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Battery Life (Tricks?)

post #1 of 37
11/24/04 at 2:42am
Thread Starter 
"The Sentia features a 6 Cell 2200mAh primary Lithium-Ion battery which provides more than 4hrs of use."

So what's the trick in order to make Alienware's claim true?

I'm using a basic text editor authoring some windows code. Almost no hard drive activity, no network activity, no cd in the drive. This is how I spend the majority of my development time, and silly me... I was thinking I could get 4 hours out of a battery, bought a 2nd battery so I could make it 8 hours without needing to find an outlet.

So here's what I have tried...

In BIOS
Turn off Modem
Turn off Wireless
Battery Optimized

Result
Battery 1 - 2:46
Battery 2 - 2:42

Very disappointing. I wanted to see how much these BIOS settings made a difference so I turned the Modem back on, turned the Wireless back on, and changed that "Battery Optimized" setting back to "Default".

Result
Battery 1 - 2:30
Battery 2 - 2:35

... So how do I get closer to Alienware's 4hr mark?
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post #2 of 37
11/24/04 at 3:11am
There are alot of things you can do to improve your battery life. On my Laptop, I installed a program called SpeedswitchXP which utilizes the speedstep technology in Intel CPU's. Basically it throttles down your CPU to run slower than full power, which inevitably lets you save power and cuts down on heat. You dont have to worry about having your PC run subpar because it will automatically throttle up when necessary, and your not doing extremely intense operations anyway.

Another trick I do is turn down the brightness of my LCD. I find this help out TREMENDOUSLY and can add at least an hour to my Centrino laptop. Also, look out for added gadgets like USB drives, WiFi, USB lights, even MP3 players; they all suck small amounts of juice from the laptop. If you want to save even more energy, it would be good to optimize your boot-up and shut-down time. What I do is instead of turning my laptop On and Off constantly, I just put it in hibernation instead, that way it starts up and shuts down twice as fast as a regular boot-up and shut-down sequence.

I typically get over 4 hours and 30 minutes of battery life with my LCD brightness as low as possible, no added drives, WiFi off and processor clocked down to 600Mhz. This is with it constantly running doing a range of 'light' activites such as typing, playing music (no visuals), surfing the web, etc. I also set my PC to turn off my monitor rather quickly (3 minutes) when I am away to save even more, and having your PC run in Stand-by mode after an extended absense is another way to boost your battery life.

EDIT: These are just general tips. I do not have an Alienware.
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post #3 of 37
11/24/04 at 5:01am
Battery conditioning...

I get about 4 1/2 hrs on my Sentia v.1 after much use. I got this laptop Dec. 26, 2003.
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post #4 of 37
11/24/04 at 11:29am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by booga
Battery conditioning...

I get about 4 1/2 hrs on my Sentia v.1 after much use. I got this laptop Dec. 26, 2003.
Please explain, I have been fully charging and then running that battery until under 7%.
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post #5 of 37
11/24/04 at 3:04pm
you got it. I charge the battery to full and run it down all the way, then charge to full.
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post #6 of 37
11/26/04 at 11:03pm
Thread Starter 
Deep cycling the batteries isn't improving anything. I'm still getting between 2:30 and 2:45 life on a battery. For my latest test I removed the PCI NIC just to see if power was being used there even when it is off. But that didn't improve anything.
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post #7 of 37
11/27/04 at 12:03am
And this is on 2 batteries which rules out a possible bad batt. I am hoping others with the Sentia v.2 will chime in to report their battery life. Turning off components like the nic will not make much difference.

Check to see what CPU-Z says your clock speed is. I remember it would go as low as 600 mhz on my Sentia when it is on idle.
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post #8 of 37
11/27/04 at 1:01am
600Mhz seems to be the floor for Pentium-M CPU's.
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post #9 of 37
11/28/04 at 2:53am
Thread Starter 
I downloaded CPU-Z and SpeedswitchXP, for starters I just installed CPU-Z to learn what the Sentia was doing now.

On AC when the Sentia was idle the speed was 660Mhz, when under load the speed would increase to 2200Mhz. On Battery when the Sentia was idle the speed was 600Mhz, when under load the speed would increase to 1200Mhz.

I then went into the BIOS and changed the "Intel SpeedStep tech" settings from "Automatic" to "Battery Optimized". Retested, however the results were the same. I then went back into the BIOS and changed the "High Performance Mode" from Enabled to Disabled. Retesed, and the "On Battery" tests were the same. The On AC speeds went down to 600Mhz and 2000Mhz.

Next I install SpeedSwitchXP, and using it setup my "on battery" to "max battery". CPU-Z tells me this results in a constant 600Mhz no matter what the CPU load. Plug in the AC, idle is 600Mhz, under load it ramps up to 2000Mhz. I go back into the BIOS and enable the High Performance Mode again. Now my on AC speeds are back to 660Mhz/2200Mhz.

So now the question is, how much battery life have I gained using SpeedSwitchXP to lock the "On Battery" throttle at 600Mhz. That answer will not be known until probably Monday.
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post #10 of 37
11/29/04 at 12:53am
ok keep us posted
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post #11 of 37
11/29/04 at 1:21pm
Thread Starter 
First Test: On Battery, SpeedSwitchXP has throttle locked at 600Mhz (max battery life), Backlight is set on its lowest setting, wireless is on and connected to internet. Set the power options so the screen would stay on, only program running is Trillian (internet chat) and Microsoft IE.

Spent about 30 minutes actually surfing, had one brief chat discussion with a friend. The rest of the time the Sentia was idle.

Result: After 2:45 low battery warning came on saying less than 7%. So I have not gained a thing. Next I will try the same test with wireless disabled and the Sentia completely idle, however all indications are even sitting idle this machine can not make 3 hours let alone Alienware's claim of 4 hrs.
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post #12 of 37
11/29/04 at 3:09pm
Another possible problem is if the battery meter needs to be recalibrated - ie. Windows says the battery is at 7%, but really its at something much higher. A deep cycling of battery will recalibrate - when battery warning comes on, reboot and go into the bios screen, then let it sit there until the machine powers down. This will totally drain the battery. Then recharge.

Not sure if you've done this or not - everyone's idea of cycling a battery is different.

-Peter
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post #13 of 37
11/29/04 at 3:39pm
He has been already deep cycling his battery and it isnt helping. (psyang)

I think this is a problem only Alienware can fix. If your doing all that and you still cant even crack 3 hours, either Alienware is lying about their battery life or it might be an issue with the laptop itself. Either way, its Alienware's fault, and you might want to start looking for their number. (Robert Sentia)
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post #14 of 37
11/29/04 at 4:49pm
But he just said he got a 7% warning after 2:45 with wireless ON....wireless kills your battery life. Keep in mind when a company gives you a battery time its with the computer at idle and all power saving features on.

Try without the wireless...then let us know


EDIT: also your only getting it to 7%...if you let it down to 0% (bad idea for normal use, but for testing purposes) it might get over 3 hours...take off the wireless and it will improve
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post #15 of 37
11/30/04 at 11:02am
Thread Starter 
In another attempt to reach Alienware's 4hr battery life claim here is what I tried. SpeedSwitchXP had the throttle locked at 600Mhz (max battery), backlight display was set as low as it would go, wireless was turned off, modem was turned off, however the power settings were changed so the screen stayed on the entire time. The Sentia was idle the entire time except every 30 minutes when I checked the battery level.

0:00 - 100%
0:30 - 84% (on pace for 3:08)
1:00 - 69% (on pace for 3:14)
1:30 - 52% (on pace for 3:08)
2:00 - 36% (on pace for 3:08)
2:30 - 19% (on pace for 3:05)
2:45 - 11% (on pace for 3:05)
2:50 - 08% (on pace for 3:04)
2:57 - WindowsXP automated shutdown, at which time I rebooted and went into BIOS settings.
3:03 - Laptop quit and would not restart.

Conclusions:
(1) The battery monitoring was accurate.
(2) Wireless activity does not effect battery life nearly as much as I thought it would. There was only a 12 minute difference between my wireless on and wireless off tests.
(3) SpeedSwitchXP is a neat app, but it didn't improve my total runtime that much so the default Intel SpeedStep setting is pretty good.
(4) Even in this handi-capped, do-nothing state I only made it 75% as long as Alienware's advertising claimed. I will be contacting Alienware to see how they respond (lol - any guesses?).
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post #16 of 37
11/30/04 at 4:06pm
2 batteries, extensive testing and conditioning.

Which version Sentia do you have? I have the 14" version which has different batteries compared to the 12".

I have not seen other posts from 12" Sentia owners about their battery time in this thread.
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post #17 of 37
12/1/04 at 2:54am
Thread Starter 
I have the 12 inch (current) Sentia, the battery for it is a 6 cell 2200mah battery. Your 14 inch (previous) Sentia appears to have an 8 cell 2000mah battery.

So I guess we are comparing Apples to Oranges. And it appears an 8 cell Orange is better than a 6 cell Apple.

Dell offers 2 battery sizes for its 700m laptop, I wish Alienware did.
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post #18 of 37
12/1/04 at 4:06pm
That would bug me that a company can not stnd behinf the real product numbers. On my labtop it says 5 and a half hours. With wifi on and half screen I get this. With gaming I get near 5 hours. And if I turn everything off, I can get over 7 hours.

So shows lack of quality of AW side for not stating real life numbers :/
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post #19 of 37
12/1/04 at 4:39pm
well one computer doesnt mean that all the sentias are the same, it could just be a bad computer...also they are brand new and havent been through conditioning for awhile. It seems like your just against alienware
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post #20 of 37
12/2/04 at 2:46am
if ya look, i said any company. AW is told by Uniwill the maker of the notebook what they report the times as. It would only be responsible for AW to then test and list real life numbers. Not many companys do, but the few that do I fully respect.
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