Battery Life and Optimus Drivers

Hi all. I'm new to the forum so and well..also new to the M11x....Got my M11x R2 with 4gb ram, i7 640UM (OC'ed the FSB to 166mhz) and 250gb HDD @ 7200rpm day before yesterday I LOVE it.

I've been reading a lot on the post about where you can install the new 258.96whql driver using a modded .inf file which I have done. I love the new task tray icon that tells you whether any apps are using the gpu and even though it says that none are using it the battery life still seems around the same.

I've been reading a bit and I'm seeing people getting around 5hrs +..sometimes 7hrs on their M11x's and I manage to get around close to 3hrs on power saver with the screen dimmed so I was wondering if the GT 335M being powered on (without me knowing) could be the cause of this because when I open Everst Ultimate, under Sensors I can see the GPU fan @ 100% and when I check the Nvidia task tray icon, it says that nothing is using the GPU. I'm going to play Splinter Cell Conviction now to see if my FPS has raised anything at all...was getting around 20fps with EVERYTHING max. Please any help would be appreciated...Thanks in advance

 

There's only one fan in the M11x that handles cooling for both the CPU and GPU.

 

Thanks for the reply...I guess I'll have to make some more tweaks to get battery life a bit better cuz I'm gonna be using it during classes soon.

 

Download BatteryBar and see what it tells you for battery life.

 

That's really handy..Thanks...It gives me a slightly lower amount than Windows, while both are slightly inaccurate I get a much better average with that. I'm now wondering if it's the OC killing my battery life so bad :\

 

Overclocking the CPU has no appreciable impact on the battery life.

 

Oh ok...Well I'd like to disable some unnecessary services to free up resources a bit...Any tips ? I've disabled most of the startup programs...Only AlienFX, Avast, Realtek HD Audio Manager & Alien Respawn. I want to get rid of Alien Respawn but I can't disable it via Tune Up Utilities, can I just uninstall it and get rid of the 14gb partition through Disk Management ? Is that partition important at all ? It kinda worries me cuz I saw some people had trouble after getting rid of that partition...Think they manually had to boot from the hard drive by pressing F12. Main reason I wanna get rid of the partition is cuz I only have 250gb lol.

 

If you are going to remove AlienRespawn be sure to use the Emergency Rescue Media creation module first - use optical or a USB flash drive (will need an 8GB stick). Doing so will preserve your factory image.

There are other ways to do this but this is the easiest and quickest way to preserve the factory image. If you run into trouble, pop in the USB stick and boot from it to restore to an 'out of box' state.

 

Ok so I shouldn't run into problems after deleting the partition right ? And if I were to back it up via a flash drive, would I be able to just copy the contents of the flash drive onto my Desktop PC where I could store it as a backup ? Or maybe copy the contents and burn it to a DVD ? [Don't have a USB optical drive]. Thanks for your help btw

 

I found similar issues when I bought my R2 after getting nearly 10 hours on my R1 when I used it in 'netbook mode'.

What I found was that with the R1 I was compartmentalizing my usage - hardcore gaming with the GT335, and web/office/email/older games for the integrated chip.

With the R2 I was switching modes willy-nilly and not really thinking about how that would tend to put things into a worst-case scenario. Adjusting my use-cases made it *much* better. I can still knock it down in about 2-3 hours, but general use is more in the 5+ range.

 

I think this is my exact problem ! Lol after upgrading to the new 258whql drivers I now have the little icon in my task tray that tells me what programs are using the discrete graphics and I noticed Google Chrome was using the GPU to look at a normal flash video in 360p ! (Slow Internet, no patience)

I'm going to see what changes I can make to the power saver plan now

Oh also, just wondering, the Windows 7 disc that ships with the M11x is JUST Windows 7 alone ? Like it doesn't come with any other stuff like the Command Center etc. ?

 

Okay, I've tried everything I can besides disabling Turbo Boost and WiFi..Battery Bar STILL tells me I have a lifetime of 2hrs 16mins...which is terrible IMO and I am seeing a discharge rate of 22,199mW...and well that number varies between 22,000mW and 25,000mW. In my power savings plan I set the processor minimum state to 0% and maximum to 30% ! I cannot see why battery life is this bad for me ! I've disabled whatever services I think I can safely disable off the startup also. This is really frustrating as school is going to start back and I'll need to take this around with me, won't be able to carry around a freakin power cord -.- Any more suggestions?

 

What do you have your display brightness set to? Your LCD consumes more power than any other component by a long shot.

Also, what power plan are you running when on battery? Power Saver is what you want. Set the minimum cpu value for that plan to 1% and maximum to something like 50%.

EDIT: Also make sure you've updated to the latest version of Command Center or if you prefer uninstall it completely. Either way that's supposed to give you and extra half hour or so.

 

Hi All,

According to Battery Bar my m11xr2 battery capacity is only 3:30 hours, i havent seen it go above 3:50 before. How are people getting 5+ hours on this thing?

 

That's about the same as the max I get...trying to figure out the same thing.