Envy 14 Battery Life Log

I don't have access to my envy yet, but someone earlier in the thread reported that his slider was always on high even in power saving profile from windows. So there's gotta be a driver that enabled this page. Try a last time there Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 and Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6200 Overview to go to tool& software and run the intel update thing.


You can also use intel PROSet wifi management utility instead of windows one to set the power profile correctly (I think the issue lies here).

http://download.intel.com/network/c...dapters/6200-6300/cen_6200_6300_userguide.pdf

The instructions to disable window's wifi management and replace it with the Intel utility are at the bottom of PAGE 3 of this pdf file, read it you will see that there is in ProSet a "Adapter settings" page that contains the tab we are looking for.

The proset download instructions are around there : http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/products/wireless/proset/tools_software.htm
Note that proset is normally installed with intel drivers and may already be in your computer, it is just not set as the default wifi management software.

PS: after reading the guide, the "Roaming agressiveness" setting can also be set to LOW to save further battery life without losing performance. It is just a setting that scans constantly the connection, in the case you are between two wifi hotspots the roaming will check the link performance and eventually switch to the best of the two hotspots, you need this when you are on the move on public wifi networks, but certainly not at home or when you stay in the same room/place for hours !

The "Power transmit setting" can also be lowered to reduce your laptop's wifi link coverage. This is a setting you'd like to lower as much as you can when you are close enough to your hotspot, it doesnt affect performance, just the coverage area. The best would be to go as far as you can from your router (while still being in your house or garden chair lol) and put it as low as you can. That way you get good wifi everywhere in the area you commonly use your laptop. That is useful as long as you're not bringing along your envy to surf when visiting your neighbor's wife

 

I decided to also get an Envy with an i7-840qm to try and scientifically get to the bottom of the i7's battery usage versus i5 on this laptop. The specs and tests are exactly the same as above except this laptop has the i7-840qm, and I *accidentally* had the keyboard backlight on on this test, but did turn transmit power down to medium in the intel drivers, so they probably balance out.

Result? Runtime of 4:24, hibernating at 5% (battery bar said ~14 minutes left if I ran it until it died). So in other words, its essentially equivalent to an i5-520m running with discrete graphics.

So I think we can conclusively say at least with the i7-x40qm processors, when run with the proper power management and core parking settings, the only price being paid is that of using discrete graphics full time.

 

So has anyone found any real heavy optimizations for more battery life? I haven't tested mine yet but I have i5-450, SSD, 4GB RAM everything else standard. I'm planning on taking it to school to do work on it so I want as much battery life as possible.

Also, is there a battery I can purchase separately if this one ever dies on me from using it so much?

 

The most heavy battery life saving behavior is to simply turn off the wifi card whenever you don't need to surf the internet. Someone got around 7 hours and a half like that for a in class note typing usage with everything at it's lowest.

 

derpderp and others,

I have followed the instrutions that you have provided yet I still dont have the power management slider bar for my wireless card. Nor do I have the checkbox for "let windows manage my wireless connection". I have tried checking services.msc to see if "windows zero config" is active, but it isnt even there....

The dirvers/software that I installed for the wireless card was "ICS_s64.exe". I have also tried "ICS_dv64.exe" as well...

What drivers/software file did you use? can you provide some screen shots?

PLease take a look at the screen shot that I've attached.

I am getting about 4:30min after reformat/clean install with the following settings:

i5-450m
4gigs
500 hd
runnning intel graphics
bluetooth on
50% brightness
mild web surfing, instaling some small programs
standard battery

 

You want battery life? Get a low-tech notebook.

You want power? Get a high-tech notebook.


It's really funny how people want high battery life and performance simultaneously. It's not happening today. It's even funnier when you buy a high powered notebook just to cripple it so you can get more battery life out of it.

Save your money and get an i3 or a ULV, on-board graphics, little RAM and a 5400RPM HDD.

This is ALL you need for web, e-mail, taking notes and your Failbook - Funny Facebook Status Messages ( Failbooking ) at school.

Amazon.com: ASUS UL20A-A1 Thin and Light 12.1-Inch Silver Laptop - 7.5 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium): Computer & Accessories

 

True dat. I seriously think The envy have a excellent battery life for what it is. A midranged laptop.

 

Are you logged on a windows profile with administrator rights ? I don't see why you wouldn't have all those options. What's your version of windows 7 ?

 

yeah I don't get that option either derp.

though it isn't on right now so...I do see it under the advanced tab.

or well I see Roaming Agressiveness (defaulted to medium, 3) and Transmit power (defaulted to high, 5)

 

My battery life is terrible. 2.5 hours, with screen 3rd highest notch, bluetooth off, integrated graphics, and just web browsing and watching video in VLC. No heavy resource-consuming background apps. I have been through at least 5 cycles now, and batterybar is still saying around 2:30. What do I do? Haven't updated firmware or BIOS.

 

you might have a bad battery

 

albeit watching video in VLC does suck up battery if you're doing that the entire time

 

I agree demanding more battery life on something that is designed to be taken away from from outlets is completely absurd.

 

i have windows 7 ultimate 64bit installed with only one user profile. Is there a way to check if there is a admin profile?

edit: just checked user accounts....i am the admin.

am i the only one with this problem?

 

- Macbook Pro.
- Sony Vaio Z.
- Acer Timeline X.

All these are completely missing the point by offering the choice of mobility AND power. Also, having the option of crippling your machine so you can surf the internet 6 hours without carrying a power brick and extension cord around, and then being able to bring it back home to have a full-on gaming session is just retarded. You simply just can't have both, or your head would explode.

 

So my Envy 14 is getting -28K right now. 2 notches down in brightness. Simple web browsing (no flash even) on integrated. Task manager shows hardly any CPU usage. Very few background apps. What is up? I'm not asking for 5 hours of battery, but even 3.5 hours would be a marked improvement from my current 2:14.

 

Beric, have you messed with any processor settings? If you have that may be the problem.

 

I might have... I don't remember. Where should I check?

 

First go to the power plans and reset everything to default settings (including the advanced settings) Then go to Run, type in msconfig, boot, advanced options and make sure everything is unchecked.

 

For me it's like this. When I'm home and plugged into the wall, I want best performance. And this is most of the time. But when I'm at school, I don't need so much power so I cripple it for battery life. It makes sense to me.

 

Thanks! Down to -17K now; a marked improvement. Should get at least 3:15 for now. I'll do some more testing and run a few more cycles though.

 

What do you mean? People at school have 2 computers, a desktop for gaming and a netbook for school. But I don't see the point if I can play most games on my envy medium-high settings AND take it to school for notes. That seems like a better option than having to buy 2 computers.

 

I have an Envy 14 for school and "medium" gaming, and a desktop for "powerful" gaming. An Envy 14 is very powerful, but still not good enough to play games extremely well at native res.

 

Who is asking for both? I am only asking for it when needed. Also there is nothing wrong with wanting more battery life or more performance from your notebook. Especially when you fork out around $1000 bucks for it! If all it takes is a bit of tweaking to get more juice when your away from a plug then why not go for it? Also what are you crippling in terms of performance exactly? To me nothing. If people are playing hardcore games or running intensive programs when unplugged most likely realize they will have very short battery life anyways. But if your a mix user when unplugged (light to heavy performance usage) then you want the most out of the battery. Especially during light usage.

For now the bottle neck for mobile computing in my eyes will always be battery technology. Until we see new advances in that category, then trying to squeeze more juice from our investment is the best we can do.

btw: one las thing.....with the onset of switchable graphics you are technically getting the best of both worlds.....just not a perfect one yet.

 

@CreamyTwink exactly!

And has anyone tested the battery using the quicklaunch thing? I don't think that is what it is called. Its the thing you log into if you just want to go on the internet and nothing else.

 

Hi all. I did a clean install to see if I could eek out a bit more time from my battery. However, after doing the clean install (and noting there are about 20-30 fewer processes running according to task manager) my Discharge Rate in BatteryBar is now about 17000 during light internet use whereas before the clean install I hovered around 10000.

Has this happened to anyone else? When I got my laptop I uninstalled the bloatware and was rockin' about 5hrs of battery life. I was hoping to get a little bit more from a clean install but now it's totally backfired! Any ideas? Thanks.

 

Exactly the same for me, I put a 160gb ssd in and expected to get even better life but its so much worse!
Still fiddling around trying to find the cause

 

Hmmm my battery is getting worse as well. I've fully tweaked HP Recommend but I'm only getting around 3:30 for battery life.
My discharge rate is constant -14000 at 60% brightness just web surfing, nothing flash, just forums.
How is everyone achieving 4 or 5 hours.

 

It's probably because of WiFi. If you have signal issues and lots of retransmissions occur then that will make it worse for battery life. Try decreasing transmitter power to at least medium and make sure it's a consistent connection.

Others are probably using Ethernet and have WiFi turned off or just using the notebook as a glorified typewriter with no network connections, or maybe just doing nothing to claim their longest battery life score.

 

I'll make this short since I don't have much time.

You are asking for it as well as the other "middle of the road" folks. Those are hardest to please because they want everything some of the times. Either you know what you want or don't. Reducing any performance parameters to save on battery life is crippling performance, especially when those folks will probably do that most of the time.

Switchable graphics is a bad band-aid at best. Again, trying to please those in the middle that don't know what or when they want it. You can probably get by with just on-board graphics like most of the folks. They should offer on-board only or dedicated. Good luck with future drivers when you have to rely on the OEM. At least with a dedicated solution you could get by with the latest GPU manufacturer driver.

If you claim that you must game then you're on the wrong platform. Period. Get a desktop.

 

So... I did a clean install of windows 7...

Seemed to be a bit better at first but to no avail battery bar now shows even with light web browsing I have over a 20k mW discharge rate....

When doing anything else it is even worse at about 30k...

Help? This is on a clean install... just reinstalled all the drivers and stuff from HP's website....

Max Brightness
Balanced Power Settings
Just light web use... not even any flash.
BIOS .05f

 

*starts a run through with osiris battery bar.*

screen at like 40%, wifi on with nothing really changed power settings wise, bluetooth off.


initial timebased estimate that's probably a bit off, 5 hours and 23 minutes.

we'll see what it actually gets.

 

I have Bluetooth on...

Think that makes a 2 hour difference?

 

not 2 hours. but it probably sucks a 1,000 mWs or so

I'm apparently going at an estimated -9,045 mWs.

full lifetime 5:53. I don't think this is accurate but if it is. Holy crap.

 

I was being sarcastic.

I am honestly going to go insane. I don't understand with a fresh install why my discharge rate is so high (20-30k) with light use... I have even seen it hit 40k

 

I think something is wrong with your battery.


and if not the battery, something is wrong with your motherboard or something.

 

I am hoping it is the battery... cause then they could just send me another.

If it is the motherboard I think I am going to cry because my Envy is in perfect condition and I would be afraid of getting one of the "so many" faulty ones.

 

yeah. hopefully it's just your battery being faulty (can't hold a charge)

 

mhm. Sadly HP's battery test shows it as healthy, so that makes me doubtful.

I think it's the board because most people after the .05F BIOS update fixed the battery issue if they had it... and I have flashed my BIOS with all the firmwares including 0.5F (3 times) and still no fix for me. =/

 

*watches the estimated use bump up to 10-11.7kish mWs*

yup. that makes more sense.

 

you positive it's in 0.5F? Did you check in the bios. the basic bios installer doesn't work right usualy, gotta use a work around

 

Yes. Unfortunately I am positive it is 0.5F. (shows that way in the BIOS also)

 

whelp. that's not good.

 

actual time.


4 hours and 39 minutes at like 40-60ish% brightness (not sure), wifi without changing transmit power at all, no bluetooth, IGP.

edit: initialized battery bar pro to check the graph. it was 4:39. average says 4:43 but well, I'd have to bypass the 3% hibernate.


still. very nice. I get 4+ hours of battery life.

 

so i've been through about three full charge/discharge cycles with battery bar running since doing a clean install. with light interweb browsing i still use about 13mW vs. the 8-9mW i was seeing before the clean install.

according to the battery bar profile graph, though, i'm getting about 4:52 of actual battery time and 4:48 of use before i hit the critical battery alarm... so not bad, i guess.

still, i was hoping the clean install would get me further beyond 5hrs as before (with just bloatware uninstalled) battery bar was estimating a 5:08 full lifetime, whereas now it usually hovers around 4:30-4:40ish.

oh, and i'm curious: i found a program called "granola" which claims to improve your power consumption by ~30%. it's made by a company called MiserWare. i installed it and started poking around because i know companies usually blow smoke out their butts (i.e. hp claiming 7hrs of USE... not just 7hrs of idle...) so i wanted to read reviews. more than that, though, i want to know what difference it makes to run that program vs. setting the minimum/maximum processor rates from the advanced power profiles settings thing. thanks.

 

Wow I think we have ourselves a real life mind-reader of the computer world here folks! Catagorizing people when you don't even know anything about them except a couple of posts on a forum is really comical.

As for "middle of the road" folks as you call them not knowing what they want.....well I assure you, I know what I want. I want good battery life when unplugged and performance when plugged in. I am sure the rest of the people who bought this laptop or any laptop with "band-aid" switchable graphics do as well.

So unless you plan on buying every "middle of the road" person desktops, netbook and/or high performance laptops then you should keep your comments to yourself instead of polluting this thread with falsely accusing statements.

Also
1. why would I spend more money on more hardware when this is everything I need.
2. laptops like the envy14 are the best of both worlds (good battery life/performance) and that is why people like me buy it.

Heres a good phrase to remember...."don't ASSume, you make an A$$ of me and you"

End of discusssion.

Anyways, after some more use away from the plug, I am between 4.5 - 5hrs. I still can not get those power management options for my intel wireless card that other people have mentioned no matter what i do. At this point I have giving up on it (unless someone knows what I am doing wrong, then let me know). I am overall happy with the run time I am getting now. But obviously if it can be improve, i will explore it.

 

Hey no fair! I'm the only one who gets to say, "end of discussion."

 

So another battery test:

Config in sig:

Power Saver
Min Brightness
Wifi On
BT off

This time I installed Vuze and VLC, worked in excel for 3.5ish hours, and web browsed the rest of the time, ran CPUID sporadically, all while downloading through Vuze again, except for maybe 20 minutes of the time. I also had the backlit keyboard on for about 15 minutes. Also did some photo browsing/downloading on Google images and made a few themes and stuff.

Battery runtime of 4:25

I'm not sure if that's good or not. I guess it makes sense that it's lower than my other run time since I didn't let it sit idle at all with just Vuze downloading like I did on the other run time.

EDIT: This is after my clean install.

 

Just for the fun of it - to see how long I could get. Completely Idle, no wifi, as low power as I could get

i5-520
500GB HDD 7200 RPM
Standard Battery
"Minimized Image Recovery" with some optimization
Power Saving mode with screen always on, standby off.
Bluetooth off
Wifi off
0% Brightness

6:50

That number is from unplugged to 3% (hibernation)
If anyone is interested, I didn't trust battery bar, so I looked in Event Viewer, and filtered for the sources "Power-Troubleshooter," "Kernel-Power," "Kernel-General"

I believe that is a record for non SSD? I do realize it is an unrealistic idle test, but still It shows that it really depends on what you are doing
2:45 with music (flash, pandora) and general low power setting, 5:55 idle with wifi, 6:50 idle without wifi.

 

My battery jumps from 100% to 94% in literally 5 minutes. Any clue as to why?