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Battery Life (Tricks?) - Page 2

post #21 of 37
12/9/04 at 9:26am
How are you testing your usages? I have a new uniwill 223ii0 (oem sentina) and would like to join this discussion and hopefully improve batttery performance.

On a side, did you know that if while on batteries and using speedswicth XP to clock down to 600mhz, if you then press the P button next to the power button, you enter battery optimisation mode/ silent running mode? This clocks me down further still to 480mhz! I like this feature as it allows my laptop to run overnight downloading, but the fan will never come on and wake me up Perhaps will yeild yet more minutes?
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post #22 of 37
12/10/04 at 12:15am
I still say he is doing WAY too much effort to get it to run the advertised time. If nobody else with a Sentia is having this problem, then its a bum PC that needs to be returned to Alienware.
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post #23 of 37
12/10/04 at 11:25am
I just got a quite respectable time of 3hrs 56mins

using speedswitch XP set on max battery, slient running mode on, latest BIOS update (1.06) and brightness on minumum.

I didnt do too much with it, played about with some powerpoint presentations, played some mp3s, read some acrobat files, installed and configured Konfabulator, spent about 2 hours playing about with the different widgets. The PC was active all the time, but nothing very heavy. Screen saver disabled, monitor on all the time.

One thing i did notice is that since i upgraded the BIOS, speedswicth seems to have gone a bit bonkers. It now reports that is able to (and reads the CPU speed as) low as 6Mhz!! This value fluxuates constantly, ranging from 6 to 480 when im doing somthing thats needs juice.

Just noticed, back on AC power now and using dynamic swicthing to keep heat down (not that this laptop gets hot, im just preserving the life of the parts i hope ) and the cpu speed is still going as low as 6!!!
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post #24 of 37
12/10/04 at 4:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by HardTech
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.
by all means i agree with you but you said a company, not any company. I figured you ment alienware because thats who you were talknig about in the post.

3 hours and 56 minutes is sweet, congrats ewok...thats 4 hours in my book
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post #25 of 37
12/10/04 at 8:21pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ewok^
I just got a quite respectable time of 3hrs 56mins
You have the uniwill model?
Can you tell me the specs on the battery it came with?
Maybe you have a more robust battery in which case I will be ordering one.

My tests were with the (delivered) BIOS 1.03, just noticed they released 1.06 so I will try that.
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post #26 of 37
12/11/04 at 12:56am
Thread Starter 

Happy End to the Story

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Sentia
My tests were with the (delivered) BIOS 1.03, just noticed they released 1.06 so I will try that.
Apparently BIOS 1.06 does more than just fix the blinking light. It gained me an extra hour of runtime. In my previous tests (with BIOS 1.03) CPU-Z showed the throttle would range from 600Mhz to 2000Mhz. Now with BIOS 1.06 the throttle range is ~9Mhz to 2000Mhz. No that is not a typo, 9Mhz.

The throttle response is quick so I see no apparent loss of speed from this BIOS update, just much more effecient use of CPU and battery. 3.5 of runtime with the display always on is close enough to the advertised 4 hrs of runtime which probably turned the display off.

Bottom Line: It's taken a month of trouble-shooting and tweaking but I finally have the laptop I was hoping for when I decided to purchase the Sentia. No more buyers remorse.
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post #27 of 37
12/11/04 at 7:06pm
Yea that will be it then, nice 1.06 patch

I was really shocked seeing my cpu drop as low at 6mhz! Could this be the first implementation of a speedstep feature? ive never seen that before!

10.8vdc 4000mah li-ion made by panasonic
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post #28 of 37
12/12/04 at 12:47pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ewok^
10.8vdc 4000mah li-ion made by panasonic
Okay we have the same battery, so the thing Alienware may or may not be aware of is that there was a throttle problem with the 1.03 BIOS that is fixed in the 1.06 BIOS. I have uninstalled SpeedSwitchXP since upgrading to 1.06 BIOS, no need for it now.

You know this just kinda sums up my whole Alienware experience. Good hardware, good design, horrible order process, horrible software setup, and that 200 point quality inspection obviously needs work.

It's has taken me almost one month to the day to "fix" their delivered setup.
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post #29 of 37
12/12/04 at 1:34pm
users in the general forum seem to think this is a cpu reading error I dont see how it could be, surely it would have been evident before the patch.
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post #30 of 37
12/12/04 at 1:59pm
My Sentia is estimated to arrive Tuesday. Where would I find BIOS 1.06 patch and the most up to date drivers?
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post #31 of 37
12/13/04 at 5:05am
http://www.uniwill.com
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post #32 of 37
12/13/04 at 9:40am
Thanks.

Do all Sentias use the 223II0 drivers?
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post #33 of 37
12/13/04 at 9:41am
Thanks.

Do all Sentias use the 223II0 drivers?
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post #34 of 37
12/13/04 at 9:41am
Thanks.

Do all Sentias use the 223II0 drivers?
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post #35 of 37
12/13/04 at 9:42am
Thanks.

Do all Sentias use the 223II0 drivers?
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post #36 of 37
12/13/04 at 8:35pm
that is what the alienware notebook is, alienware doesnt make it
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post #37 of 37
12/13/04 at 8:52pm
Okay thanks, wasn't sure. And sorry for all the posts, IE was bugging out on me and I couldn't delete them. =X
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