Superclean Install - 9 Hours On A 6 Cell Battery

Thank you I had just stumbled across that! It seems from what people are saying that it works

SORRY FOR HIJACKING THIS THREAD! Back to the matter at hand...how on earth do i get that battery life? It's becoming an obsession!

 

No worries, glad you could work out that problem. You think you have an obsession? You should of seen me when I was getting closer and closer to 6 watts. I just had to get under it, hah!

Patience grasshopper. All that's left is the write up now. I'm looking forward to seeing what people with 9 cell batteries and XP or Vista installs will be able to do with this information. I tested it all on Windows 7 but the same techniques should work under Vista at least.

 

I really want to install Windows 7 but come the end of the beta i'll be buggered

Looking forward to your write up

 

A signed driver exists: See the end of the first post in the undervolting guide.

John

 

9 hrs on a 6 cell, now if only you had a 9 cell and a 12 cell slice lol... all day computing anyone!?

 

Aside from turning radios off, and dimming the screen, i don't know of any way to increase battery life Even 10 Watts would do me nicely, I can't see how it can be done though, so i'm waiting for this writeup

P.S. John, thanks very much for that link

 

CHEAT SHEET
- The write up is pretty huge so here's a cheat sheet for now
- This cheat sheet is meant to be short, concise, to the point
- This cheat sheet just describes the HOW
- The full write up will explain the WHY
- Resist the urge to balk at the security choices made
- Apple and Linux have these choices as defaults and are quite secure!
- The key to security is UAC which remains unchanged (ie: Sudo)
- It'll be explained in the lengthy rationale from the full write up

WHAT IS A SUPERCLEAN INSTALL
- Has a clean install as it's base
- In other words all hardware works
- But instead of mostly Dell, Intel, Nvidia, etc drivers
- Superclean install chooses Microsoft drivers over other vendors
- No bloatware, trialware, antivirus sucking up resources
- System tweaks to minimize memory consumption and maximize battery life

PROS
- A maximum of 9.5 hours of battery life on a 6 cell battery at 6 watts
- 7.5 hours of battery life while reading and writing without wifi at 7 watts
- 6.5 hours of battery life while web browsing at 8.5 watts
- No audio stuttering/crackling and perfectly green DPC latency
- Super quiet operation with no fan noise (fan stays off and doesn't spin)
- CPU temperatures around 33 degrees, rest of computer around 40 celcius
- Roughly 25 seconds to reboot to a working desktop (not just login screen)
- Only about 0.37 gigs of ram being used when idle
- No mysterious hard drive thrashing when the computer is supposed to be idle
- No unexpected slow downs from maintenance tasks running in the background
- Don't have to worry about buggy/laggy Intel Matrix drivers AT ALL
- No need to install any Dell Control Point software

CONS
- Need to perform manual security maintenance of the computer
- Suggest each week run Windows Update and quick scan with Windows Defender
- Needs an external router for firewall protection (most people have one)

SUPERCLEAN INSTALL
- Load BIOS factory default settings
- Switch mode from IRRT to AHCI in the BIOS
- Install Windows 7 with all partitions deleted and formatted
- Stop and disable Superfetch service
- Stop and disable Windows Search service
- Disable Windows pagefile
- Get all Windows Updates including optional driver updates (Ricoh drivers)
- Download and unzip Intel chipset drivers and manually install SMBus driver
- Ignore Broadcom USH exclamation in device manager (no fingerprint reader)
- Turn off Windows firewall for private and public networks
- Turn off Windows antivirus notification
- Set Windows Update to never check for updates
- Turn off automatically scheduled Windows disk defragmentation
- Turn off Windows Defender for all users and it's real time protection
- Grab latest Dell ALPS touchpad driver to enable full trackpad support

DPC LATENCY FIX FOR BROADCOM WIFI (Dell 1397)
- Install the Dell 5.10.79.7 driver
- http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R212337.EXE

HOW TO ENABLE TRACKPAD SWIPE GESTURES FOR BACK/FORWARD COMMAND
- Read MiB's excellent explanation
- http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4648562&postcount=4

FIREFOX SUPPORT FOR ALPS TRACKPAD GESTURES
- Install "Nightly Tester Tools" addon/extension
- Under it's options change the Firefox titlebar to exactly end in " Netscape"

EXTREME POWER CONSUMPTION MINIMIZATION
- Disable all external ports and wireless in BIOS and with hardware switch
- 6 watts lowest power draw measured. 2 watts more with ports/wireless on
- Corsair Solid State Hard Drive probably a factor due to low power draw

MORE EXTREME IDEAS (UNTESTED)
- Use RMClock to underclock/undervolt the CPU
- Install Dell Control Point software to use it's battery saver settings
- Run under the power saving instead of the balanced power profile
- Tweak some of the advanced power profile settings
- Physically remove unused hardware from the machine (bluetooth)
- Keyboard without backlight should use slightly less power

 

Another con:
- Reduce network security on public wifi (no Windows firewall)
- Much slower application speed (no Windows Superfetch)
- No more instant search (disabled)
- Slow Windows Boot up (missing device driver... every time you boot the OS Windows tried to detect Broadcom UHS, which is more than the fingerprint reader but also the TPM chip)
So you sacrifice speed and security for few minutes extra of battery life. No smart.
The only smart thing is to disable Smart Card reader (and the contact less one) and unplug the device under the keyboard. Note that when you remove both device, Windows will still detect these devices as the chip is soldered on the motherboard, but what you do is you cut the device from having power.

What makes the most increase in battery life is your SSD device.

Also, I don't know how you get 6.5 hours when you surf the web... despite me having a HDD and Nvidia graphic card I have 7-7.5 hours of web surf using wireless.

 

OMG, with the registry hack on the touchpad, I can access options that did not exists...
I can now disable the touch pad while typing! FINALLY!
1 million thanks to you and to MiB!

 

He has a 6-cell battery!