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HP nc8000, nc8230, nw8000, and nw8240 battery life estimates

post #1 of 22
4/12/05 at 5:54pm
Thread Starter 
Specs and some math led to these estimates:

nw8240
Primary Battery: 69 Wh
Average Operating Power: 28.5 W
Average Battery Life: 2 h 25 min

nc8230
Primary Battery: 69 Wh
Average Operating Power: 25 W
Average Battery Life: 2 h 45 min

nw8000
Primary Battery: 63 Wh
Average Operating Power: 19 W (estimated, not available in specs)
Average Battery Life: 3 h 19 min

nc8000
Primary Battery: 63 Wh
Average Operating Power: 19 W (estimated, not available in specs)
Average Battery Life: 3 h 19 min

Cheers!
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post #2 of 22
4/12/05 at 5:59pm
Thread Starter 
Added nc6000 to the bunch:

nc6000 normal battery
Primary Battery: 48 Wh
Average Operating Power: 10.5 W
Average Battery Life: 4 hours 34 min

nc6000 high capacity battery
Primary Battery: 63 Wh
Average Operating Power: 10.5 W
Average Battery Life: 6 hours
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post #3 of 22
4/12/05 at 6:05pm
Thread Starter 
HP nc6100 and 6200 series:

HP nx6110
Primary Battery: 42 Wh
Average Operating Power: 20 W
Average Battery Life: 2 hours 6 min

HP nc6120
Primary Battery: 52 Wh
Average Operating Power: 21 W
Average Battery Life: 2 hours 31 min

HP nc6220
Primary Battery: 52 Wh
Average Operating Power: 22 W
Average Battery Life: 2 hours 22 min

HP nc6230
Primary Battery: 52 Wh
Average Operating Power: 24.5 W
Average Battery Life: 2 hours 7 min

Does anyone else think that the new 6100 and 6200 series are jokes compared to the old 6000 series?
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post #4 of 22
4/12/05 at 6:22pm
Thread Starter 
nc4000 and nc4200 series:

nc4200
Primary Battery: 52 Wh
Average Operating Power: 15 W
Average Battery Life: 3 hours 28 min

nc4010 and nc4000
Primary Battery: 40 Wh
Average Operating Power: 8 W (estimated, not available in specs)
Average Battery Life: 5 hours

Is there something wrong with Centrino II (Sonoma-Alviso)? It seems to consume huge amounts of power.
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post #5 of 22
4/12/05 at 7:56pm
Tommi - thank you for the info. I thought the nc8230 is 4+ hours as shown in some specs?

I am very much interested in the nc8230 and I noticed that you have a lot of knowledge about hp business notebook. Can you kindly give some general impressions on this model? I am waiting for some more reviews before I make the purchase (although mostly positive from early buyers and 2 pc magazines). Thank you.

Here are the initial specs I am looking at - (once in a while gaming for my son if we travel - generally home/work/large spreadsheet use as our 2nd computer, the other a desktop)

1.86 GHz
15.4" TFT WSXGA+ WVA
512 MB (400 MHz) DDR 1 DIMM
60 GB (5400 rpm)
Intel® PRO Wireless 2200BG (802.11b/g), Integrated Bluetooth
Video Memory - ATI X600 64MB
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post #6 of 22
4/13/05 at 4:46am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by FidoD
Tommi - thank you for the info. I thought the nc8230 is 4+ hours as shown in some specs?
It must be in minimal use with the screen brightness turned to minimum. I got with these numbers from the official HP specs. nc8230 is a fine wide screen notebook with the new Sonoma-Alviso platform. I'm sure it is one of the best that are available in terms of overall quality. However, I find new PCIe/Sonoma-Alviso components a bit lacking in terms of performance/battery life, since they are much not faster than the old ones but consume a lot more power.

Compared to old HP nc8000 models, I would say the following:

nc8230
Pros:
+ It is new! The novelty effect!
+ Looks: it is pretty cool looking
+ It is rather light and small
+ Some new tech, such as an ambient light sensor and blue leds
+ 3 USB ports
+ DVDs play better on wide screen

Cons:
- Consumes more power than nc8000
- Screen has 200:1 contrast vs. 300:1 in nc8000 (not sure how this shows up in reality)
- 400 MHz memory instead of 533 Mhz (but on the other hand, the speed depends on its latencies)
- 4:3 movies (e.g. some AVIs) and older games do not play well on wide screen
- X600 on nc8230 is only a little bit faster than 9600 Pro on nc8000
- Some ports on the right hand side of the computer (cords may be annoying to your mouse hand)
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post #7 of 22
4/13/05 at 2:00pm
Thank you Tommi - this will help in my decision... just when everything looks generally positive for this model, someone at the notebookreview forums said that the screen of his nc8230 'looks like there are millions of tiny crystals in the LCD' -

aaaah - if you keep on reading the forums you will just get confused! I will wait for more reviews in a few weeks. I hope that his screen was just defective. (Of course I am aware that there is no perfect laptop, will just have to decide at a certain point what we have to buy).
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post #8 of 22
4/14/05 at 2:16am
Tommi,
The numbers for the nc8230 seem very pessimistic. I had one for 10 days, and although I didn't actually time any of my sessions, I was getting much more than 2:45 per charge. It was more like 4hrs, which is what I thought it was rated for. (??) I was using the default battery settings.

The specs for the unit I had are: 2GHz, WXGA+, 802.11a,b,g, integrated bluetooth, 24x DVD/CD RW, 1GB DDR-II 400MHz, 60GB 5400rpm HDD. I returned it when they came out with a 'build it yourself' option that would allow me to get 533MHz RAM, a 7200rpm HDD, and a DVD+-RW for $30 more than I paid for the pre-configured unit (counting the rebate). The only problem is that I have to wait another 3 weeks for delivery.

I am very curious to hear what battery life other users are getting.
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post #9 of 22
4/14/05 at 5:11am
Thread Starter 
These are from official HP specs. I just divided battery size by average operation power. The question of course is, what use "average operation" means. I believe it is not the power consumption in the battery saving mode, so it is possible to get higher battery lives. One thing I noticed in specs is that nc8230 comes with 90W battery charger, which would hint at higher power consumption than older models, since they came with 65W adapter. Actually, the specs indicate that the battery shouldn't last for more than 1 hour if you disable all battery saving features and do intense 3D gaming (since the max power consumption is more than 60W).

HP specs also tell that the wide screen consumes 7W, while normal screens on old models were rated at 4W. The new centrino consumes 27 W at full operation, while the old one consumed 21W. There we already get 9 W more power consumption with regard to old models. DDR2 should consume less power than DDR1, so we get some savings there, but W numbers are unknown to me.

Note: these observations may very wll hold to laptops of other brands as well, because many manufacturers use similar parts (such as Pentium M processors with 533 MHz FSB).
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post #10 of 22
4/14/05 at 6:58pm
Tommi - just curious (it is too pricey) Will the nw8240 not have problems running games or this notebook is just for a particular set of work conditions like those in graphic designs? Sorry, my PC iq is vey limited. Thanks.

FiloD
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post #11 of 22
4/15/05 at 12:40am
Tommi,
Interesting thoughts. I often used the unit in a darkly lit room in front of a TV, so the auto-adjusting screen would have helped my battery life. That feature would have to be turned off in an apple-to-apple comparison, but in many real life situations it would help.

As far as I know these laptops reduce the system clock frequency when under battery power; but I don't know where the controls are, or if there is a standard percentage that they step down. I wish I had looked into it while I still had the unit. There is no doubt that these units will go through a battery in no time when running at full tilt.
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post #12 of 22
4/15/05 at 6:04am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by FiloD
Tommi - just curious (it is too pricey) Will the nw8240 not have problems running games or this notebook is just for a particular set of work conditions like those in graphic designs? Sorry, my PC iq is vey limited. Thanks.

FiloD
nw8240 should be one of the best thin-and-light gaming machines at the moment. You can only get more gaming power by going to heavy desktop replacements like Sager 9860, Dell 9300, or Dell XP2.
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post #13 of 22
4/15/05 at 6:14am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mtnmasher
Tommi,
Interesting thoughts. I often used the unit in a darkly lit room in front of a TV, so the auto-adjusting screen would have helped my battery life. That feature would have to be turned off in an apple-to-apple comparison, but in many real life situations it would help.

As far as I know these laptops reduce the system clock frequency when under battery power; but I don't know where the controls are, or if there is a standard percentage that they step down. I wish I had looked into it while I still had the unit. There is no doubt that these units will go through a battery in no time when running at full tilt.
Yes, Pentium Ms have several frequency modes depending on the processor load. Lowest Frequency Mode (LFM) is 800 MHz for Pentium Ms with a 533 MHz FSB and 600 MHz for Pentium Ms with 400 MHz FSB. Highest Frequency Mode (HFM) depends on the processor and it is what is advertised when you buy a computer or a processor. The power consumption/heat emission (TDPs) in LFM and HFM modes are the following:

Pentium M 533 Mhz FSB and 2 MB L2 Cache
TDP in LFM: 10.8 W
TDP in HFM: 27 W

Pentium M 400 Mhz FSB and 2 MB L2 Cache (Dothan)
TDP in LFM: 7.5 W
TDP in HFM: 21 W

Tom's hardware guides tests also indicate that the power consumption on new centrino platforms is higher than on the old ones. Of course, the new platform is a bit faster, but not fast enough that the performance/power consumption would be as good as in the old centrino.
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post #14 of 22
4/16/05 at 11:30pm
From Tom's Hardware Guide:

"Intel specifies the thermal design power (TDP) of the new Pentium M models at 27 watts. According to Intel, however, this does not mean that the power loss of the models with a faster FSB is 30% higher than for products with an FSB speed of 400MHZ. After all, according to Intel, the TDP constitutes merely a theoretical maximum figure, which is supplied to the developers for the purpose of dimensioning the cooling system. In reality, in spite of the higher FSB, the power loss is significantly lower than this theoretical maximum value."
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post #15 of 22
4/17/05 at 4:57am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mtnmasher
From Tom's Hardware Guide:

"Intel specifies the thermal design power (TDP) of the new Pentium M models at 27 watts. According to Intel, however, this does not mean that the power loss of the models with a faster FSB is 30% higher than for products with an FSB speed of 400MHZ. After all, according to Intel, the TDP constitutes merely a theoretical maximum figure, which is supplied to the developers for the purpose of dimensioning the cooling system. In reality, in spite of the higher FSB, the power loss is significantly lower than this theoretical maximum value."
Intel may very well mean that the processor does not run all the time at HFM. Which is of course true.
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post #16 of 22
4/17/05 at 5:13am
"TDP constitutes merely a theoretical maximum figure, which is supplied to the developers for the purpose of dimensioning the cooling system."

So, given worst case corner in the wafer manufacturing process, worst case voltage coming from the voltage regulator (High end of tolerance), highest clock speed avaliable, highest theoretical current drain on all interfaces, all interfaces populated, the chipset will dissipate no more than 27w.
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post #17 of 22
4/17/05 at 8:39pm
FWIW, I was able to test battery life of the NC8230 and NC6230 side by side.

I used battery eater pro 2.0 with the default settings, as well as the default battery settings for both the NC6230 and NC8230.

Here are the results:

NC6230: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

NC8230: 3 hours, 32 minutes.

The actual battery performance should be better, considering the battery benchmark is designed to work the GPU, CPU, and hard drive as hard as possible during the testing.

BTW: I love the NC8230 -- the best laptop ever!
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post #18 of 22
4/19/05 at 4:42am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the tests. So the battery life is slightly better than what I got from the specs, but I see that the numbers are pretty much correct on that HP nc6230 has much lower battery life than nc8230 due to smaller battery. Actually based on your results, it seems that nc6230 consumes more power than nc8230, because the smaller battery does not wholly explain the lower battery life. You see: 52 Wh / 69 Wh * 212 minutes = 160 minutes = 2 hours 40 minutes.
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post #19 of 22
4/19/05 at 2:09pm
Tommi/jaber – can you help me with your general impressions on the specs below for the nw8240? I have been waiting for some reviews for the nc8230, and just today it looks like the 128mb video card option is gone (I hope they are just fixing their website).

I am interested in the weakness of the configuration and the cost to value? I may post the same to the other forum to get other opinions. Thank you again.

FiloD

NW8240
$2,199
1.86 GHz, 2-MB L2 cache, 533-MHz
ATI Mobility Fire GL V5000 graphics controller (PCI Express) with 128 MB of video memory, OpenGL support
15.4 inch WSXGA+ WVA
512 MB (533 MHz) DDR SDRAM I DIMM
80 GB (5400 rpm)
DVD/CD-RW Drive
Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG (802.11b/g)
3 years parts, 3 years labor, 3 years on-site
$2,199

No Bluetooth
No dvd writer
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post #20 of 22
4/19/05 at 2:47pm
Thread Starter 
IMHO, it's the best alternative, if you need all the power it provides. I made a comparison with all other nw/nc options here:

http://notebookforums.com/showpost.p...19&postcount=3

In fact, it would be the alternative I would buy, if I needed a laptop now. However, if you are not a gamer, the video card on nw8240 is a waste, and nc8230 would be almost as good. But nw8240 comes with an onsite warranty.
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