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D620 battery life

post #1 of 8
12/17/06 at 5:03pm
Thread Starter 
So I'm becoming more and more underwhelmed by my D620. The screen is REALLLY crap (but I won't bore everyone with that again). It's ugy. It's quite heavy and bulky. And now I'm increasingly aware of the short run time when on battery. I use NHC and only manage to squeeze about 2hrs 15mins out of it. The thing is, I read a few reviews lately and notice that their review models manage double that. So is something wrong? I'm talking about the six cell battery here, but that's the same as in the reviews. The only difference I can see is that they have the core2duo whereas I have the core duo. I checked with a mate who has exactly the same model as me and he only gets 'a couple of hours' from his too.
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post #2 of 8
12/18/06 at 3:05am
hmm thats short time youve got.

mine is Core Duo T2500, 1GB ram, intel gma945, 80GB 5400rpm, WXGA+ LCD, and ive got 3-4 hours on 6cell battery. although - straigjt from dell ive got sth over 2 hours so i suppose you haven't done clean reinstall?
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post #3 of 8
12/18/06 at 6:17pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for your replay Ayem.

My spec is not so different from yours. It is T2300, core duo with 1GB RAM, 80GB HD but a Nvidia video card. I am wondering whether perhaps I don't have a 6 cell battery, maybe it is only four. Does anyone know how I can check? Also is it possible that the Nvidia video card is draining the battery more? This laptop is only about 2 months old so there really shouldn't be that much battery wear. It has never been any different to this anyway.
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post #4 of 8
12/18/06 at 6:25pm
Thread Starter 
In case anyone can help with this I downloaded battery eater pro and here is what it says about my battery. I think it must be the 6 cell because of the power rating, no?

Main Battery Info
Device Name DELL GD7756 Manufacture SMP Serial #
Unique ID 1991SMPDELL GD7756 Chemistry Lithium Ion Temperature Termal Control Not Present Designed Capacity 57720mWh Full Charged Capacity 48463mWh Designed Voltage 10.8V Current Voltage 11.173V Manufacture Date 0/0/0 Cycles Count 0 Cells count 3 Force charge support Not Supported Force discharge support Not Supported
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post #5 of 8
12/20/06 at 4:01am
You have the 6-cell battery. It has some battery wear, it's current capacity is 48463mWh (48Wh) whereas it was originally 57720mWh (Dell specs it as 56Wh).

The nvidia NVS 110m definitely uses more power than the intel integrated graphics. You can monitor the power consumption on battery using programs like Notebook Hardware Control (NHC) or Mobilemeter.

My D620 at medium screen brightness, wifi-on and everything set to max power savings uses between 18-19W. I'd guess an intel integrated graphics D620 would pull about 15W with the same settings (maybe someone could verify this?).

Good thing about the D620 is it has extra battery options. I bought the extended 9-cell battery and the modular bay battery off ebay (a lot cheaper), with both of those i get 6-7 hours.
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post #6 of 8
12/20/06 at 7:46am
I experience great battery life with my D620.

Make sure Dell's Quickset is installed and you will experience great battery life.
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post #7 of 8
12/20/06 at 2:55pm
Thread Starter 
Well thanks for the replies.

I probably should have added some more detail in my post, to clarify, I have Dell Quickset installed, it doesn't make any difference. I have done a clean install of XP, in fact I have a dual boot with XP and windows 2000 but both have approximately the same two hour battery life maximum. I have NHC installed on the XP partition and it is set up to max battery. Errr... what else? This battery time is while watching a movie from the hard disk with the brightness set to about 75% and the wifi switched off.

I'm starting to think that this poor battery performance MUST be down to the Nvidia card. Can anyone confirm that they are getting the quoted 3-4 hours with an Nvidia card or do you all have the intel onboard or whatever it is?
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post #8 of 8
1/8/12 at 9:45am

i also bought a used dell d620 two months back for 290 bucks

but i also had a battery problem.u know  how much u can expect from a 6 cell battery

so as an alternative i used the dell secondary modular bay battery which goes in place of the optical drive.....

my old battery which had only 60 % of its total capacity left and the new modular bay battery  are working great 

my laptop keep running for at least 3 hrs and maximum 5 hrs...the secondary battery is great and cheap too.

another alternative is to buy the 9 cell battery but i didnt liked it coz it makes the laptop look ugly.

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