Lets get a handle on everyone's battery life....

First...... please only post this information below. I'd like to keep this thread free of any other junk. If you have other comments, please post them in another thread. This thread will eventually end up as a sticky, I'm sure of it.

OK, here's the plan. I've figured out over the last couple years, that the cells Asus is using in all of their systems is pretty accurate for figuring out battery life. My findings show the following:

25 minutes per cell (normal configuration / normal use)
35 minutes per cell on the absolute high side (low configuration and light use) 15 minutes per cell (high configuartion 2.1ghz cpu/7200rpm hdd/dedicated graphics and heavy use - max settings)

I'd like everyone, no matter the system to post their results like this:

Model
CPU
HDD
Battery life - at least what you find to be your average.. if you want to also add under max use and under minimum use, you can do that as well.

Then list your per cell life according to however you listed it above..... I want to get a feel for the over all average of the forums based on configuration and use and leaving the size of the battery and the the system itself (minus the difference between integrated and dedicated graphics) out of the picture.

 

Model: W3V
CPU: 1.86GHz Sonoma (undervolted, .700v 80MHz on battery power)
Battery life: 4:10 average (with wireless always on, combination of word processing and Internet usage)
Battery life per cell (8-cell): 31.25 minutes

 

model: w3v
CPU: 1.86GHZ sonoma
batt life: 5hrs 05min (trillian and firefox only "running" programs)
batt life/cell: 38.125

note i have used centrino hardware control to enable max battery power so that the CPU never goes beyond 800MHZ; I do not use dynamic control. i have also enabled ATI powerplay set to max battery so that ATI GPU clock speeds are at the bare minimum.

in a well lit environment with good ambient light, i usually set the brightness to 26.6% which is based on counting the tick marks, 15 tick marks and brightness set to 4th tick. although i prefer to have the brightness set more towards to 60%, 26.6% really is manageable.

 

Model : z71v ,CPU:1.86mhz , HDD: 60gb/7200rpm - 8 Cell Battery

Average standard battery life with wi-fi on continously : 24mins/cell

 

W3N - 71W/hr 8cell, 2x256MB, 1.7GHz, 80GB 4200RPM.

Min usable, Word: 44 min/cell. ~ 12W
Typical, Wireless, Misc. Office, MP3: 34 min/cell. ~ 16W
DVD: 26min/cell ~ 21W
MAx everything, Game, 14min/cell ~ 37W

 

W3A with 1.86GHz CPU undervolted to 0.7V at 800MHz + Seagate Momentus 5400rpm 100GB HDD

Mobile meter reports about 14W under light usage and the 8 cell battery as 68.08W-hr, which is consistent with observed battery life of about 4.5 hours to 10% remaining.

John

 

Model M5N
CPU 1.6
HDD 40Gb

battery life, basic use - email, web surfing (wireless), light educational games, excel, etc (never really do anything heavy, so I don't know about that)

3 cell: 1.25 hours
6 cell: 2.5 to 3 hours.

 

I didn't really want to comment at all after making the initial post.... but guys, please follow the simple things I asked for.... break it down for everyone and mention how you're using the power saving features..

Like Robyn - The life you're getting, even though you're saying you a just doing basic stuff...... that life is well below where it should be if your cpu is clocking down correctly.... even at full blast, your numbers are sort of low.... what speed is your 40gb drive?

 

Since you commented I will also. Why do you say his numbers are low? At the top you said to expect 25 minutes per cell under "normal" use. 25 minutes x 6 cells = 150 Minutes (2.5 Hours). I thought the whole idea was to see how close everyone gets to your "accurate method for figuring out battery life"?

 

No, I'm noticing the specific set up and that should be more if power saving methods are being used..... I'm just trying to help Robyn maximize the batteries being used because I know if the cpu was scaling correctly... for that partiuclar setup and for the use as stated... 2 hours should be able to be squeeked out of that 3 cell..... If Robyn isn't making honest use out of powergear than the there's more potential for Robyn's system... that's all.

 

Z70V
Cpu: 1.86 GHz
HDD: 60GB/7200rpm
Bat Life:
Max: ~3.5hrs Min:~2.5hrs Avg: ~3hrs

 

Well, I haven't actually measured the time; those were just estimates. But yes, it has always seemed fairly low to me, right from the beginning. I am using the Power4Gear programme, and it does go down to 25% CPU on battery power, and the screen dims to 20%. I am using the wireless most of the time, though, and that may use more power than I think. I'd also classify the bits and pieces that I'm doing as light use, as in I'm not into gaming or hard calculations or that sort of thing, but that's fairly subjective.

I'm not sure of the speed of the drive - 5400, I think - how can I tell?

Biggest problem, I'm guessing, is I've got one of these systems with the noisy fan that's on all the time, and that's got to be using up power!

(p.s. I'm female, so it's "she" not "he" )

 

Model: M3Np
CPU: Pentium-M 1.5GHz Duron
HDD: Seagate 100GB 5400rpm 8mb Cache
Battery Life: 5 - 7 Hours (14.8v @ 4400mAH -- I don't know how many cells it has) :centrino:

 

model: w3v
cpu: 1.86 pent m
hdd: 80gig 5400rpm
battery life: ~3.45 hours avg
(28 mins/cell)

Cpu is undervolted to .700V and capped at 800mhz using rmclock, brightness is at 8 ticks out of 15 or roughly 50%, wireless is always on and always downloading, only cpu activity is from browing and instant messaging, although there are like 10+ programs running on my sys tray inclused windows and norton updates etc. Powerplay is also set to max battery life for the gpu.

I don't understand how people can get 5 hours on the same setup. Even with screen brightness turned all the way down (4 ticks out of 15) I am still showing only 4 hours of battery life.

 

model: Asus Z71V
CPU: 2.26 ghz (Overclocked, Undervoltage)
batt life: 3.5 hours - 3.8 hours on casual usage.