g50VT-x2 BATTERY life

hey guys
well ive been really happy with my notebook when its docked at home, in battery saving mode on my g50vt-x2, im getting around 2 hrs of battery life. Now that im planning to go away for school this year and i transport my notebook from class to class, 2 hrs is defidently not gonna be enough. Now, im considering getting a macbook for the really nice battery life (OS X isnt too bad either), unless i can get some suggestions when it comes to this situation.

anyone suggest anything??

thanks

 

have you tried turning down your screen brightness and undervolting, checking out the undervolting guide might be able to get you even more battery life on your asus

 

I have managed to eke out just about 3 hours battery life with my A1, doing nothing but hardcore notetaking in Word. Here's what I did (some of these might be considered a little too drastic):
1. Turned off wifi/BT.
2. Disabled all used devices in device manager (e.g. card reader, camera, IR)
3. Turned down screen brightness to the absolute minimum (this is rather painful in brighter rooms).
4. Made sure I had no garbage processes or programs running. For example, turn off indexing unless you search a lot. You can consider suspending your antivirus/firewall if you have wifi off and are just taking notes.

I think that with wifi on and a conservative but not too painful brightness, you should be able to get 2.5 hours or so. If you need more, there is always a 9 cell spare battery you can get. I considered the 9 cell, but decided against it because my notebook is mostly a portable desktop.

 

delta - i've been looking for asus 9 cell for my model

any recommendations for where to get it
i have an x59sr

 

I'm not familiar with the X59, since I think it's an older model and I've only been hanging around the Asus forums for the last 4 months or so. You can check the Asus estore (estore.asus.com) and see if there is an equivalent model there that uses the same battery.

You can contact the following Asus resellers who all hang out on this forum, they definitely know more than me and may carry a 9 cell:
GenTechPC ( www.GenTechPC.com)
BTOTech ( www.BTOTech.com)
XoticPC ( www.xoticpc.com)
EXcaliberPC ( www.excaliberpc.com)

 

dont expect more than 2h 40m. thats with unbearably low brightness and everything not needed turned off. i think the m50 had the same battery, since thats what RMClock lists it as. keep in mind that the shape of the 9cell (since its originally for the m50) might not fit.

 

Borb you didn't say if the new laptop would be in place of or in addition to your G50.

The MacBook is a terrific computer, and more than capable of light game play. But if you're going to have 2 machines have you considered a netbook as the second for the low price, light weight, and terrific battery life? As long as you get one that can support 2GBs of RAM you'll be able to run Windows XP efficiently and spend all day away from an outlet without worry. Just an idea... the prices have really swooned in that segment lately.

 

the other thing... is i have seen people use "low power OSs"
where eventually, they have word installed, and literally everything else stripped, and have it undervolted... not a bad idea IMO

 

If it makes you feel better you can sya you have 14 dog hours of battery life. In all seriousness, don't expect anything past 3:30 on a 9 cell with everything turned to minimum on a G series.

 

You should get more than 4 hours on a 9 cell. I got just under 3 hours on my G50Vt-A1 on the stock 6 cell without undervolting. On a side note, it's weird that the Vt has no worse battery life than the V.

 

i never though you with a G50 would get better battery life than my x59sr which is in the portable category lol

i get 1 hour and 50 minutes of battery life on extreme battery savings...

with the internet off

 

Yeah, that's a surprise for sure. I wonder if it has to do with the difference in CPU and chipset. The 45 nm Penryn vs. the 65 nm Merom should account for some decrease in power consumption. Also, the X59SR uses the SiS 671DX chipset, which is classed as a desktop chipset by SiS, so it's likely to suck more power than the PM45 in the G50.

And I just thought of one more thing - the batteries may not be of equal capacities.

 

Where is the best place to purchase the extended battery in the US?

 

hum maybe the batteries aren't indeed

x59sr-a1
6 cells: 4400/4800 mAh, 49 Whrs

Is it weird to find a desktop chipset in a laptop? Sure sounds a bit weird. Anyway other than the short battery life have no problems with the computer.

 

My battery says 4800 mAh. It is the same battery used in the M50 and is actually labelled as such.

Desktop stuff in a notebook that is meant to be portable is strange, but maybe it was done for cost reasons. Someone's probably gonna correct me, but I've always seen SiS and VIA as the cheaper alternatives. My Inspiron 5150 has a 70W Mobile P4 CPU, but that thing's meant to be a DTR and it comes with a correspondingly crazy 12 cell battery.

As for getting the extended battery, you can try the Asus estore, or one of the fine Asus resellers who frequent this board (Gentechpc, Btotech, Excaliburpc, Xoticpc).