Battery life on e6400

I have a e6400 with SSD, a P series processor, LED screen and 9 cell battery. On the balanced mode, it is at 94% and 2h32m left. That sounds REALLY low to me. I have WiFi on, brightness up, etc. but still sounds extremely low. Any advice?

 

turn down your brightness

 

Have you actually tried running the battery down? Two and a half hours is indeed a low figure for your configuration, but I bet it's just Vista messing with your estimation. You might also have some stray processes or whatnot loading your processor at the time of measurement. Turning up the screen brightness all the way won't help either.

 

download battery bar by osiris development
more accurate

 

What is your OS? Is it the 32 or 64-bit version?

1- Go in power saver mode.
2- Close all programs
3- Turn Wireless ON only (not bluetooth or anything else)
4- Close all programs
5- Set the brightness to minimum
6- Turn off backlit keyboard
7- Remove disk from optical drive
8- Remove any USB devices.
9- have your battery at 100%
10- Do you use a sidebar/gadget program other than the one from Windows like Yahoo's, Google's or Rainmeter? If so, close it.
11- Check-out your startup programs with Ccleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/), and remove everything except the following:
- Logitech SetPoint (if you have a Logitech mouse)
- Kernal and Adbstract layer (if you have a Logitech device)
- Apoint (Apls touchpad that comes with the laptop)
- Sidebar (Microsoft sidebar, if you use it)
- Dell ControlPoint System Manager

CCleaner is free software, just remove the toolbar that comes with it, by unchecking the box.

Once done, restart your computer.

After restart, wait 5 minute while doing nothing, then see the battery life. How much do you have now?

If it's low, check your system for virus, spyware and malware.
Once your system is clean at 100%, remove your anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-malware software, restart your computer, and see the battery life now. If it's much better, what A/V where you using? We can suggest to you alternatives.

 

I think it was just Vista not knowing what the heck was going on because it was new. New estimates are back in the 4-5 hour range. Thanks for the help guys.

 

Vista spends its first few days doing housekeeping, which creates a lot of CPU and disk activity.

Which GPU do you have? If it is the Intel GPU then you should be able to get more than 6 hours with light usage and a dim display.

John

 

I have the Quadro card. Right now, it is on Balanced, brightness about 75%, WiFi on, BT on, running an SOS backup and about 13 Chrome windows open and I've got about 2hr30m at 58%. Is that normal?

 

I think so...
I mean you are doing A LOT of CPU and HDD intensive task, teh screen, even though it's LED backlit, just eats your battery.

It's hard to know this stuff. If you want an answer to "how is my battery" question, you must allow us to be able to compare with our systems. We don't have the same program and doing the same thing identically. You have to put in a state where everyone can do. This means:
- Same OS (mention you OS so that those who do uses the same one can answer. Also mention if it's the 32-bit or 64-bit version of your OS that you use. Very important!)
- Close ALL programs including startup programs, and programs like MSN and web browser, java update and so on.
- Turn off bluetooth and cellular internet card (wireless card is fine as we all have that)
- Set speaker volume to minimum/mute.
- Turn off backlit keyboard
- Set screen brightness to minimum and mention if you have CCFL (traditional light system) or LED backlit.
- Video card (that you did, but I still mention it for others)
- Have the battery at 100% (or the maximum that you can)
- Remove ALL USB devices from the laptop, including cards in the smart card reader, if any, and SD memory card, as those require power.
- Set system to "power saver" power mode.
- Ensure that the fan is NOT spinning
- Ensure that your system is idle (wait 10min while doing NOTHING with the system for the HDD to stop spinning), if you have a SSD drive, please mention it.
- And, of course, mention how many cells you battery have, and how many battery are attached to the laptop (especially for this laptop has it can have the 2 battery, where the second one is the 12-cell battery slice)
Details are always important.

 

HOLY JEEBUS. System idle, fan off, SSD drive, LED backlit screen on minimum and BT off (all other qualifications also met) on the 9 cell battery, it is at 99% and 8hr13m. Good lord. So what is it that is killing it the most? When on medium brightness, BT on... I'm looking at about 4hr30m when at 99%.