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

MaxGeek, you're getting 7.5k idle on an i7? that's pretty close to r1 idletimes, but yeah I think it is the SSD since I can get 8.5k on my 160gb 5400rpm; however, what are your discharge rates under normal use? This is I think where the r1 and r2 differ greatly.

Seems like r1 is around 7-9k light browsing, while the r2 is around 11-14k.

 

This from the Anandtech reviewer on how he achieved such good battery life results with his i7 R2. Found in the comments section of the review.

and

 

I just updated CommandCenter, which reactivated all my disabled services and startup apps. I think I got them all shut down but check your msconfig if you do update!

edit: Since updating CommandCenter, I can not get anywhere near my old numbers, I am pretty disappointed right now, I can not really get below 11.5-12k surfing, before I was at a good 9.5-11k while surfing.

 

slickie88, nice job finding the update to Anandtech's first look. I read over that whole review, and it seems like battery tests show 6.383 hours of "heavy flash web browsing." compared to r1's 7.1 hours. Definitely weird D:

 

Yeah, I was sort of shocked by that claim. If it's true then that means there's a smoking gun we have yet to pin-point. I've disabled the Dell Wireless stuff he mentioned, but I can't test battery atm. Will test this weekend though for sure.

 

Just for fun...

m11x r2, i5, 4gig, 250gb 7200. 6500mWh idle. 10+ hour battery life

 

Disabling wltray shouldn't change the battery life. A memory leak just means it can't release ram it's using when it's done using it.

On the topic of wltray, mine hasn't taken up more than 20mb. Should it be less than that? 20mb isn't much.

 

Yeah I agree, memory leak shouldn't affect battery by too much, and mine barely uses up any ram, too.

n.czar, how are you getting those numbers :O

 

it is a skewed result, reset on BatteryBar, at idle, no wifi, screen taken immediately after waking the monitor. I do get a consistent 7.5-8.5k discharge at idle, 10-12k under general browsing.

 

M11xR2 i7 no oc with tb on. GPU @ stock. All lights on, screen on max brightness. got 5 hours.

 

Hey guys, question about the battery wear indicator in the software
it is showing me 12% on a new battery, should i be contacting dell or should i give it more time to calibrate?

 

Might be worth contacting dell but my gut tells me they aren't going to do anything about it, The software has not ever needed any calibration time for the battery for me, it was pretty much spot on at the first launch. Post a screeny so we can see.

 

See screenshot below. Currently trying a full recharge/discharge cycle to see if that changes anything otherwise i will be contacting dell and complaining. Received it less than 2 weeks ago so it can still be returned.

 

Ouch yeah, 8k off your max you should say something, at least you have a chance at getting something. I guess I was blessed with one at 68000+ just dropped below 68k

 

Wow. I've had mine for just short of a month with BB installed from day one. No battery wear showing. Does the M11x have a BIOS level calibration routine? I don't recall seeing one.

 

Your capacity will not be the real value unless you calibrate your battery by discharging almost completely and then charging.

 

I did that when I first got it and have done so a handful of times since when testing battery life. BB is measuring my capacity at 67,800 mWh.

 

69,340 here (no wear)

 

70,120 no wear, brothers 68,101 no wear either

 

ok so I did a full discharge/recharge, battery wear is now at 18.3%. Currently at 51270 of 64530. Guess I will have to call alienware. Bloody Hell. It will be difficult to get them to believe this lol.

 

Update: Got off the phone with dell and they are sending me a new battery. It was actually quite painless. Explained to the customer service rep. Should get a new one within a week. Will post an update once I replace the battery. Thanks for the info!

 

Do you have to give the your old battery?

 

unfortunately yes. I have to send it back when I receive the new one. (would have been nice to have a spare and use this one till it completely conks out). But I am glad the service was painless so have no issue with returning my old battery.

 

I have core-i7, 4gigs ram, I havnt touched any overclocking or drivers. Everything is how it was when I received it. On power saver (minimum brightness, lighting off) i get between 5hours15minutes to 6hours. This is me typing all day, and listening to the occasional song while working. on gaming mode with the same settings I get about 2hours15minutes to 2hours 50minutes.
Gaming with everything on (almost full screen brightness, keyboard lighting, sound) I get about 1hour45minutes to 2hours20minutes.

 

i just realized something interesting for wear, mine says -8% ; )

my full charge capacity is 70,120 which doesnt seem normal

 

Every laptop I've owned has come with a battery above what it's rated for. I assume it's intentional and that they do it so it won't say it has lost capacity for longer than otherwise.
My m11x's is like yours but is only at -7% (69340mwh)

 

Guys I have noticed something. I just received my new 60GB Agility 2. With the fresh install I am seeing 0% cpu usage which is something I have never seen before. With wifi off, lights on, O/C off, Turbo on, power saving (default settings) Ethernet connected, I am seeing 7-8 hours on idle via windows. I Don't think I ever saw over 6 quoted by windows. I am really thinking a fresh install and SSD can really help. I can see easy 5 hours of semi heavy surfing.

 

I have multiple SSD's across my machines, and will promote the benefits of SSDs to anyone who will listen. But I must say, that I don't think that your 0% CPU usage is because you have an SSD - it is more likely a result of your fresh install.

Most of the CPU usage while your computer is idle is from background processes. An SSD would only help with background processes that hit the storage system heavily (like a defrag process, or a scheduled backup process). But for the most part, they use CPU and RAM more than storage disk.

 

You got my extra capacity

 

Oh I completely agree. But between the fresh install and SSD I have seen a substantial increase in battery life

 

Final Update:
Received the new battery next day!

Here are the specifications from battery bar:
Total Cap: 70360

0% Battery wear of 64530

Thanks for the help. It must have just been a faulty battery. Shipping the old one back monday.

 

just got mine a few days ago and am just getting above 5hrs listening to music with screen on dimmed all the way, no alienfx, turn off hard disk 3, no wireless, usb selective suspend disabled,min processor 3 max 40, stock drivers- all in the battery saving setting

what can i do to improve the life

 

turn off any other software that's always running that you dont need

 

I use NoScript and Adblock plus with FF in order to drastically cut down on the Flash ads that most sites have. Nothing gets played unless I intend for it to.

 

ok the ad blocker is a good idea

i was wondering like any other settings or even how much does disabling turbo boost help battery life

 

my battery bar on the part where it says wear 0% out of 64530 mine says like 43000 is there anything wrong with that it also dropped about 1hr off of my battery life and no settings have changed

 

Do a full recharge/discharge cycle and see if the max value changes. If it doesn't call alienware support and get it fixed. When the guy remotely connects to your pc show him the batterybar values and chances are they will send you a new battery.

When my battery required replacement, I got it next day, took about 30 minutes with the tech support to verify that indeed was the issue.

Support was excellent with identifying the problem and sending a replacement.

 

New Command Center update adds an additional average of 45mins battery to R2 i7 Drivers and Downloads

 

How do you check the battery life wear?

Thanks.

 

HWMonitor or BatteryBar. Lot's of other apps will tell you that, but you should probably already have those on hand.

 

You do realize that your scenario is unrealistic, right? so you're not going to get anything more than 5. 4.5hrs is the average with typical usage (Wireless on/BT on) without gaming

 

ok thanks i was just wondering if it was possible

 

So I stumbled upon this Granola program reading the HP envy forum:

http://grano.la/software/about.php

I'm wondering if anyone has tried using this Granola to increase the battery life? It claims to downclock and undervolt the processor when it thinks the load is light. Not sure how effective it would be for for i5/i7 cores on the R2.

My m11x R2 is at home, and I'll give this a try when I get off work and let you guys know what I find.

 

The CPU already downclocks to save battery life, as long as you have Speed Step enabled in the bios (it is by default) and the power plan you use has <50% as the minimum processor state (most do by default). I don't think that program does anything new.

 

Not true. I do it every day.

 

I have a 0.0% battery wear of 43,600. Is this normal??

 

dont worry about that mine did the same thing but went back to its normal 60k number batterybar messed up

 

You have a ridiculously optimized system. For the rest of us, the average is 4-5 hours. Out of the box, my R2 had 3 hours of browsing!

 

is leaving the computer plugged on 24/7 bad for the battery? since there is no option to remove the battery without the inconvenience unscrewing the back cover

 

^^ I think it is bad. If you are playing games, keep the charger plugged in. When your surfing and not playing games unplug the charger. Drain the battery to 20% or less before plugging in the charger again.