Peculiar 1420 Battery Meter Issue

So I am running my 1420 on battery for the 1st time since having it a few days now. I switched the power profile to "power saver" and made some adjustments in the advanced settings to allow for even more power conservation. however, i noticed on the battery meter that my time jumps now and then. at 1 time it will say it has 5 hours and 15 minutes left, a few minutes later it will say it has 4 hours and 35 minutes, and then a few minutes later back up to like 4 hours and 55 minutes. it keeps jumping sporadically and i dont know what the issue is. is anyone else having this problem? btw i am using the 9 cell battery that was fully charged.

 

uh sorry to inform you, but thats totally normal. Is this your first laptop? If so, then the battery meter tries its best to guess how much life is left based on your current ussage rate. At one time if you are doing lots of things at once it will shorten its estimate to show you how long it will last at the current rate. If you let it sit for a while and do nothing, it will shoot up to a much longer battery life. It isn't ment to predict the future, it can't, it merely shows you what it would be if you continue to use it at the current rate.

 

no this isnt my 1st laptop, in fact it is my 3rd. my previous 2 laptops did not do this. my 700m battery meter would not sporadically jump around like this does. and to clarify, my 1420 laptop would be sitting, i would not be touching it or running any programs and it would jump around. in addition, i am looking at the CPU and RAM usage and nothing is causing any spikes to occur. that's what i find peculiar. i understand it is supposed to adjust the time based on current operation but when it just sits there idle there is no reason the time should be jumping around.

 

maybe its that new C4 thing that's making the buzzing and whatnot (quick power mode switching)

 

The battery meter is constantly adjusting its guess based on what you are doing. In other words, if you start at 100% charge, and go to battery meter, and the first thing you do is load up Photoshop and go to town for 20 minutes, it's going to give you a low time. Then say, you quit PS and go browse the web for a while. The time will go back up.

It's no different then the "Distance to Empty" displays on most new cars that calculate the number of miles you have based on the amount of fuel remaining in your tank and your average fuel economy. The longer period of time the thing has to average over, the less it will change drastically based on what you are doing.

 

but the time will still fluctuate when the computer it just sitting there idle? my 700m doesn't do that at all. if it sits there idle, the time slowly decreases as one would expect.

 

I have a 710 and a xps 1710 and niether one fluctates.