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Geek Culture / optimising battry life

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hessiess
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 13:27
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i curently get 2 howers max out of my laptop batery if the grafics prosessor is set to max battery life, 1-1.5 if its on full.

i have this computer for writing stuff in lessons becose im deslextc, it isant mutch use if the battery goes flat in a room without plugs!

its owned by the lea but is basicly mine wile im at the 6form.

is it posable to make the battery life longer witout getting a higher ah battery?
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dark coder
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 13:41
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The monitor will probably be the biggest power drain during normal use, if you reduce the brightness you should save on battery. Also you should use a spell checker, no offense.

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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 13:45
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Consider yourself lucky. My laptop lasts 20 to 30 minutes on battery.

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Van B
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 13:54
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Sadly if the laptop has already got a weak battery then replacing said battery is the only way, and your talking about spending around £70 on a replacement.

Thing is people tend to keep their laptop plugged in rather than using the battery, so then when you come to use it - it's got very little lifespan because it's best to use up the battery then charge it up fully, otherwise your battery get's 'sour'.

It's like a pint of milk. If you use up your pint of milk and the whole lot every day then you'll always have fresh milk - if you top up your milk every time you use it, before long the milk goes sour because of the old milk sitting at the bottom. Your battery is milk .


Good guy, Good guy, Wan...
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hessiess
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 14:06 Edited at: 18th Apr 2007 14:10
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its always been the same I was just wandering if its possible to extend the battery life by turning unnecessary things off. or reducing the processor clock speed wile on battery. I already use the monitor on as lo brightness as passable. this cases problems with images looking different. I do allot of 3dcg and changing the monitors settings affects how renders look.

would 2 batterys halp?
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Van B
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 14:35
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Probably not a good idea to swap internal batteries, I mean you'd have to reboot every time.

Here's an option, use an external battery - you can buy power packs that plug into the power input on your laptop. I'm not sure how long these last, but here's a website where you can get them:

http://www.batterygeek.net/

This would be more convenient than a replacement battery, because you just plug it in when your battery is getting low. It would recharge your battery so even when the power pack runs out, you have your battery again. You could charge it up somewhere convenient as well - like if you know your going to a class with no power outlets, stick the power pack on a charge in a class with power outlets, saving the juice for when you need it.


Good guy, Good guy, Wan...
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hessiess
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 15:30
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thx, il look into that.

would it work on difarant computers? im not going to have this one forever. its a hp pavilion entertainment laptop. the plug on the laptop is like a normal round laptop plug exept its got a ridge that clips in.

haft to try and find somwere in the uk
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heartbone
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 17:07
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Quote: "Thing is people tend to keep their laptop plugged in rather than using the battery, so then when you come to use it - it's got very little lifespan because it's best to use up the battery then charge it up fully, otherwise your battery get's 'sour'."


So this seems to be a no win situation because if you regularly operate from the rechargable battery then it also wears out from being used.

Van B, can you operate the laptops without a battery present?

If so, when you store the battery,
is it best left fully charged or totally discharged?

I'm unique, just like everybody else.
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Van B
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 17:22 Edited at: 18th Apr 2007 17:25
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Discharged, but maybe not completely if your storing it.

Any laptop I've had (toshiba, compaq, and now a thinkpad) has let me use it without the battery connected, it takes a hell of a lot of weight out of your laptop! - I'd leave a little charge in the battery, maybe 15% or so, you don't want it running out completely, so leaving a little in should keep it decent until you charge it again. When you do charge it up again, I'd suggest charging it without using the laptop, so it gets a nice strong and steady charge the first time.

Your right though, it's a no win situation. We go through a lot of laptops at work - really just marketting that uses them, but we're replacing them once a year. However, the vaio's that the 2 MD's just got a couple of months ago, well I'm having to source extra batteries for those already - they're lucky to get 2 hours out of them.

A portable supply that you can take with you and quickly plug in is a very useful purchase, if only they were a bit cheaper - right now they're an ingenious but expensive solution to a problem that should never have existed. I don't see how it can be our problem that lappy's battery life sucks - it should be the Sony's of this world forking out, especially given the price of a decent laptop.


Good guy, Good guy, Wan...
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Dazzag
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 17:40
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Personally I would take the battery out as most of the time my laptop is plugged in. But I don't because I don't like the idea of having it completely open where something can damage the connections or somesuch. Anyone know if you can buy fake batteries that basically just cover the hole nicely (and weigh like next to nothing)?

What happened to that "next generation" of batteries that everyone was harping on about a little while back? Apparently they could last pretty much forever without losing charge life (ie. the amount time you can run the PC on battery only) unless something terminal happened to it (based only on my experiences I would say most laptop batteries start losing massively on charge life between a year and 2 years old). Plus this next gen stuff was supposed to give us like 100 hours of use on a normal laptop. Everything else has come on leaps and bounds. Just wish batteries would. Clunky and heavy, with sod all running time (even my super efficient backup laptop dies after about 5 hours of running on batteries. Saying that, it did when we first got it, but now is more like 3.5 hours after a couple of years).

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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JerBil
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 17:48
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Something not so obvious is to add more memory, though you may have enough already.
Going from 256meg to 512meg can add 15% to battery life.

Ad Astra Per Asper
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hessiess
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 18:05
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ive got 2 gig, carnt use most of it becose the grafics card isant good enuf
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bitJericho
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 18:31 Edited at: 18th Apr 2007 18:32
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downclocking it would save quite a bit of power. Also, turn off wifi if you're not using it, that will also save battery time.

Dimming the monitor as much as possible will help, and not running a lot of programs will help as well. For example, if you're not using your av, turn it off, as it will use up power in file scanning and in processor usage.

Downclocking your video card prolly will also help.

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hessiess
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 19:46
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i do render of the battery sometimes, it dosant seem to make alot of difarance. how do you downclock it?
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bitJericho
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 21:04
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In your bios settings. If you don't see the options there (and there's not an "advanced" bios mode *check your manual), then you will need to use software to do it. Googling *over*clocking will bring up utilities that also allow you to downclock.

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GatorHex
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Posted: 19th Apr 2007 12:19 Edited at: 19th Apr 2007 12:28
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right click the desktop, go to power option, make sure everything set to maximum power saving. 2hrs is normal for a laptop.

Also you can try
Turn screen brightness down to minimum (dyslexics mayb need high contrast though)
Turn volume off
Remove CD-ROM drives and floppy drives - makes it lighter too!
Run you files from a memory strick rather than a hard drive.

Lithium Ion batteries run longer than NiMh. Check to see which you got. If it's NiMh you might be able to upgrade to Li-Ion. I know Dell do this kind of option.

Somone wrote an article once called something like, "Batteries don't die, they are murdered!" basically sayong never let your battery run flat and keep it on trickle charge.

You maybe should get your college to check out PSION netbook or series 7 that run on Windows CE. They have no moving parts and run for 8hrs +, they're also less than half the weight of a laptop too!



Anyone who is writer rather than a programmer should get one, they're not that expensive either on ebay.

Finaly sit near a power socket... I'm always looking out for these

http://www.KumKie.com http://bulldog.servegame.com
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hessiess
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Posted: 19th Apr 2007 19:05 Edited at: 19th Apr 2007 19:06
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canot remove the cd drive becose its bult in, haveny got a flopy drive. might try runing off a sd card, dosant stic out as mutch

its not that heavy anyway.

i can tell that the graphics card clocs down wen on battery but the prosessor dosant mutch. i tried rendering a high poly scene using yafray with full gi and it takes basicly the same time wether its running on batterys or pluged in. i tend to do 3d modaling during free lesons! so i often render on batterys...

it has got lithiom ion battery, i dont know if theres a higher Ah one avaloble.
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