I have found a rare confluence at this conference — simultaneous power and connectivity. I hadn’t realized until today just how much my laptop battery sucks (HP Pavilion dv5, less than a year old, if anyone’s wondering). I started using it this morning, and checked the battery after about fifteen minutes, and it told me I had about fifty minutes left…
I don’t know if it’s the design, or if there’s a memory problem because I don’t use it off the grid much, and rarely deplete it, or what. But I might have to start carrying a spare, or get one of those things that plugs in externally as a backup.
And of course, I don’t have the ultimate, unachievable combination — power, connectivity, at a comfortable table, with something interesting to listen to. I’m sitting in a chair in the hotel lobby. Fortunately, there’s nothing I’m really hot to hear going on right now.
You mentioned earlier no wireless. If you leave the wireless device on, and it can’t find a signal, it uses more energy trying to find a signal. Turn it off when it hasn’t connected in a few minutes, and you’ll extend battery life.
And always dim your screen when on battery to prolonge battery life.
Turn it off when it hasn’t connected in a few minutes, and you’ll extend battery life.
Good thought. Should have thought of that.
I’ve found that after a couple of years, even without much actual use(charge/discharge cycles) the Li-ion batteries in laptops severely lose capacity. The warranty claims on the Tesla roadster will be interesting.
Rand
Turn the LCD screen down as much as you can, this is the biggest user of power.
Also, get that second battery.
Also don’t neccessarily believe the battery meter.
Some laptops are famous for drift of the control chips in the battery pack.
Sometimes a power management system reset and a full discharge recharge cycle resets that.
Yeah, basically anything with a Li-ion battery sucks. But there are things to do about it. First, it matters which machine you have. The Mac laptops have good power management (I have one) as do some of the PCs. I don’t know about HP, but the Lenovo laptops have good hardware power management. Windows power management has never impressed me, so the hardware power management is more key in the PCs than in the Macs.
Second, there are a number of usage patterns to avoid. If you are not on the network, or can afford not to be on the network, turn off ALL of your network interfaces. I have a “no network” location that does this with one menu item, and I seem to recall that you can do this pretty easily under Windows as well. If you have a CD or DVD in the drive, take it out, unless your system automatically powers down the drive when it’s not being actively used. Dim the screen. Don’t do very processor-intensive tasks (compiling software, watching video, etc). You can also set the power management settings to key to power savings rather than performance, which makes a pretty large difference.
Using all of the above except the screen dimming, I can get 4 – 5 hours on my MacBook Pro under OS X, and about 3.5 – 4 hours under Windows on the same machine. My old work laptop (a Lenovo) got about 4 hours under Windows. Chop half an hour if the network is on and connected, and an hour if it’s on but unconnected.
This isn’t Windows, it’s Linux.
Battery life degrades pretty quickly with a new PC, just like with cell phones. If you want to keep the longest battery life over time, you need to follow the suggestions above, but also do not charge until almost depleted. I know the comanies all say the batteries do not have a “memory” anymore, but they do. Its not so much memory as they get used to a routine level of energy to draw on. My laptop and I parted ways after six months because I didn’t think about the fct that I always had it plugged in. The charging occurred whenever the battery was slightly used…just killed its long term life.
“If you want to keep the longest battery life over time, you need to follow the suggestions above, but also do not charge until almost depleted.”
I agree with the best use practices outline above. However, Li-Ion longevity improves if you routinely charge it before it reaches 30-40%. Also, if you keep your laptop in a docking station or on AC power for weeks on end, then pull the battery out while doing so. A battery only has so many charging cycles in it. Keeping the battery out of the laptop retains your charge count.
It was the older NiCads and the current NiMH rechargeable batteries that need to be depleted fully to maintain maximum mAH. In fact, I have a fancy charging station at my house with a discharge feature that depletes a NiMH battery to less than 100 mAH before starting to charge: La Crosse Technology BC-9009.
Laptop manufacturers only warranty replacement Li-Ion batteries for 1 year. They know that beyond that the life of the battery begins to severely degrade. At 2 years of age, expect roughly half the serviceable work time from when it is new. I have several laptops in the 3-5 year range that only last about 30 minutes on a full charge. A battery that gets exceedingly hot within a short period of use is defective and should just be replaced.
Also, Linux could very well be disabling the advanced power management features of your laptop, essentially killing any of your energy conservation controls. All your devices are running full bore and drinking power even when they are not in use.