Where is my battery life?

I can't get much out of my laptop. I could hardly watch 1 movie on it. Isn't is suppost to get like 2.5 hours or something? How can I increase my battery life? Any good tips?

 

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use stealth mode. and lower brightness+ turn off the backlit keyboard and other stuff like btooth and such.

 

Stealth mode only works when plugged in not when its on battery. <-- As said by a couple different Alienware Reps I spoke to.

 

that makes no sense whatsoever. the whole point of stealth mode is to use less battery power and so to only be able to use it when its plugged in defeats the purpose. it works without the adapter too.

 

Stealth mode definitely works on battery power. Auburncoast is correct - battery life is the entire point of stealth mode. Try it, you'll like it!

 

I've tried it no difference.... My GPU already downclocks and everything once I unplug. I have confirmed this with AW a few times. The purpose of Stealth mode to keep the noise down. Unless all 5 of them were wrong....

 

Here is how to increase battery life to the max:
1) use lowest backlight settings
2) turn off unneeded cards like bluetooth and wireless if you are not using them
3) turn on stealth mode.. yes it does underclock everything
4) use the integrated graphics.. do this by pressing fn + U/D GFX (F7 key) and accepting

I get 2.5 hours of battery life with this easily while surfing the net. If you are watching a movie you will get a bit less sense that requires the dvd drive to be spinning to read the disc.. or harddrive if you are running it off that.

 

AW reps, especally over the phone, have been renowned to be incredibly inconsistent and often unreliable.

 

how come no one has mentioned switching to internal GFX?

 

Whizzo said it all... Integrated graphics as stealth mode, in fact, is not really efficient when on batteries.
Just look at clocks of CPU and GPU. They are exactly the same on batteries and in Stealth mode.

 

Don't forget to turn off the AlienFX lights.

 

stealth mode will still decrease power usage even when on battery. that's because stealth mode downvolts your CPU more than if you just start running on battery. lower voltage = lower power usage.

 

Make that any CSR, in any company.

 

I would actually second what milcs said. The clocks for me remain the same on both GPU and CPU.

 

Like in my case... No difference whatsoever.
Both CPU and GPU get fixed at the same clock speeds whether the laptop is on Stealth mode, whether it is on batteries.

 

if you want max. battery time:

- switch to integrated GFX
- activate stealth mode
- deactivate bluetooth and wifi (if you don't need it)
- create a custom power management profile (based on the power saving profile) that deactivates AlienFX, along with everything you don't need
- crank down screen brightness as far as possible
- eliminate white areas from your screen. displaying white uses far more juice than displaying black.
- add more RAM. it'll keep your HDD from having to spin up all the time, which sucks lots of power.
- Smartbay battery!

 

I got 1:30 hours with everything on before realizing I should have used stealth mode. I will do so next time and turn off the lights. I am sure 2-2:30 is perfectly possible

 

Yeah thanks I reached 3 hours! But still... Stealth mode has zero effect for me.

 

You should get a smartbay battery.

 

I get 2 1/2 hours of music browsing and watching movies with this laptop on battery on the 8800mgtx downclocked , although i did use RM clock and did some tweaking on battery

 

Hey, I'm a tier 3 tech. I know what I'm doing, its amazing how many customers THINK they know more. Hmm I wonder why they even call us if that's the case.