My new Dell inspiron 7520 ( 15r special edition )

Hello to all. Im new to this forum so if im posting my problem in the wrong place please be kind to let me know.

Anyway this is my question. I have bought a dell inspiron 15r special edition laptop ( inspiron 7520). But my laptop charge only last for less than 3 hours of time even if i fully charge it. Im using low brightness and contrast. Is this a problem do i need to replace the battery ?? And my battery is a 6 cell lithium-iron battery.

 

It's just got a crappy runtime. PCMag got the same figure as you, about three hours playing a DVD. Do you think that whatever you are doing with the machine is not power-comparable to playing a DVD?

 

it seems like enduro definitely works for your machine so the power draw isn't that unusual. The main problem is because your default battery is quite small, you are very sensitive to the inefficiencies of the system.
The 2 biggest power hogs in your system are:
1. The Full HD screen, brighter, more pixels = needs more juice (lots of juice)
2. The HDD (spends more time working, tends to stay spun up)

The numbers are as expected, from here you can go one of several ways:
1. Get an SSD, the absolute most efficient one to date which doesn't use TLC memory is the trusty Crucial M4. The best balance of performance and power usage is the Samsung 840 pro. The SSDs use more power at load but buckets load less at idle, they very rapidly complete their tasks therefore they spend more time idling.
MyDigitalSSD BP4 120GB 2.5-inch SSD Review - Benchmarks - Power Testing :: TweakTown
That being said, only expect to gain about 30-40 minutes with the M4, maybe about 10 minutes with the *40pro

2. Get a bigger battery, the Inspiron is quite a popular machine so I don't think a new high capacity battery will be difficult to find

 

Hey thanks for your replies. Actually im not a very good in IT. so can you please elaborate your 1st solution comment.

And if my HD screen option consumes more power, is there a way to turn off while im using it for normal use. you know like when im using internet

 

If you turn off the screen, you can't see anything? Is that what you actually want to do?

 

Lol thats funny. Actually i want to turn off the HD facility cant i use it like a normal screen ?? Not the screen. Hey im sorry if i ask a stupid question ok.

 

HD means that you have 1920x1080 pixels by design, you cannot turn this "off"

As for why it influences power consumption, imagine this, you are cramming 1920x1080 pixels in to a 15 inch screen area. This is much more dense than a regular 1366x768 screen, therefore, you need a much more powerful backlight to ensure that the brightness level is equivalent or better. The effect is twofold, the more powerful backlight and the simple fact you have more pixels (they're like little crystals that need power to display what you want) means your screen is a massive energy hog.
There isn't anything you can really do about it short of replacing the screen with a more efficient model or one with a lower resolution (less pixels and weaker backlight) since this is how the design works. I checked on Notebookcheck that your machine uses about 10W at idle with minimal brightness, this is telling me your screen is contributing a lot to the power consumption.

 

Heyyyyyyyyyy thanks for your help. Really appreciate it. Btw are there any other simple steps to decreas the power consumption. As a example decreasing the brightness. And i need big favor can you tel me how to use a battery effectively. ( or simply give me a link to read about it )

 

There is a guide, but I can't seem to find it. Basically, try to not rapidly increase the power usage down until about 80% capacity. It was something to do with how the voltage of the battery is higher above 80% thereby drawing a high current destroys the longevity of the unit. Also, avoid heat as much as possible, the battery hates it, when you're gaming, pull the battery out simply to prevent the heat buildup from reaching it for long periods of time.
I found this Amazon.com: Dell 9 Cell Original Battery for Dell Inspiron 13R 14R 15R 17R Series 7800mAh Extended Capacity: Computers & Accessories
Will increase weight but should add about 2hrs extra battery life. Definitely more cost effective than a new LCD or SSD.

Also, I'm very hesitant to post this, can cause a lot of issues if done badly. I've got some advanced processor settings that are not for the faint of heart. I repeat, YOU CAN DESTROY YOUR MACHINE with these settings and I will not be responsible.
Transform the attached file to a .bat and run under admin privileges. This will reveal a lot of extra processor settings in the Advanced Power settings menu.
Please refer to this document and read each setting VERY CAREFULLY.
PPM in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

The main settings you are looking for are:
1. Core park performance state
-set to deepest for maximal power savings
2. Performance increase policy
-set to rocket so the processor can rapidly get the job done
3. Performance decrease policy
-set to rocket so the processor can rapidly reduce its performance when not needed
4. Maximum number of Unparked cores allowed
-set to 100 so the processor can scale performance properly
5. minimum number of unparked cores allowed
-set to 0 so all the cores are parked at idle.

This next setting works with SSDs but I don't know if it works well with a HDD
AHCI Link Power Management - Enable HIPM and DIPM - Windows 7 Support Forums
HIPM is basically the OS forcing the SATA link to slow down to save power, DIPM is the drive forcing the slowdown
Basically, DIPM reduces latency but is device dependent while HIPM works regardless
if you have HIPM+DIPM then you get maximal power savings but higher wakeup times from your drive.
You can also set the idle timer where the link will be put to sleep after a certain amount of time, 100ms is the ideal balance of latency and power saving. I set it to 50ms for aggressive idling of the SATA link to improve power savings.
All up, this tweak saves about 1-2W at idle or light load (or about 10-20 minutes of extra life on the standard battery) .

 

Hey thanks for your advises. I want to know one more thing.

I have found advance power settings. In that window there is a small tab with a + mark called processor power management. And in there is a subcategory system cooling policy. when i see it first on battery and with the charger connected the selection was " passive" for both. but then i have change it to " active " is this a bad change ??

I simply took the meaning of the word passive. I want to cool down my processor as much as possible because i would like to loose my battery rather than loosing my processor. And im playing games in my lap regardless of which power im using at that time. So is this a bad call ????

 

chances are, it probably won't do anything as Fan speed on Dell machines tend to be controlled via BIOS. You can try HWinfo which has a section you can control fan speed, it worked on my old Inspiron but only had 3 fan settings.

 

Are you running Windows 8?

I found the battery to be about 1 hour less than Windows 7 idle.

 

Yes im running windows 8. opppssssss so do you mean "one" reason for my high power consumption is windows 8 ???