m11x R2 Battery Life - What are you getting and how to make it better

I am starting this thread because there are so many (a little backwards but maybe it will work). I am hoping to get people to tell us what mods you have done to help get better battery life, your specs on your computer, general usage mWh as well as idle mWh. I am also hoping people can get some screens up of BatteryBar to help compare draw, averages and total capacity.


Here's a link to BatteryBars website:

Osiris Development - BatteryBar, the most accurate battery meter for Windows

And here is a link to the optimizations page:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/463114-m11x-optimization-thread.html

 

I am running the Fast Track with i5, 4gig ram, 250gb 7200rpm mobo, bluetooth, no wwan.

I am getting on average 10-15k mWh surfing, downloading from steam, watching movies and playing music, I generally see around 12k.

On idle I get between 7500 and 8500mWh no background tasks, no wifi.

I am running with AlienFX and AlienSense disabled, I disabled indexing as well. I have bluetooth, wwan and networking (10/100) disabled in bios, I do not overclock and I have TurboBoost disabled.

For surfing I use a modified power saver plan, max cpu 50%, 20% brightness (varying).

 

i'm getting -12500 mW on low power 5.5 hours, specs in signature

in the power saver plan i changed "turn off hard disk" to 3 minutes from 5 minutes, i changed the minimum processor state to 3% from 5%, i also made the alienfx led lights on the keyboard and speakers turn off

as soon as i open google chrome the power usage jumps to 14000~15000 mW

i also changed from mcafee to nod32 and that made a difference because mcafee is a major resource hog, i have 10 less processes with nod32, less cpu cycles being used so i got a little more from that.

screen all the way down to the minimum lighting, i got rid of the Alienware Face Recognition Software, i turned off indexing.

i am out of things to try to get better battery life, i'd really like to get it to -10000 mW on idle, lots of the R1 guys seem to be getting down to -7000 mW or less that is nearly half of what us R2 guys are getting.

 

Good tip on the nod32, I'll have to take a look at it, do you use just antivirus or the suite, I am running McAfee (30 day trial). Do you exit the AlienFX controller after turning off the lights, that will save some cpu cycles.

 

what ever the trial version of nod32, i think its the anti-virus/spyware i also heard avast is a light anti-virus/spyware program

is there a way i can turn off ports that i know i am not going to use like the monitor port and microphone jack?

edit: i also think i may disable MUI StartMenu Application from CyberLink Corp, i think that is for the camera and i will probably never use it

 

nice idea turning of indexing (turned off Windows search and superfetch) as it's consuming so much mWh while you not have an SSD i think. I also turned of the Aliensense thing. btw I'm using avira antivir.

idle power consumption now under 8k O.O
normal surfing with Opera browser now near 11k

 

I hope that i7 power draw is only high because of poor drivers/bios (maybe this is just a pathetic dream) but I thought the new i core processors were supposed to draw less power than the older core2duos at similar clock speeds?

Or maybe what some people have been saying is true: the 335m is still partially on.

I noticed that Dell's site used to say 5.5 hours I believe for the r2, but they took off any battery benchmarks and now instead say "while still maintaining long battery life."

I recently called Dell, and they kept giving me different numbers. Two people even gave me 3-4 hours and 1-2 hours, and then ended up apologizing because they told me they accidentally told me m15x/17x specs. To me, it seems like Dell/AW doesn't even have proper knowledge of battery life

I really wish battery life could be improved to at least 5 hours, since I will be using this for college. All these optimizations shouldn't be needed.

 

i got to admit i am also a little disappointed with the battery life, i heard the same as you mixwui about the core-i processors drawing less power

 

I too was under the impression that the i series processors took less and not more energy.

 

They do and they don't. To explain, the Core I-5 and I-7 used have a lower least voltage but a higher highest voltage. Here are the numbers:

SU7300: 1.05-1.15 volts
I-5 520UM: .725-1.4 volts
I-7 640UM: .725-1.4 volts

(from List of Intel Core 2 microprocessors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and List of Intel Core i7 microprocessors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and List of Intel Core i5 microprocessors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


So even though the Core I's can run lower than the SU7300, it's clear from everyone's battery life that they aren't, that they're running at the upper end of their voltage spectrum.

 

Even more reason to OC....lol

 

I should check my idle times OC and not, I'll get on that now.

 

Yeah I figured that turbo boost would boost the clock up to the higher power draw spectrum, and that side would be higher than the r1s, but if the lowest end is lower than the r1s, I wonder if we could somehow keep it constantly clocked low. Maybe downclock it to the lowest possible power draw which should still be plenty for daily tasks?

 

To constantly clock it low, go into the advanced power settings of whatever plan you use and set the maximum processor frequency lower (default is 100%)

 

I set mine to 25%, and the average draw is still in the higher end of 14-15k /:

 

mixwui did you also change your minimum processor frequency? if you are idling it probably didn't change because the low end is the same. mine was 5% and i changed it to 3%. also chnage the time it takes to turn off the hard drive from 5 minutes to 3 minutes or 2 minutes.

 

I believe I changed the minimum to 0%. I'm now getting about 5 hours max with light web browsing, but having to have the screen on the lowest brightness and all this optimization makes it blehhh. Oh well, should I be complaining?

And what are other's thoughts on the i7, is it capable of achieving the stellar battery performance found on the old core2duo?

Edit: oh and would changing the harddrive to turn off at 3 minutes really make that much difference if the laptop is idling? Because I would think the harddrive would need to be accessed if doing anything at all.

 

I turned off indexing and real time scanning of my antivirus software and now am getting 6:30-7 hours if battery bar is to be believed (I went 3 hours on battery before I had to go to bed). That's just idle though, letting it sit there and only touching it when the screen turned off.

 

What are your specs? And I'd think turning off real-time virus scanning would be a bad thing, lol.

What's the idle discharge rate, and what is it when you're web browsing with antivirus on?

 

I haven't had a virus/trojan/worm in over a decade, so I'm not worried. Whatever I download via bittorrent I will scan manually, and I use Web of Trust, Noscript, and other security addons for Firefox.

Specs are I5, no OC, 4gb ram, 320gb 7.2k hd, case lights off when on battery, 50% max cpu on battery, firewire port off, lowest screen brightness on battery, no paging file, everything else default when using battery on Balanced power setting. Also, that test was with wireless off but with an ethernet cable plugged in.

The lowest idle discharge rate I saw was 10.2k, but I wasn't staring at it the whole time. I believe the lowest I saw with antivirus while browsing was 10.5k, but it was usually in the 11k-14.5k range. Battery bar said something over 5.5 hours when I was browsing constantly for a few hours (that was before turning off indexing and real time scanning).

 

Anyone know if turning turboboost off has any effect on battery life? Also, I assume having the CPU not overclocked is best.

Windows shows ~6 hours on mine with power save mode on and the screen one notch above minimum brightness, and aero off.

 

I've seen 8.9k on my discharge and I have a core i7 and an ssd.

 

I want an ssd so bad

Yes disabling turboboost should increase efficiency, windows battery indicator is pretty inaccurate, it will tell you an estimate based on the current discharge rate, check out BatteryBar.

 

oh i forgot to add that's with power saver max 50% usage cpu and turbo boost and overclock off

 

My OCZ Agility II should be here next week. Yummy Sandforce 1200 controller. I got it for 120$ after BCB and 10$ MIR. It was a really good deal.

 

Not bad at all

 

So, I was reading this:
Notebookcheck: Intel Core i7 640UM Notebook Processor

And found this:
Turbo Boost (2.26 GHz max), Hyper Threading, Enhanced Speedstep, integrated GMA HD 166-500MHz

For the i7-640um. Notice how the integrated intel graphics card goes from 166-500mhz; say we can somehow keep that at a constant ~166mhz and keep the clock speed of the i7 at ~1.2ghz, should be enough for browsing/music regular tasks and save a significant amount of battery life. Interesting, I'm going to see if I can downclock the integrated chipset.

I wonder if people are right about the 335m being on or idle all the time affecting battery life, because I run NvOptimusTestViewer64 and it flickers between off and idle at times every .5 seconds.

 

You shouldn't be seeing that. Is that after a fresh reboot sitting idle?

 

No, I think the problem went away. Also in the Intel igp options make sure you switch the graphics to battery saving, not performance mode.

Right click desktop > graphics properties > power tab > graphics power plan settings: on battery > maximum battery life.
And in NVIDIA control panel > manage 3D settings, global settings tab: preferred graphics card should be integrated graphics. This may help, because if it's on the 335m programs such as Microsoft Hearts will trigger the 335m.

I feel like I need to bump this since no one is really making the effort to improve the battery life of the r2. Anywho, good news for i7 owners, I was able to get around 8.5k mW discharge at idle, or roughly 7.5-8 hours. WOW. Of course, this is quite unrealistic, but right now with wifi on, firefox, google talk, power saver mode, no lights, lowest brightest I get about 12.5k average discharge time with light browsing.

Meh, this seems to be around 5+ hours.


BatteryBar didn't update the battery lifetime.

Still, if by what it seems like the r2 should be able to match idle times of r1 owners, then why are we getting significantly less battery life under normal tasks? EDIT: Nevermind, I reread and r1s get 5-6k idle. Something makes me think turboboost and optimus throttling isn't working so well. Btw, I have turboboost on, maybe that's causing battery life to weaken too.

I should stop typing, but specs are i7, 160gb 5400rpm (SSD may improve battery life dramatically; I have a feeling those r1 owners with high battery life might be on an SSD)

 

Weird, the Fujitsu P770 with the same core i7-640um gets a solid 7 hours from more than one review. I'm even more baffled now.

It has a lower capacity battery too.
Main battery: 6 cell (10.8V, 5,800 mAh)
Which equals 62,640 mWh compared to the m11x 64,530 mWh

 

I also don't think its just the cpu thats eating battery. The i7 640UM has a 18W TDP vs the 10W TDP of the SU7300 which I don't think explains the huge battery life difference between the R1 and R2. From the looks of it the seems to be GPU clocking down to 135MHZ and not turning off completely. I can't be sure, but all the GPU apps I've tried show that the GPU is still on.

 

Yeah, also I've been doing more digging up and apparently the old Lifebook P3110 had LESS battery life then the P770.

Review: Fujtsu Lifebook P770 | TechOat.com

We ran the Lifebook P770 for a huge 427 minutes away from the mains – enough for all-day productivity on the move – compared to the P3110's 314 minutes.

The P770 has a i7-640um, the P3110 has the same options as the m11xr1: su4100 and su7300. That means the i7 actually gets technically almost 2 hours more battery life. Bah, I need to talk to a real Alienware rep.

 

This is a good thread i will keep my eye on it. I finished getting the gaming performance out of it that i wanted & now i want to get the battery life up.

 

See the problem is everyone is comparing the 10W SU7300 to the 18W i5 and i7, problem is you can't compare them that way. The old SU7300 10W is just for the cpu, the intel graphics adds more to that! With the new cpu the 18W includes the intel gpu in that figure, so they really are about the same... At least that is how I understand it.

 

TDP does not measure power use. It measures the cooling system's ability to dissipate heat. I don't know where that myth is coming from.

I posted the real voltage numbers earlier in the thread. Using those real numbers, the I7 640um can use .25 volts more than the 1.15 maximum of the su7300. That is a ~22% increase in power use. Now look at battery life. The M11x R1's average maximum battery time is 8 hours, while the I7's is 6 hours, which is a 20% decrease in battery time.

Which GPU apps are you using to see which is on? The Optimus Tools show mine is pretty much always off (only coming on with flash videos, games, and such).

 

Hey guys, quick question.
Say I were go into device manager, could I disable the Nvidia GT335M without any problems?

 

corwinice, that all makes sense, except that anandtech says the m11xr2 should be getting 7 hours of battery life. At first thought I thought their staff was nuts, until I came across the Lifebook P770 - same i7-640um, but has a tad over 7 hours of battery life. 4 hours of battery life while watching a DVD, which is about the same as the r1.

Except the P770 doesn't have a discrete graphics card or Optimus; makes me still think that the m11x somehow has the 335m idling, wasting away battery life.

Noah, I already tried that and for some reason discharge rate shot up to 20k~22k from 14-15k. I think disabling the 335m in device manager may also disable Optimus.. problem is Optimus might not be fully efficient either.

Disabling the 335m does get rid of NVIDIA control panel when you right click on the desktop though.

 

I wouldn't put any stock in anandtech, since they said it 'should' without saying why it should. They could have meant since the R1 got 7 hours, this one should, or they could mean that's what some Dell rep told them. They also said the I7 is a 50% speed increase over the su7300, which even their own benchmarks show isn't true.

Does the P770 have the same integrated card as the m11x? And does it have the same size battery? (I don't know; I'm really asking because those two points can explain the battery life difference.) Also, 4 hours of battery watching dvds is what some R2s have got, and I believe the R1 has like 5-6 watching dvds, so 4 hours of battery on the p770 doing the same shows it to be in line with the R1s in that regard.

I can't say for sure the 335m isn't draining some power; definitely I cannot say that. I only want to point out the numbers posted don't necessarily show it is doing so, either. All that said, it would be very cool to gain another couple of hours of battery with a future nVidia driver

 

This is what I have on R1 with OC'd CPU, WiFi off, all programs closed, min brightness and idle:



I think 8k mW on R2 is fine. Btw with this I get estimated 9.5 hrs of battery life on the Windows Power Icon.

 

Yes, it does have the same integrated video card since the card is built into the same chip as the i7 cpu (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this).
Also, in an earlier post I stated that the P770 actually has a slightly lower capacity battery than the m11x:

It has a lower capacity battery too.
Main battery: 6 cell (10.8V, 5,800 mAh)
Which equals 62,640 mWh compared to the m11x 64,530 mWh

So, the only reasonable explanation is that Optimus is poorly optimized?

It's actually more around 10k and spikes up dramatically to 12-13k with minimal tasks. I just luckily managed to get 8.5k, lol. And I've read 8.5k is what r1 users get with light web browsing

 

Yeah, I'm retracting my earlier arguments. Yes, it's possible it is not an Optimus problem given the potential voltages of the Core I CPUs, but every other comparable computer with an I7 has a few more hours of battery.

The P770 you already mentioned.

I saw the Lenovo Thinkpad x201 laptop on sale on slickdeals and googled for a review, finding this one Lenovo ThinkPad X201 Steps Up With Core i7 Power In a Thin and Light Body. The X200 gets 11 hours of battery with a 9-cell--meaning it'd get 7 hours 20 minutes with the M11X's 6-cell--and the X201 gets 12.2 hours with its 9-cell--meaning it'd get 8 and 8 minutes with the M11X's 6-cell.

As you said, the I7 comes with a specific IGP, so that makes Optimus the only major difference. It makes sense that Optimus/335m is the difference in battery life.

Perhaps there is a way to test. Can someone with an R1 see what it gets for battery life or discharge rate with the 335m on as well as off? If this number is comparable to the R2 with the 335m off, that would point to the 335m being active. If it is slightly higher, then it points to the 335m still drawing some but not all power. Unfortunately, it isn't a great comparison, as both GPUs are running on the R2 when the 335m is on, but since the IGP is made to consume low power, it should still be in the same ballpark.

 

if the 335m is plugged via a MXM slot you could disassamble the R2 and remove the 335m. That's a way to clearly identify whether it's the 335m or the new mainboard that is draining the battery. But thats for hardcore Laptop enthusiasts. Personally i don't recommend to remove the card. But if a Dell rep would be so nice and test that ?

 

Another thing I just figured out is:

Deactivate the Nvidia 335m in the device Manager results in immediatly higher power consumption.

while activated my power consumption is around 12k mWh
while deactivated i get around 20k mWh

can someone confirm this ?

 

Maybe the fans or other mainboard component is draining battery.

I was reading about Apple vs Optimus approuch to switching graphics and seems that Optimus drain more when discrete GPU is used because it need to use IGP too, but that doesn't explain why it drain more when only IGP is used.
Inside Apple's automatic graphics switching

FElipe

 

I can only get 3.5 Hours of real world non-gaming usage. Surfing the net on wifi, connected to a remote desktop, bluetooth on, full screen brightness, no alien fx, and watching a 720 video.

The optimus tool says the GPU is off, but I'm also doubtful that this is really true.

 

It's not the main fan because I have it set to passive cooling when on battery (I believe that's the default).

It could be the main board, but we're talking like 33% loss of battery life (6 hours when it should be 8)--that's a lot of power for the mobo to suck up.

 

Yeah, I've been trying to get people to realize this for a couple days now, haha. Also, R1 users if you would be so kind as to make sure the 335m is idling that would provide some more insight.

I already confirmed this a couple posts back. Yeah, while deactivated it spikes up to around 20-22k, I think it's because if you disable the 335m it also disables Optimus. And then the 335m may still be ON, just not controlled or throttled back by Optimus = huge spike.

 

Compared to Unreal's Overclocked R1 I get -7.4-7.6 mW at idle, min brightness, no alienfx, no wireless radio's, minimum apps open, no aero, no gadgets, no Turbo boost, and no Overclocking.

Estimated battery life is ~45 mins less in this state. (3:49 vs 4:33)

Edit: I forgot speed step was disabled. With it enabled I picked up an extra 2 mins to 3:51. Probably within the margin of error though.

 

That's weird. I get above 10k mW idle (varies around 10200-10700 usually), yet battery life for me is 6:30.

You're using BatteryBar to get your numbers, yes? I am, too. I wonder if BatteryBar is reporting them correctly.

 

Yeah I'm using battery bar. Windows says it can do like 8+ hours. I do have an SSD which might save me a bit of power as well.

I also tried overclocking to 166 (1500mhz) with speed step off and the results are about the same at idle.