Express vs. Standard Charging and Battery Life

Not sure if it's been discussed before, but I noticed in the BIOS settings of my AW 13 that the setting for Express Charging was on instead of Standard Charging. In reading, it sounds like there is a definite loss in battery lifetime in exchange for faster battery charging with Express on. For anyone concerned with battery life it would be wise to check which way your system is set; I don't recall setting mine to express, but I might have (I have since turned it down to Standard Charging).

 

keep it at standard charging express charging would kill the battery faster and I also read in the Alienware official forums that some were mad at Dell since they keep the setting on Express on some systems by default in order to have their batteries killed quickly so they would buy a replacement. cheap trick

 

That confirms what I was saying then, thanks for chiming in! I would suggest everyone with a new AW laptop check... you never know it seems

 

You're right! Check this BIOS screen taken from NotebookCheck's AW15R2 review:

 

My initial Alienware 18 that I bought came with Express as the default so I quickly changed it after doing some research about this setting.

But the replacement Alienware 18 I got had it at Standard. Dell has no consistency it seems, depends on what clown assembled your system you may or may not have this option by default.

 

Thanks for posting that! just comes to confirm our findings. I read it on the Alienware forums man it's no joke! and it makes sense! the company wants you to burn your battery quick so you would call them and buy one in a year's time after the warranty on the battery is gone.....Batteries only have a 1 year warranty no matter what the total warranty of your system was. I know that from experience with a friend's Alienware M17X R4

 

I doubt they want you to burn your battery out to make a buck, that would be so obvious and frankly not worth the hassle as I doubt they make any real margin on batteries. I suspect this goes back to either 1) a high-level design concept about performance that is not well thought out, or 2) a result of the "rush" to get a mid-cycle series of designs out the door before all the minor items were decided upon and confirmed. It smacks of different design teams working parallel and no one coordinating their efforts in testing to me.

Then again they could just be a bunch of heartless bean-counter trolls trying to make a quick buck, you decide

 

I'm betting it's actually set to express simply to keep the battery charged while also siphoning juice from it to feed the system.

Real world example. With desktop mode disabled, standard charge set in bios (express off), A02 bios, and 180 watt PSU, my system can't keep the battery charged up while gaming. It's literally sucking more juice down than it's taking in. Last night I gamed for a few hours with the above settings. Battery drained down to around 65%. I also noticed a number of drops in fps, so I suspect this is where the 180W PSU is struggling to both charge the battery and feed the system, and the battery is draining trying to supplement the weak PSU.

The A02 bios really is a band aid for this problem. Only the larger PSU will actually resolve it.

 

I have a 330W power adapter for my Alienware 18 (that's what came with it)

so do you think I should keep it at standard or express?

 

From this thread:

"We have several hundred Dell laptops and have found that with express charge the batteries do wear out much faster. What the means is that the battery will, at a faster rate, lose the ability to hold a charge and will not stay charged as long as it would if you were to use the standard charge feature.

We only use the standard charge in the BIOS for this reason."


"Thank you for your question and answer. We are experiencing extremely short battery life in all of our E5530s from Dell. All of these laptops have express charge as a default in Bios.. Now I know what the deal is. "

 

I would definitely keep it at standard. Express is one of those things where you completely forgot to charge your laptop and you know you're gonna need battery power soon...switch to express and get a quick charge. Otherwise, yeah it's a good way to shorten the lifespan if it's set to express charge all the time.

 

Charging the battery more quickly is going to heat it a lot more, it's probably that large swing in temperature that's hitting it.

 

This is also true!

 

what laptop do you have that allows you to put it in desktop mode? my alienware 14 had that feature but the alienware 15 doesnt....

 

17 R2

 

It would be interesting to have a wall monitor and see if the 180W PSU is just solid at max (will be around 216W from the wall).

 

You need to have Alienware OSD application installed. once you do, just right click on the power icon in the taskbar and you will find it the first option

 

Dellienware made a big mistake when they launched new Alienware with a 180w power supply. Even a non engineer has understood that a 180w power supply was not enough to charge the battery while using a laptop with powerful hardware at maximum load. The engineers who estimated the power consumption of the new Alienware under maximum load and simultaneously charge the battery should have been fired.

 

Sorry for post necromancy - didn't want to create a new one. Is there still consensus on the fact that Express Charge is detrimental to battery life, specifically in AW15. If so, why is it on by default? Are people aware of any remotely rigorous empirical evidence?