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Average battery life of a 9-cell - T61

post #1 of 8
3/23/08 at 12:00pm
Thread Starter 
Hi, I bought a T61 recently, and I love it for the most part, it is IMO a true thinkpad, its very durable and I am pleased except for one thing... I paid $50 to get a 9-cell battery upgrade and I am only getting 2 hours even when I am only browsing the internet... I would really hate to see what the 4 and 6-cells give you. I have dell vostro which gets 6 hrs on a 9-cell... so is this normal for a 9-cell on a T61 with WSXGA 15.4 or is the battery defective? When I got it and opened it the battery was at 80% charge which kind of bugged me. Is that normal?

EDIT: I powered my T61 up while I used my desktop and just let it sit there, didn't run anything but just moved the mouse every so often to keep it from stand bying... I got like 2 hours 15 minutes.
That doesn't sound right, I would expect something more like 4-6 hours without running anything.
Also I got win xp NOT vista crap.

This site says it lasts 6 hours... http://www.buydig.com/1/1/2414-lenov...15-models.html

I am wondering something here... when I ordered the rep said that after I got it I could order a 3 year warranty... does that warranty include batteries? It came with the 1 year standard but I don't think that includes batteries or does it?
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post #2 of 8
3/23/08 at 12:30pm
. external devices use?
. background apps other than ur normal browsing?
. u have an "extended" xtra cells battery, what about the charger? battery is very sensitive and picky when partnering with ac adapter
. how did u use ur comp when on battery? environment - enough air flow around, cpu throttling?
. power scheme?

last but not least, vista power management is much better than one of xp, and yes, it can stretch battery usage and life - & this is from personal experience, not from reading statisitcs

cheers ...
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post #3 of 8
3/23/08 at 5:47pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qhn View Post
. external devices use?
. background apps other than ur normal browsing?
. u have an "extended" xtra cells battery, what about the charger? battery is very sensitive and picky when partnering with ac adapter
. how did u use ur comp when on battery? environment - enough air flow around, cpu throttling?
. power scheme?

last but not least, vista power management is much better than one of xp, and yes, it can stretch battery usage and life - & this is from personal experience, not from reading statisitcs

cheers ...
No external devices, bluetooth off, no movies, games etc etc.
The charger is the original which came from Lenovo, I wouldn't use anything else with any laptop then the chargers that they come with.

When I used the computer I did some internet browsing, thats it. But the time I got about 2:15 - 2:30 out of it I didn't do anything, just let it sit.

BTW Vista may have better power management but it also consumes much more in my experience... so really a Vista computer tends to take more battery, atleast from what I have used.

Right now I just powered it up and it is at 20%(was 33 when I shut it down last night) and it says I got 17 minutes left.
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post #4 of 8
3/24/08 at 10:02am
good read - see if it applies to ur battey blues
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Laptop-Pr...op-battery.htm

cheers ...
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post #5 of 8
5/26/08 at 1:29am

bad battery, perhaps

Quote:
Originally Posted by visio View Post
Hi, I bought a T61 recently, and I love it for the most part, it is IMO a true thinkpad, its very durable and I am pleased except for one thing... I paid $50 to get a 9-cell battery upgrade and I am only getting 2 hours even when I am only browsing the internet... I would really hate to see what the 4 and 6-cells give you. I have dell vostro which gets 6 hrs on a 9-cell... so is this normal for a 9-cell on a T61 with WSXGA 15.4 or is the battery defective? When I got it and opened it the battery was at 80% charge which kind of bugged me. Is that normal?

EDIT: I powered my T61 up while I used my desktop and just let it sit there, didn't run anything but just moved the mouse every so often to keep it from stand bying... I got like 2 hours 15 minutes.
That doesn't sound right, I would expect something more like 4-6 hours without running anything.
Also I got win xp NOT vista crap.

This site says it lasts 6 hours... http://www.buydig.com/1/1/2414-lenov...15-models.html

I am wondering something here... when I ordered the rep said that after I got it I could order a 3 year warranty... does that warranty include batteries? It came with the 1 year standard but I don't think that includes batteries or does it?
My T61p has a 15.4" screen with WUXGA feature so I run it at 1920x1200 resolution part of the time. In most cases I get 5 1/2 hours on my 9 cell battery if I use the battery stretch feature I can get around 6 hours. It sounds to me that you got a bad battery. I'm not 100% sure but I wouldn't expect the battery to be covered under the standard warranty, but since Lenovo is a good company they should replace the battery no questions asked.

BTW: If you go to the Power Manager software provided by LENOVO/IBM - typically the hot-key is Fn+F3. Under the third tab is the battery stretch feature but also there's a window that tells you if the battery is in good condition. There's also a battery maintenance button.

Good luck.
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post #6 of 8
9/2/08 at 4:56pm
I've a T61 with a 9-cell battery. If I lower the screen brightness and only use Office application and light Internet activity I'll get around 7 hours of effective work time.

If I'll use WMP or Winamp and watch a few YouTube videos I'll get around 4-5 hours of effective work time...

If I deactivate network adapter, sound card and so on in the Power Management I'll get around 9 hours and only if I'll work i Word for example and do nothing else..
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post #7 of 8
2/26/09 at 12:53pm
Screen brightness, wireless card, dual core processor, discrete video & bluetooth can all KILL battery life. We buy Lenovo's exclusively with the 9-cell & discrete video, and that's about the expected battery life under average load in everyday use - maybe 2-1/2 hours. Add MAYBE another 30 minutes for the media bay battery.

But you can make big differences - turn the screen brightness down, turn off bluetooth & wireless if you're not using them, don't use a 3D screensaver (this runs the processor continually), and use the Battery Maximizer - it does help.

Oh, and standard battery warranty is one year, even if you have 3 years on the machine. If you're within 1 year they'll cover it, but I don't think you'll see a difference with another battery.
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post #8 of 8
7/12/09 at 11:23pm
My T60 with a 9-cell lasts about 4 hours while watching a 700mb movie. at low brightness and wifi/bluetooth off. still i think its pretty good.

you might have like a circuit problem within the battery so all cells might not be connected to use.
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