 beta two is because it has an option to display the cpu load with little bars, and you can group everything in the clock taskbar.

other than that, and undervolting, i have no real need.
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post #15 of 20
3/27/06 at 11:01am
In my experience, i get better battery life when my Centrino-wireless card is activated. Turning off your bluetooth will not neccessarily extend the battery life either.
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post #16 of 20
3/27/06 at 2:08pm
main thing for battery life, no matter what anyone says is the screen brightness, and maybe cpu clock...other than that, there is very little to be gained. turning a wifi card off will maybe get you 10min.
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post #17 of 20
3/28/06 at 2:44am
Well in my case i never got past 4+ hours with my 9-cell on basic wireless, only 2+ screen brightness and undervolted CPU.
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post #18 of 20
3/28/06 at 1:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by chevyrulz099
turning a wifi card off will maybe get you 10min.
Really? I have always noticed a large difference in batterylife with WiFi off. Anybody else?
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post #19 of 20
3/28/06 at 2:04pm
large? cant be too much.

overall im happy with the 4.5+ hours i get surfing web in school. now when i do PS cs2 stuff, thats another story (:
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post #20 of 20
3/28/06 at 2:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by chevyrulz099
large? cant be too much.

overall im happy with the 4.5+ hours i get surfing web in school. now when i do PS cs2 stuff, thats another story (:
Sorry to disagree again, but you are just seeing black and white.
Only cause you don't see a great difference in runtime does not mean others might not see something different.
How much energy your wifi card consumes largely depends on
a) how much you use transmit (as this consumes more power than receiving) and
b) how good the working conditions are.

If you are near the accesspoint you need less energy for wifi than you would need in a "bad" distance to the accesspoint as your card will adjust (at least as far as it can) to the conditions and will raise it's transmitting power accordingly, which will lead to a "nice" raise in powerconsumption.
In bad situations you can easily gain 30 minutes if wifi is turned off.

Bluetooth is a bit different as it only transmits at about 1mW transmitting power while wifi uses approximately 100mW, so you won't gain that much with turning off bluetooth - in fact I can reach about 5 minutes more on runtime when using a bluetooth mouse instead of a usb mouse on my laptop
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