battery life??!!

hey, i hope someone here can help me out...
I got this Hp Pavilion zv6000 about 4 months ago and i really do love it. It's great performance but my only concern has to do with the battery life. It's just garbage. My battery really only lasts about an hour, just running a Word Processor and writing papers. Now if i listen to music, at a decent volume, the battery will only give me about 45 minutes. Is there any way i can fix this...I would definitely be willing to buy a better battery if there is such.
it's a 1gb of memory computer with an AMD processor that goes up to 2.4 ghz but can run at a lower speed, to conserve battery life, but it's not great conservation at all.
C'mon guys help me out.

 

you should try running notebookhardware control
you need to do a sort of trial and error to set the voltage
keep dropping it down and running a few rather intensive programs and when it shuts down you know you hit the spot (dont worry, it wont hurt your computer) then raise up the voltage slightly so it is at a stable level. NHC allows you to set it to run full speed when plugged in so you can keep your performance and you can set it for max battery life so it runs at that low voltage. I have a Dell E1505 which got about 4 1/2 hours with the screen dimmed and now i get 6 hours with the screen on full. I hope you get the same results.

 

eklobo
Is the 12 cell battery available for the zv6000?

I just received my dv1000t, with the 12 cell battery. I fully charged it, then allowed the computer to run until it was dead (this is what I heard you should do, the first time using a new battery).

I did turn the laptop off for 45 minutes, but it ran from 2:45 pm until 11:05pm. That's over 7 hours, after you deduct the 45 minutes it was turned off.

The 12 cell does add weight, and it sticks out from the laptop slightly.

Check here:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/product_detail.do?product_code=DP390A

 

Only one hour? Sounds like a defect to me. It's very likely that you can get a faulty battery as many of you have realized through normal use of Duracell AA/AAA whatever batteries, it happens.

Go to where you purchased your battery and let them know.

Cheers,
Mike

 

I don't think NHC supports AMD processors yet. Try RMClock instead to undervolt.

It seems the zv6000 has very poor battery life, even the 12-cell only gets 2 hours, 15 minutes according to the HP page Shel linked.

 

thanks everyone this really helped. I'm thinking the 12 cell battery wont do much difference but i might try it in the future. I downloaded RMClock like you said Lazy and i've got it on maximal power saving and max battery life profiles. Is there anything else i should do with it??
I always heard about dimming the LCD and how much that helps conserve battery life...how do i do that?

 

the normal battery savings "tricks" are....

1. turn wifi OFF

2. dim screen

3. close any processes you may have running (you can even turn off a/v because on maximum battery saving, you aren't connected to a network)

4. makes sure your video card, sound card, network card(s), etc. are all set to 'maximum battery saving' if they have such a feature (my dell i6000 has software controls for battery saving on my vidcard, sound card, and ethernet port.

an hour sounds very short; as if there is a problem. i've had my computer for a little over a year now; my 6 cel battery still gives my 15.4" screen just around 4 hours using all tricks and my 9 cel battery still gives me over 6 hrs using all tricks.

5. you can undervolt; which gave me about 45 more mins of battery life

only getting an hour makes me think your battery has a problem unless you aren't employing all the battery saving tips properly or are doing things like gaming/virus scanning/other intensive tasks that are better left for a/c power.