getting more autonomy out of a laptop

hello people,

i have an old dell c610, with a fairly new battery, still i would like to get as much time out of the laptop's battery as possible.
so what can i do ?

software
1)set up a very strict energy profile
2)underclock the cpu (i don't know if that is gonna make a big difference, i think the laptop does it already himself).

hardware
2)is it possible to install led's in the lcd (how much energy is normally going into the screen ? and what if it is lcd ?)
3)disconnect the harddisk : i start up from a live cd
4)disconnect the dvd and boot up from a memory stick ?
5)buy a second battery and put it in the slot of the dvd

any other options ?
thanks

 

1) yes
2) yes, also try undervolting

2) AFAIK this would involve replacing the entire screen with an LED one, not a real feasible solution.
3) don't do that, the CD/DVD drive sucks more power than a hard drive
4) might help, might not, writing will take longer which may use more power than a hard drive.
5) yes

 

thanks, a lot
the software will have to do for now
greetz

 

You have a C610 eh,
post a bit more on notebook review, and you will be able to send and receive PM's. I have a few extra batteries for a C640, which are backwards compatible with the C610

I know my C640 can run for about 18 hours on 4 batteries. That is the best part about that laptop. Two identical battery bays. I run one battery down, pop the other into the other socket and so forth.

The best things to do is to use device manager and shut off power sucking devices. You can shut off the cd drive, bluetooth, wireless,, etc. Dimming the screen works too. You cant undervolt the C610, but you can force the cpu to run in a low power state with CPU rightmark or Notebook Hardware Control.
Upgrading to a new harddrive can greatly increase battery life. Some of the old drives used upwards of 1 amp of power, so upgrading to a more efficient harddrive can give you probably about 20 minutes more battery per run

K-TRON

 

What cpu are you running?
Yours has like a 1Ghz Pentium 3 right?

I wonder if a pentium 4 would be a better option.
I know that the C610 and C640 are very similar. Actually I think you can swap a C640 motherboard into a C610 shell.

K-TRON

 

thanks k-tron for the nice reply

well i have the pentium III 1.2ghz, 512meg ram
i have put in a new battery, an atheros wifi (linux), and a new power supply.

it's not a fast machine, but it doesn't need to do a lot. so i'm very happy with it. (it's not my main rig).

i have tought about replacing the harddisk, cause it is so noisy. saving power is also a nice thing.

i'm not gonna swap motherboards, these dells are selling for 100 euro's on ebay.

i might put an extra battery in it, also running two of them would be better for battery life. then the two batteries only go to 70% in stead of one going to 40%. I have red that it is better for a battery to discharge a lot of times a bit, then a few times very hard . (at least with lithium and nimh)

greetz

 

The C640 can run easily for 7.5-8 hours on two batteries.
I wonder what you would get with two batteries. I cant recall the TDP of the pentium 3, but I wonder how it stacks up with an underclocked pentium4.
Nonetheless you should be able to get 7 hours easily out of your system with two batteries and a dimmed screen.

You can definitely upgrade the harddrive, I know the C640 has a 48 bit LBA restriction, so the C610 most definitely does as well. A decent 80gb new technology drive may do wonders for you. I am talking about the HM080GC, its a 80gb 5400rpm drive which is based on a single 160gb platter. 80gb a side, so it should be a very fast upgrade.
I wonder how a small Flash array or a small SSD would work for you in terms of battery life.
Commanderwolf and Jissac have played with ssd's and flash based harddrives, I will shoot them a PM and see if they can offer any ideas here

K-TRON

 

indeed the c610 can only have a 80gb.
i run with everything on and on max 2u.30 with a full battery
i think i could get easily 30 min extra if i dimm the led and drag out the cdrom

so with two batteries 6 hours should be attainable quite easy.
a small ssd might be nice. i only need 4-8 gigabyte so that is still not to pricey. but it has to be fast, and fit in an sata slot. (or can they be put in elsewhere and bootable ?)

thanks

 

Their are PATA SSD's
Your C610 does not have any SATA, since it was not even heard of yet.
M-TRON and Samsung have a few good PATA drives like in the 16Gb range, you may want to check ebay for them.

You should definitely be able to get 6 hours
What battery do you have, the 3800mah, or the 4400mah?
I get my battery life on two 4400mah batteries

K-TRON

 

indeed i mean pata,
i'll look into the samsungs, do you have an model or so ? cause there will be more then a few samsungs ssd.

i need the 4800mah, they are not the original batteries, (at least not from dell). you can also buy an 5200mah in the format. (i didn't buy the original, cause that costed 90 euro, i bought one for 25 euro)