New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Battery Life Time

post #1 of 19
1/30/04 at 7:49am
Thread Starter 
Hi guys!

I tested my battery today. I shut it down unpluged it from the wall made a reboot and played Rise of Nations (needs mutch power) for about 50 minutes (battery was at 24% after this) then i played UT 2003 for about 10 minutes then the battery was down at 3%. So it lasted togehther for an hour. I had every powersaving options dissabled. after that i plugged it in again but it didn't recharge the battery. I resettet the battery but this didnt help, so i took out my manuall and started to read everything about how to handle the battery, when i looked back to my alienware after about 10 minutes it had started to recharge the battery..strange. Had someone the same problem?

Mfg Christoph
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 19
1/30/04 at 8:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ich
Hi guys!

I tested my battery today. I shut it down unpluged it from the wall made a reboot and played Rise of Nations (needs mutch power) for about 50 minutes (battery was at 24% after this) then i played UT 2003 for about 10 minutes then the battery was down at 3%. So it lasted togehther for an hour. I had every powersaving options dissabled. after that i plugged it in again but it didn't recharge the battery. I resettet the battery but this didnt help, so i took out my manuall and started to read everything about how to handle the battery, when i looked back to my alienware after about 10 minutes it had started to recharge the battery..strange. Had someone the same problem?

Mfg Christoph

If you allowed your laptop to drain completely to shutdown, the battery settings go a little weird. I experienced this with my Alienware and my last laptop which was a Compaq.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 19
1/30/04 at 10:36am
Be sure to condition your battery several times. Once cycle would be to charge it to 100% then drain it completely. Recharge and drain again. I did one cycle a night for the first 6 nights I had the laptop and my battery is lasting me incredibly long.

-Craig
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 19
1/30/04 at 1:55pm
One important thing that I have noticed is that if your computer is warm or hot (such as just having played a game) the computer seems to be programmed to wait for the battery to cool before charging it. That's my assumption anyway because I know mine won't charge if it's hot but when I come back later it's always charging it's little heart out god bless it. Hey Craig, I know how to charge to 100% obviously, but when draining it completely do you just leave it on until it shuts itself off or what? let me know so that I can properly condition my batteries. Thanks dude.

Buliwyf
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 19
1/30/04 at 2:55pm
Thread Starter 
Thanx for the replys, the 'hot theory' seems logical to me because i thought the same for a moment , as i took it out to reset it it was very hot!
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 19
1/30/04 at 3:15pm
It makes good sense to me and seems to be a logical assumption since the battery always charges later. Since I'm not a techie type I can't say for sure but as long as it works I'm not going to worry about it too much.

Buliwyf
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 19
1/30/04 at 4:34pm
Buliwyf,

Ya man...just let the machine run so low it shuts to hibernate mode.

Be sure to go into Control Panel>>Power Settings and set the laptop to hibernate at around 5% power for the conditioning phases. You can always raise it higher once you've cycled your battery for a week or so.

-Craig
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 19
2/18/04 at 6:31pm
Can you elaborate on the battery conditioning thing please? So you pretty much just play a game or whatever until it goes into hibernate and then re-charge it again?
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 19
2/18/04 at 11:37pm
SS,
That's right. Drain your battery as low as it will go and recharge it fully. I did this once a night for the first 10 days or so and am getting crazy charge times.

Enjoy

-Craig
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 19
2/19/04 at 1:22am
Craig how long does your battery last. Before I sent mine in the longest i had was about 2:45 playing mp3 at full volume.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 19
2/19/04 at 10:04am
I agree with Xanthony, please tell us how long! I'd do it for just "crazy" charge times, but knowing how long would be nice Also, if you do it enough, does the battery life not extend anymore? Anyway, when I DO get my Aw I'm doing this for sure!
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 19
2/19/04 at 11:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by S.S.Mario
I agree with Xanthony, please tell us how long! I'd do it for just "crazy" charge times, but knowing how long would be nice Also, if you do it enough, does the battery life not extend anymore? Anyway, when I DO get my Aw I'm doing this for sure!
You just drain it till its almost dead (just don't plug it in when you're using it, or do what Craig did and do it overnight) then recharge it all the way and repeat several times (maybe 5, 6 or even more). It's really good to do this with any type of rechargable battery (electric razors, iPods, etc), as it extends the batteries life as well as the length the power lasts each time. It also lessons the life if you recharge the battery before it's all the way dead but this isn't as noticable and usually convenience is just more important (batteries kinda have they're own learning curve so to speak). You'll really notice this on things like Palms, or Pocket PCs because people put them in a cradle every night, that's why the batteries usually only last a year or two on alot of them. I'll usually disconnect the power from the cradle, and then just recharge once every week or so, the first one I had I didn't do this and the battery only lasted about a year, my current one is over 2 years old and is almost as good as new.

One other side note for the Alienwares, I've seen a couple side threads that when the AW is drained all the way, it will not start charging right away. I believe they said it was because it will not start the charge until the batterie cools first, or something. Just keep that in mind if it doesn't start the charge right away.
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 19
2/19/04 at 11:52am
Speaking of battery power and such...is there any way to disable the screen-dimming when u unplug and goto battery power?
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 19
2/19/04 at 5:50pm
Thanks LurkingJayhawk! That explains alot about linthium ion batterys... and why my cell phone's life span is so short
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 19
2/19/04 at 6:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by S.S.Mario
Thanks LurkingJayhawk! That explains alot about linthium ion batterys... and why my cell phone's life span is so short
Yeah, I learned alot more about it when I dropped about $550 on an iPaq Pocket PC and the battery only lasted about 13 months (The waranty was 12 months) before it wouldn't even hold a charge overnight. I kept it in the cradle. It makes a cute paper weight now. Since finding out about that, I have a palm (specifically black/white for the battery) that I charge when its down to about 20%. After 2 years, it holds a charge for 2-3 weeks. Anyways, I did a quick search and found this site (don't know what the sites for, but it's what I've read in the past) that kind of explains it. It talks about "memory effect" which is what I mentioned about recharging before dead. It also mentioned not leave on a charger for more than 24 hours.

http://www.cellpower.com/battery_tips.cfm
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 19
2/19/04 at 6:51pm
Cool! Hmm.. I've gotta remember not to charge my game-boy battery so often....
(Long live [the original] Nintendo!)
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 19
2/19/04 at 8:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hornet
Speaking of battery power and such...is there any way to disable the screen-dimming when u unplug and goto battery power?
I was waiting to see if anyone else answered, because I don't have a laptop yet, and I Use 98 at home.

I think you can change that in the power schemes (settings). In 98 it's in Control Panel>Power Management or Control Panel>Display>Screen Saver>Settings

Xp is different, there may be a power icon on you task bar in the bottom right corner as well. Or look in the control panel
Reply
Reply
post #18 of 19
2/19/04 at 9:36pm
nope
Reply
Reply
post #19 of 19
2/20/04 at 12:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hornet
nope
I read this on the dell forum, it might be what you need. I've never used the program, but once I get my laptop, I probably will.

Also, since I haven't used the program, I don't know if it in anyway involves "Clocking" the system as far as a warranty goes? Read up on it first
http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/
http://www.diefer.de/software/sswitchxp130.exe

Quote:
Originally Posted by alittlefly
This is what gives it such good bat life. My 8600 clocks down when not pluged in.

"SpeedswitchXP is a small applet that sits in the system tray and allows dynamic switching of the frequencies of mobile Intel and mobile AMD CPUs under Windows XP. During the development of Windows XP, Microsoft decided to integrate dynamic frequency switching into the operating system itself. On a default Windows XP installation, the power schemes in the power settings of the system panel control the frequencies of the processor. On Windows 2000 and previous operating systems, it was possible to manually control the CPU frequencies with a SpeedStep applet provided by Intel, but this is not possible anymore under Windows XP. It is not very good documented what the different Windows XP power schemes do and it is impossible to fully adjust the schemes as the important settings are not accessible through the control panel.

SpeedswitchXP tries to fill this gap in that it provides access to ALL power scheme settings. This small applet is similar in functionality to the native Intel SpeedStep applet for Windows 9x/ME and Windows 2000 but with a few more options.

Basically all it does is creating a power scheme under the power settings in the system panel and making this the default power scheme for Windows XP. When this is done, you can control all settings of this new scheme through the applet.

Since this program is using Windows XP's internal processor performance control functions, it should work on all notebooks that feature dynamic speed switching".

http://www.diefer.de/software/sswitchxp130.exe
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Alienware General