W3J Optical drive battery

Hi guys, newbie here. Just wanted to ask about the way the W3J swaps power with the optical battery, i read a few posts about the screen turning off when the machine swaps power source. Any feedback available on this issue?
I'm looking into buying one, was a toshiba lover until i found out about this little beauty! looks like a perfect all round machine suitable for anything.

 

thats exactly what happens. when it swaps over the back light of the screen turns completly off. i was a little weirded out by that, but then it came back on again.
the optical battery is great though - i had my computer on for 6 hours actually doing stuff.
what is weird though is that the battery monitor seems to tell you how much is left in the primary battery but it just goes down really slowly. so, in other words it will say 2:45 but it will last longer than that. you can run the computer with either battery bay though. basically the monitor is weird - you never know how much is left in the seperate batteries - thats the thing.
my dvd drive is a bit sticky which is annoying, but thats probably just me.
definatlhy worth getting. i ordered the hard drive bay too, hasnt come yet.

 

Thanks for your reply jacen, it's a big help. did u order yours online or picked it up from a store? if online how long did you wait?

 

i eventually got it from milestone pc after looking at a number of other places that were out of stock. i didnt pay for fedex shipping - which will probably get it to you a day after assembly. i piad for ground and it took a week.
they added an extra gig of ram - and it was shipped about a day after payment. which is good - the ram was pretty cheap too - 108$ - online youd probably get it for 98$ but then youd have to pay extra shipping. i think you can order your own hard drive (even ones that arent listed) but i got the standard 100gb 5400.

 

I wouldn't say that the screen turning off is normal, I do not know why a couple of W3J's do that? I have a W3J and I have the HDD bay and second battery, I have never had this problem.

Basically if I have both batteries in, the optical bay battery runs down first, and then it runs down the main battery, I dont even know when the optical bay battery runs down because nothing happens it just automatically switches.

 

6 hours.... I saw a reseller post something about the optical battary only adding a single hour to the battary life!

 

one hour......... dude you would have to be doing some hard core gaming and have the screen @ full brightness to get only one hour, thats half what I get, I currently get 1:45-2hrs depending on use

 

thanks guys, after hearing that i'm definitely getting the second battery. wow up to 6 hours away from a power outlet

 

Well more like 3 - 3.5hrs main 1.45 - 2hrs optical, realistically I get around 5 for both, but hey 5 for a ayatem with a 256mb GPU, I am happy with that.

ps I havent underclocked the system much, I just use P4G so maybe others will get more?

 

When the optical battery is in, does the computer act as if its on battery mode (1Ghz) or does it act as if its in AC mode (1.83 Ghz)?

 

it acts like any battery and runs in DC mode