My laptop's ability to be a laptop

I'm using an Asus G51VX-X3A. It's wonderful for gaming, excellent performance.

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53 Ghz
4 GB DDR2 RAM
Geforce GTX 260M

However, my issue is when it comes to battery life. I've even set the battery plan to battery saving, and then turned the brightness to an optimal level of brightness that I could still work with. This leaves my battery at an estimated 2 hours! I see other people using laptops for 6-8 hours. I understand it's impractical to demand what others have, but I'm still wanting to understand why I'm still so limited.

Is there a way to find out the capacity of the battery to see if it's just a weaker battery?

 

Your older platform is what is holding you back. Not to mention the high(er) end gpu you have is eating the battery life like there is no tomorrow.

2 hours seems fine for what you have - but a new battery might give you closer to 2.5 or even 3 hours - for a few months anyway.

Yes, you're comparing your platform which was optimized more for performance than for power savings to the newer platforms which are optimized strictly for power savings and long battery life.

 

Older platform? Is the Asus G51 really that old? What do you mean by for a few months?

 

Yes, the Asus G51 really is that old. To most people anyway. That doesn't mean that it's not suitable for today's tasks and processes though.

The reason tilleroftheearth specifies "a few months" is because you'll find that the battery will develop wear over the duration that you use it. If you treat it well, this wear will be minimal, but it's inevitable with lithium ion batteries.

This could help:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...et-upgrades/91846-notebook-battery-guide.html

Sorry for the ninja post, lol. \/

 

Doesn't matter when you bought it - the Core 2 Duo platform is 2+yrs old.

A battery naturally loses its performance over time, in a few months, it could be just as 'bad' as what you have now.

 

This. Generally speaking, the core2duo eats more power (5-10W)both at idle and under full load than core i* dual or quad core counterparts. Once you throw in efficiency, the core2duo gets pantsed handily, getting roughly 2/3 the cycles/watt.

 

CPU has very little to do with battery life. A CPU uses about 15% - 25% of the laptop's power draw in office productivity / web browsing usage patterns. The laptop screen will use 25% - 40% of the power in that use case.



raz1337 -

2.0 hours is actually pretty good battery life for your laptop. The reason you get in the 2.0 - 3.0 hour range is because you are using a 15.6" gaming laptop (nVidia 260M GPU). The laptop was specifically designed to play games well.

If you look at all of the laptops with 6+ hours of battery life, you'll notice two things:

1) They are small. Typically, they have screens that are 13.3" or smaller. A smaller screen means lower power draw.

2) They typically use Intel integrated graphics. The Intel integrated GPU's are monumentally more power efficient than a powerhouse chip like the nVidia 260M. The drawback is that Intel GPU's can't game well at all.


Despite what woofer and tillerofearth claim, your battery life actually has very little to do with your CPU. If you were to buy your exact same laptop with a new CPU (15.6" screen, nVidia 260M GPU, Core i5/i7 CPU), your battery life would not magically jump up to 6.0+ hours. In fact, you would probably barely break 3.0 hours with that config.

If you want a laptop with more battery life, then you'll need to get a new laptop... probably a smaller laptop than the one you have now, that can't really game well.

 

Okay. That's understandable. I can accept the 2-3 hours of life if that's the expected range. I bought this laptop 10 months ago for the sole purpose of gaming on a portable PC. The fact that it can run Crysis/Starcraft 2 while being portable is golden in my book. I was just more curious about whether I was meeting the standards for this laptop.

 

Actually Core 2 duo does quite good with battery life. The problem is his GPU, screen and probably his hard drvie.

 

don't complain.. my laptop barely gets 1.5hrs on power saver mode... doing some work.. and my laptop isn't a laptop anymore.. more like a desktop becuase the screen is kaput.

 

Mine gets 5 hours in Windows, 8 in OS X

 

Is that because, you know, you're actually using it in Windows?

 

I get 1 hour with a new 6 cell battery maximum I care not. Means I switch off before it gets too late which is a good thing if I have to get up at 5.45am which is alot for work

For a laptop to be a laptop it doesn't have to have lots and lots of battery life. It has to be portable so I am happy. As for the G51 being old that is rubbish.

 

Very true. Desktop replacements and gaming laptops are the "gas guzzlers" of the computing industry. Don't look to compare them with the "hybrids" (netbooks, ultra portables etc.) for battery longevity.

That said, the biggest single use of the battery is the display; and 2 hours or so is about average from these machines. If you want to conserve/extend battery life, start there. If you want more than that, look for an extended battery for roughly another 45 min.

 

Undervolting your GPU at non-gaming clocks and your CPU will work wonders, too. Might not be an earthshattering increase, but every little bit helps, right?

 

Two-three hours is just fine for what you have.I bet you were not getting much more even 10 months ago.The notebook in my sig(1810TZ) gets 6-7 hours but it has an ulv processor,intergrated Intel graphics,and 11.6'' screen.There is always some trade off.

 

Does no one want to ask whether he's using a 6 or 9 cell battery? That's good for a 50% increase in runtime. Also it does sound like powermizer is working, but verify with a gpu clock utility that the videocard is clocking down at idle.

My G51VX-A1 is good for about 4.5 hours with wifi off/screen turned down with some battery wear (should be right at 5 hours if I had a new battery or 5.5-6 hours with higher capacity 18650 cells), in Windows 7 with dynamic gpu clock speeds. At usable brightness and surfing the web with the original wifi card and a bluetooth mouse, it's about 3.5 hours. This is with the protruding 9 cell battery. There was little noticeable difference in battery life between the q9000, P8800, or T9900 that I've had in the laptop. I run the slower quad again. Mine also has two hard drives stock, instead of one so there's a little more power draw there.

With a 9 cell, I don't see why you couldn't see near 4 hours with the proper settings (especially dim screen after 5 minutes or don't use at max brightness).

 

i checked and it is 6 cell. where can i buy a battery?

 

You won't get over 2 hours from any machine with a GTX 260m or faster GPU. You have to compromise CPU and GPU really to get decent battery. Most laptops that get 4-6 hours either have switchable graphics with an IGP or have a much weaker GPU.

Case in point, my Sager has Core 2 Quad Q9200 and GTX 260m. I can get two hours battery life, but my CPU and GPU performance are about cut in half when unplugged.

My Envy 14 can get almost 5 hours on the Intel IGP, but only about 2.5 hours with the HD 5650 GPU.

The G51 isn't old, it's "old tech" meaning "obsolote" or replaced by a newer technology. It doesn't mean it is bad tech or worthless, it's just not the latest.

 

Old Tech is sometimes a good thing! It sometimes means well tested out and weathered. This is especially true right now if you have an SSD and like high IOPS as there is an issue with the ICH10m.

If iCore offered 2x the battery life I'd be right there, it doesn't. The best you will see is 10% overall and that is not always true. Hybrid GPU's just mean one system instead of two but you still then have the tradeoff's of when you game not having much of a battery or just not having a high end GPU.

If you want a Quad iCore you are not going to get a hybrid so forget better battery life but of course you get the performance advantages. I still can't justify the added CPU performance increase for the price of a new system. I a sure one day that will change but by then they will be better and cheaper too.

Intel tries to push in their commercials like the iCore is some revolutionary change. I see it more as an evolutionary change and so far a minimal one at that. Now if the Quad iCore Xtreme had an equivelant on chip 480m at 18w I then might agree with the commercials and hype..........

 

It's not that much of an issue. I have it hooked up to my monitor 60-70% of the time, at school plugged in at a desk 20-30% of the time, and the other 10% is when I actually use it somewhere random or in the car unplugged. I just know when I do that that I only have 1.5-2 hrs. I guess that's what my smart phone is for if i need the internet.

 

Wow, just read through this post and remembered my HP dv9000. 2 hrs max.

I have two laptops, a acer aspire7720 and an acer timeline 13" and get 4 and 8+ hrs out of my batteries respectively. Im glad of advancements in technology!

 

That's because Apple makes poor Windows drivers.