Best Battery Life?

I searched on the forums and nothing too specific came up so My question is how can i get the best battery life out of my dv6? I have the 9cell (i think its 9cell) battery and I already have set the gpu in fixed mode to run in the Intel Graphics. But what else can i do?

Thanks, Im going to college in 3 weeks and I want to make sure I can go through my class schedule each day without a problem.

Actually I have few more questions now that Ive made a whole spereate thread:

1. Is there any software or anything that can improve the multi touch capabilities of the touchpad? Sometimes it wont pick all of my touches and it just could bre more responsive..

2. Is there something Ican download to give me the most accurate reading of how much battery is left (and estimate of time left) that isnt hard on the batter?

Thanks a ton!!!

 

While using it, lower the brightness as far as you can tolerate, and turn off the trackpad light.

To extend the life of your battery so it doesn't stop holding decent charge after a year:

1) Don't keep it in the laptop plugged in unless it's charging.

2) If you won't be using it for awhile, leave the battery level at 40%ish and store it in a nice CLEAN cool place out of the sun.


Funny how I made this post without answering your questions but still being helpful...I don't know an answer to either lol..

 

You could always turn the screen brightness down, for starters. Change your windows power setting, and some basic stuff like that. There's also a program called Vista Battery Saver that I'm sure would work with Win 7, you can check it out here: Vista Battery Saver.

To improve the touch-pad capabilities there is a program called Reils Touchpad App. It is supposed to match Macbook Pro's touchpad (Single tap, double tap and hold to drag, two finger tap to right click, inertial two finger scroll, etc). You can download it here: Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire.

I couldn't help you with your second question, but the notifier built into Windows isn't too bad.

In any case, I think a 9-cell battery should be able to get you through your college classes. And, btw, you can tell if it's 9-cell by if the battery is protruding out of the bottom of the laptop. (Or, if it is not flat on the bottom.)

Kalookakoo makes very good points, though, about extending the battery's life.

 

to get accurate battery reading and condition "Batterycare" is a good software.
to extend battery life:
- reduce screen brightness
- set power plan to power saver
- set Intel GPU max. battery.
- turn off wireless network.
- you can also reduce CPU max. processor state (using power plan advance setting)

I hope this will help u to get max. battery life.

 

Try BatteryBar... Osiris Development - BatteryBar, the most accurate battery meter for Windows

 

Try using Granola, it underclocks your CPU when you don't need it, saves quite a bit of energy (10-40%) and extends battery life. Been using it for more than half an year now.

 

You can't underclock or undervolt any Sandy Bridge mobile CPU's except for the i7-2920XM. Your system will automatically drop to lowest multiplier without Granola when idle. You can control all that through your power profiles anyhow.

With the 9 cell you should easily be able to get over 6 hours battery life. I personally use BatteryBar, but there's also BatteryCare. Battery Bar is nice because it displays a big icon on your taskbar showing percent battery left or time remaining. It requires some discharge time to calibrate itself. BatteryCare is completely free. BatteryBar is free, but have to pay for the "advanced" features, but the author frequently runs specials where you can name your own price.

Some ways to improve battery life:

- Run in "balanced" power profile mode
- in the battery profile for balanced set your CPU for minimum at 0 or 5% and maximum of 40-50%
- dim your screen to a comfortable level. No need to strain your eyes with a super dim screen

Other hardware options to consider
- consider an SSD. Most SSD's run at about 50-75% power of a traditional hard drive.
- Use one RAM stick instead of two. Yes it does make a difference

And regarding battery, there is no reason to remove it. Keep it in, even if plugged in all the time. Positives of leaving it in far outweighs those of removing it.

 

Ok so where do i go to change the processor settings so it will only run at 40%?

Thanks

 

The little battery icon in the lower right, left click it, select "more power options" this will bring up Power Options window. Click "change plan settings" next to the profile you want to modify.

Click "change advanced power settings" and a new window will open. Scroll down until you see "processor power management". Set minimum processor state on battery to 5% (0% is fine too, 5% I believe is default), and maximum processor state to 40%. It won't be 40% of the clock speed, it's just some percent based on some value.

Run CPU-Z or HWInfo32 / HWInfo64 to confirm CPU speeds. Run some program to tax the CPU to see fastest it goes with each % you change it.

 

Not sure if the battery comes pre-charged or if you have to charge out of the box, but I know on my last laptop I was advised to drain the battery to 0% then recharge 2-3 times to condition the battery, does this hold true for the dv7? Or do I just plug it in the wall charge to 100% and good to go? Thanks

 

Just use the machine. No special conditioning required. Plug it in, charge it up and don't worry about it. Draining the battery does nothing more than calibrate it for better indication of its discharge life.

Never drain a battery to 0% though, it can damage the battery. Although even today there are probably safeguards so an indicated 0% isn't truly 0%. In extreme cases, like an old Lenovo I had, they recommended running the battery while in the BIOS to drain completely until shut off because it had some calibration errors. That seemed to fix it... for some people. For some it still caused battery damage, as in it would barely hold a charge afterwards.

 

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

 

That link has been bantered about and it is, from a purely scientific standpoint, worse case scenario. I have personal evidence from at least a half dozen laptops that are far from 20% loss when kept plugged in after a year. I had my Sager NP8170 for six months and plugged in 95% of the time, did maybe a half dozen total discharge/recharge cycles, drove it hard with games and such, and it lost less then 2% life in those six months. My Sager NP8662 which I had for 18 months, similar scenario, over 18 months lost 5%, but plugged in and at 100% charge 95% of the time. Vostro 1500 is four years old now, battery life is half of what it was, but after two years of owning it lost less than 15% battery life.

Discharge/recharge cycles is what kills a battery, not keeping it at 100%. These are real world results, not some scientific experiment. Also note the date of the data (only date I could find) was from 2002. Tech has come a long way in the last ten years.