Envy 14 Battery Life Log

Update to my older posts yesterday regarding battery life:

Specs:
Fresh Windows 7 Ultimate install
i7 840QM
8GB
500 GB Hybrid SSD HD
5650 Not overclocked (latest drivers)
Radiance Display
Slice battery

After a couple of discharges it appears there have been some changes... Keep in mind I have a SLICE battery as well. Total run time before hibernation with power saver mode, screen at 75%, Wifi on, Bluetooth off, mostly surfing and downloading, Outlook running, and going to sleep once for 30 minutes was 6.15 hours. Total charge time for both batteries appears it is going to be roughly 5 hours (wow). Not too impressed overall, but the processor is a power pig. System runs quiet and cool, which is something I do enjoy after coming from a Dell XPS 15 system(older model)

Sorry for the up to date results posts, but I could find nothing on battery times with an i7 840 processor when I was buying mine a week ago. So far happy, and that is all that matters to me! Now waiting on the wish lists and E14 refresh announcements...

Now the realization that rebuilding/setting up a laptop from scratch is easier said than done... I have said, "where did I get that app" numerous times now. Thank you Google

 

just got 2h40 of permanent internet browsing and light apps usage. Still have 10% battery left.

It's an i7-720 with 6gb and regular HDD, so it aint bad.
I use chrome and set max CPU to 15% and min to 1% in power saving mode. Screen brightness to 10%

 

Hello Everyone,

I've done as much battery saving as possible and I've read this thread numerous times...
I even did a clean install but yet my battery has been at a consisten 17 - 20 k drain regardless of idleness or not...
does the battery drain faster because it is faulty or bad?

Or is it something obscure about my computer that, even with a clean install, is making my power draw so high?

 

Got ~3:30 battery life (as estimated by BatteryBar), when watching a DVD under Power Saving mode.

Model is in my signature.

 

It's very possible you got a faulty battery. Run the BIOS when the computer is loading up and somewhere in there there is a HP Battery Test and it should tell you the state of your battery (whether it's working right, etc)

My envy 14 just came in a couple of days ago with a completely dead battery. It won't hold the slightest charge and according to the HP Battery Test its completely faulty

 

Not bad , DVD watching is using more power than mere web surfing.
I shall try that on the i7 but i think it won't finish the movie.

 

Remember, do the timed test yourself, battery bar's full time estimates are quite shaky.

And does HP just send you another one if the battery is faulty?

 

Battery bar shows -21400 discharge rate, ( 21740 now) should I be concerned.

Ive been only getting 2.5 hrs

i5, 460 w/6gig ram

 

on an i5, yes

 

Well I got mine from the Microsoft store so they are just sending me a whole new unit. But if you got yours from HP im sure they will send you a replacement battery

 

Microsoft is that generous?

And HOW ARE YOU GUYS REACHING HP?
I've called them for the past 5 days, agents are busy ...even for the damn supposedly good envy support service.

My case manager is not calling me back....I can't even get a new battery, let alone a replacement broken radiance screen (which I'm afraid to send in as I know they take your radiance and replace it with a brightview), and a faulty keyboard.

 

I just got my Envy 14 i5 with radiance screen (woo) and unfortunately got a report of max batter 1 hour 10 minutes. I figured it was faulty battery but went ahead and got battery bar. Low brightness, integrated graphics, power saver, it says i'm hitting 51,000 mW discharge. I'm concerned this is a motherboard issue and not battery--and would normally RMA, but don't want to part with this beautiful screen that you can't get anymore, and was wondering thoughts.

-Evan

 

51,000 mw?? that's not good..batterybar might be off..do you have a lot of programs open? Try uninstalling the bloatware it came with..
Also, if you get to BIOS, HP has a battery test program and if it reports that the battery is defective you can have it changed without sending in your entire notebook

 

yeah it sounded ridiculously off to me too. I am hoping battery bar is just mis-reporting but why would it (any way to figure that out?). I ran the bios test and it's still reporting okay. I have minimized the amount of processes, but honestly, even with bloatware it should be nowhere near that number.

I'm hoping the battery is just fubared, but wondering if I should just bite the bullet and RMA if it's likely the motherboard. The radiance is amazing but it's not worth months of working on this thing to get it fixed to me.

 

i5-480
750GB HDD
Standard Battery
Standard Install
Bluetooth off
HP Recommended profile
Screen brightness at 30%
Web surfing, installing programs

Barely 3:00 hours.

My discharge rate is at -51,060....whats wrong here?
And what should I be targeting.

 

i5 580
500gb hard drive
standard battery
clean install
HP profile
50% brightness
web surfing

~4 hours, discharge rate is -15,000

@khan, are you on integrated graphics?

 

Only when I'm playing games.

 

My Envy also has a discharge rate of 51,060.... Only like 1.5 Hours battery life.

i5-580
500 gb hdd
Minimal install
Power saving profile
30% brightness
web surfing
radiance

 

My discharge rate stays at 38,295 according to batterybar. Is this an average? I keep it on high performance and full brightness but i just changed to low brightness and power saving and it didn't budge.

Specs is sig no clean install, battery test passed.

UPDATE! I just took my slice battery off and it went to 51,060 mwh...... crap!

 

don't trust battery bar if you only installed it a today or a few days ago.

You need to go through a few cycles before it gives better estimations.

 

Do your discharge rates fluctuiate constantly every second, minute, every time you restart?

Mine is not changing at all. I'm not sure how to react. Do i need to download another program?

 

Ok so i took out my reg battery and put the slice on and it went from discharging 51,000 mwh (only internal battery) to 38,295 mwh (only slice battery, no internal battery). Does this mean anything? Should i be worried?

I get almost 3 hours on power saver and brightness at half just surfing w/ 1 or 2 tabs open. specs in sig.

 

You may have a faulty battery

 

I did a battery test and it passed?

 

I get -51,060 as well, and i just installed it. So it did not have time to go through a few charge/discharge cycles. Batterybar needs those cycles to produce more accurate estimations.

The proof being I have been on that PC on battery for like 30 mins and it sill shows -51,060 and 1:07 left ... none of these numbers moved yet.

Just give it time to work properly The discharge rates are calculated estimations. For this to be accurate it needs a few complete cycles.

 

thank you so much for reassuring me. I was freaking out ha. Is there any program that shows exact discharge rates? I saw that hwmonitor shows something like that but when I downloaded version 1.17 it didn't have any battery info.

 

My battery life is driving me crazy. Its been only 30mins and my computer dropped 20% battery on power saving and lowest brightness w/ one tab open just reading this forum. My discharge still says 51,060 mwh. Does anyone have any clue what is going on? I've done a battery test and it passed.

 

Found anything else out on this? Ive got the same problem

 

Found anything out yet?

 

No battery issues here. I've had mine since early August 2010.

 

I tested both batteries i got, they both get around 5h with tweaked saving settings. (real testing not just batterybar estimates)
Battery bar still shows -51,060 for both, but the full lifetime estimation is pretty darn close to reality.

Windows battery indicator is even more nuts as it shows me 42 mins but i damn know well it's gonna last much longer xD

 

If you don't mind me asking, what settings did you tweak to squeeze some more life out of this thing?

 

screen brightness as low as possible (0 to 30% depending on room)
graphics on intel chipset
bluetooth off
power saving mode (thru the energy star icon)
set CPU minimum state at 1% and maximum at 25%

It still runs simple tasks pretty well even with only 1/4 of CPU power. (internet and such)

 

Thank you for the response. I've been running all the same except the cpu.

For some reason today my discharge rate is 39,013 (it was 51060). Maybe battery bar does need time to read effectively. Screen brightness does make a major difference in bat life, even going from 50% to 0% adds an hour if you don't take it off 0%. I'm getting much better times now.

 

Not much has changed on my side. However, I'm getting used to just squeezing 3 hours. Hoping it just need time. I've had this laptop for about a week so...not sure how much longer it needs to start giving me accurate estimates.

 

I had to register in order to chime in since I have the same problem as you guys.

lammah, khanhathan, and spencerp... I just took delivery of my Envy 14 w/ Radiance on Monday. Specs:

i5 580
6GB Ram
500GB HD
No slice battery

However, I have the same symptoms as you guys. Windows battery time is all messed up. Never shows more than 1:05 mins. Battery bar shows a discharge rate of -51,060 mW.

I've only been through about 2 full battery cycles. Im getting good battery life however. Its been about an hour and 15 mins and I have 67% battery remaining. HP Recommended setting, wifi on, intel gfx with screen all the way to 0%..

I can't figure out whats wrong here with the windows battery time, but battery bar seems to estimate the time more or less better than Win7 does.

 

it probably just needs a few recharge cycles to properly calibrate. If real usage is good, then you're okay, 67% after an hour is pretty good, I wouldnt worry about what any program tells you as long as it works fine in real usage

 

The battery bar time does get a lot more accurate as time goes by. it's saying over 3 hours for mine now when last week it said 1 and 2.

as for the mwh i'm not sure what to think. mine said 39,000 for half the day then went back to 51,060 so *shrugs* i have no idea.

Hopefully we figure this thing out as i don't want to rma another envy and i'm NOT giving up this darned radiance!

 

spencerp, what we need to figure out is if there is a "chip" in the battery that is feeding the computer information. Maybe our batteries are fine, but this part of the battery just is not functioning correctly. I don't think it could be a problem with the mobo or anything.

My entire computer is flawless aside from this issue..

 

I'm getting 4 hours or more out of mine now. power saving, 0% brightness, blue tooth off, just browsing with 1-4 tabs open.
Battery bar is saying 3:53 right now and i've been on for 30 mins. It looks like it just takes time since i was doing the same thing last week and only getting 3 or less hours. Still reading 51,060 which can't be right since people on here with 20,000 were barely getting 2 hours.

 

mine still shows -51,060 discharge too, but the time estimation is a lot better tho.

The i7 i returned was showing a discharge of ~20-25 pretty much right away.
Maybe this batch is a bit different ?

 

It seems like all of the people that got theirs around the same time are having this problem.

Anyone who just got their radiance (i ordered mine on jan 13th) recently what is your discharge rate and i5 or i7?

 

I'm in the same boat as a few of you other new Envy owners. I ordered Jan. 13th, received mine Jan. 28th.

i5-580M
8GB Ram
640GB HDD
Standard battery
Minimal Image Recovery Install

On Power saver setting with brightness at 0% and Bluetooth disabled, I'm still sitting at a constant -51,060 discharge rate, whether I am doing moderate browsing or sitting idle. Despite that, I'm still managing between 3.5-4 hours (self-timed, not what BatteryBar displays). Would love to know why the discharge rate is so ridiculous, but I can't complain about the battery life I'm getting compared to others.

 

tate your system specs:

i5 520m
160 GB SSD
Standard battery

The "Radiance Max setup" = brightness on full, Intel HD graphics (all settings set to maximum battery life), High Performance power plan ( modifications include jjb's SSD tweaks, and fan speed tweaks, and maximize battery life for PCI express, wireless adapter, et al.)

Wifi-on
Discharge rate: 22-23000 mW
Battery Life: ~ 2.6 hours

Wifi-off
Discharge rate: 17-18000 mW
Battery Life: ~ 3.3 hours

Normal usage: "weak" multitasking between multiple Microsoft Office applications, Chrome with multiple tabs, antivirus, iTunes

 

Turn down your brightness and you'll add at least an hour

 

How do we convey this information to HP in order for them to send us a new battery to try? lammah's two batteries both doing this isnt a good sign. Wonder what it could be

 

I wonder if maybe its that the battery id isn't updated on battery bar. Maybe hp is using a different battery that has the same skin and cells and for some reason won't read right on bat bar. I haven't a clue how this works that just came to me.

 

Finally received my envy!

Whats the consenus for better battery life, a minimal install through HP recovery manager, or just remove bloatware that came pre-installed. I was going to do a minimal install reguardless but I don't want to lose adobe premier / photoshop and I'm not sure how to do a minimal install and keep them.

 

The minimal install helped me get a bit more battery life than when I tried to uninstall bloatware myself. It was a lot easier to do rather than uninstalling everything individually. I get between 3.5-4 hours now.

I had luck getting the programs back after a minimal install. First thing I did was open both programs right away and I created a user ID and registered the programs online with Adobe. That saved my serial numbers to their website. Then, I backed up C:\SWSetup to my external hard drive.

Once I was done with the minimal install, I went back to the external hard drive and found the 2 folders in SwSetup: PhotoPIN (Photoshop Elements) and AdobePE (Premiere Elements). I ran the setups for the programs and logged into Adobe and retrieved my serial numbers that saved to their website and they installed for me.

I hope that all made sense and hope it works for you!

 

Thanks for the heads up. I'm backing up swsetup now. I registered the products with adobe but have not seen anything about them saving my serial. I've seen the option to deactivate, but I'm not so sure I want to delete my serial. (I saw you can deactivate without deleting, but it didn't seem to do anything.

Also, I have search, and combed through the thread but I have seen very little factual evidence on whether or not a minimal restore is better for battery life. Any input?