Alienware m17x and your battery

We all know that the m17x is not really something that can run on battery, but I was thinking of ways to fix this without giving up too much of my power.

So, there are a few ways that I know of that will work.

maxing out the ram: By maxing out the ram, the computer can run programs from the ram instead of reading them from the hdds.
So, if we can cram as much memory as possible in there, then the hdds will be in idle more to save some juice

HDD and SSD: Hdds can use a pretty decent amount of power while running, and if your like me then you have all your hdds slots filled up. A ssd will use 1/3 or less power than a spinning drive, be faster, but at the cost of size and higher price. If you have the budget, a few ssds in your 17 can make the power consumption go down alot. 4 256gb ssds will give you 1tb of space, super speed, and the power consumption just a little more than a single hdd. A ssd also runs cooler, dropping the over all temp inside the laptop allowing the fans to not turn on as much.

Cooling: The cpu and gpu require most of the power in these things, but lets not forget those hair dryer fans that power up. Reducing the amount of time the fans are running can give you a boost in battery life. Cooling mods are pretty simple, and can make a huge change in overall battery life as well as performance. Keeping the temps down will allow the gpu to stay at higher clocks.
Now, most cooling mods usually involve adding of small copper heatsinks. These will turn your active heat sink into a more passive one. Heat being pulled from the gpu/cpu and just wicked away by the ambient air.

Turn stuff off!
Yes, easy one here, turn off the lights, turn off the bluetooth, turn off the widi, turn off anything your not actually using.


Now there are a few other options to conserve power, but they would cripple the m17x and turn it more into a m14x with a bigger screen.... by that I mean swapping out the cpu for a i5, swapping the the 680m with a 660m, but lets face it, we dont want to do that

We already know you cant really game on battery with the main gpu, but the intel hd4000 can actually play some decent games.
So, you can game, on the airplane, on battery, for a decent amount of time if your willing to spend the money and mod the parts

Using these methods I have gotten my m11xr1 up to nearly 16 hours of battery life (surfing/watching videos)
That is double the listed life.

So, what are your ideas to boost the m17x battery life?

 

Using a customized power plan should help as well. I have to say that these machines are power hungry and have a hard time gaming on battery unless you switch everything to high performance. But if you do that, the battery life will be very low. It's one or the other.

 

Adunno what is the craze about running Alienware laptops on battery, running such a beast on battery is neutering it. That and whenever my M17x R2 gets unplugged, I have to reboot as my GPU's never go back to the stock speeds.

 

I put mine on battery sometimes when I am not near a power outlet. If I am on the airplane its a plus to be able to play a few games.

While I love the power that the m17x can push out, I also like my battery life.

Also, the whole point of the newer machines (r3 and newer) is to be able to have power when you need it and battery life when you want it. (optimus)

 

My M17x R4 has been fine, I get around 5 hours just doing normal word processing which is pretty good. No special tweaks, my power profile allows CPU to go between 1.15-3.4ghz as it wants. No real way to make a huge difference, the lights don't make a huge difference for me. Screen brightness can play a role but its kinda needed sometimes.

(3630qm and 680m as well)