Games run slower when on battery power

When on battery power, all my games run a lot slower. The FPS in black ops fluctuates between 15 and 65 FPS wildly, usually staying around 15-20. I get a consistent 50-70 fps when plugged in so nothings screwed up. I have everything on high performance.

Catalyst Control-
-Power Play: Highest Performance

Intel Graphics Control
-Highest performace

Windows battery settings
-Highest performance.


Anything I'm missing?

 

This is normal. No battery has enough juice to run the graphics card at full usage.

 

Umm... Well it was working fine a while ago, until I messed with the battery settings. I could get 45 fps constant easy.

 

I used GPU-Z to check the max clock when on battery, and it was 400 mhz. Max clock on power is 725. So it's limiting it's clock speed. How to disable? I have two batteries and I only need like 45 minutes a day, and I keep the 6770 off until I need it so...

 

It is normal for laptops to clock down automatically on battery. Rarely will they ever run same performance on battery as plugged in. Whether you think you saw it running full speed or not, it may have been perceived as such, but sure it was not.

It limits these, otherwise the laptop will just shut down because the battery can't provide the draw required.

 

Okay, well I found what was up, apparently when I set Catalyst to Highest Performance in PowerPlay the FPS fluctuates and usually stays at 20-30 but will occasionally hit 60-75... When I go onto conserve battery at stays at 40 or so.... That's normal or not? It didn't USED to do that... And when i turn PowerPlay off alltogether, I get like... 10 FPS. Whaaaat?

 

I had the same problem. Easily solved.
Make sure powerplay says maximum performance on BOTH battery and ac/plugged in settings.
Make sure you switch to ATI graphics after you are on battery power (it defaults to intel). Your framerates will be the same, I even overclocked my 6770 ON BATTERY and got incredible framerates, though the battery only lasts 1/2 hr!

 

Well that didn't work for me. What DID work is using the 9 cell battery. The 9 cell battery provides a higher voltage than the 6 cell, so the 9 cell could play on highest performance mode while the 6 cell couldn't deliver enough voltage to play games properly. Turning off PowerPlay still makes FPS fluctuate like hell, but it's just 3 more cells. So the 9 cell battery not only increases battery life, but performance on battery as well! 60-70 fps Black ops on battery!

 

The 9-cell provides the same voltage... smoke much crack?

6-cell - 10.8V (2 sets (parallel) of 3 x 3.6V (series) = 10.8V)
9-cell - 10.8V (3 sets (parallel) of 3 x 3.6V (series) = 10.8V)

6-cell - 4400 mAh (2200 mAh cells)
9-cell - 6600 mAh (2200 mAh cells)

 

Thanks wittynorseman, you are correct about the batteries.
Someone in another forum was saying that the 9 cell is 10000mah.
I disagreed and found a 12 cell on ebay that was 8800mah, so it
makes sense there is no way the HP 9 cell is 10000mah.

 

I have the 9-cell, It's 100000m Wh not m ah



It's 11.1V for some reason, but 98235mWh / 11.1 = 8850mah similar to the 12 cell you're looking at.

 

The below are the rated numbers of the batteries, they are what the battery would be if the world were perfect.

I forgot that 18650 Li-ion cells are rated for 3.7V not 3.6V so I'll leave the above as is, not that it makes a huge difference in the results though.

6-cell
11.1V * 4.4Ah = 48.84Wh

9-cell
11.1 * 6.6Ah = 73.26Wh

Lets say worst case scenario a given dv6/7 consumes the wattage that it's power supply is rated to, below are the results.

6-cell
90W / 48.84Wh = 1.84A
120W / 48.84Wh = 2.46A

4.4Ah / 1.84A = 1.3 hours
4.4Ah / 2.46A = 1.8 hours

9-cell
90W / 73.26Wh = 1.23A
120W / 73.26Wh = 1.64A

6.6Ah / 1.23A = 5.4 hours
6.6Ah / 1.64A = 4.0 hours

HP claims 5.5 & 9.5 hours runtime on the dv7tqe on the 6 & 9-cell batteries respectively.

 

Well it is what it is, but it works with the 9 cell and doesn't with the 6 cell. Not much more to say about that.

 

I am pretty sure the computer can draw so much power it needs to pull from the charger and the battery at the same time.

 

I am most certain it does not... HP recommends removing the battery if the laptop is to be plugged in for two weeks or longer.

HP Battery Health Center

I've run a dv6tqe on battery, with all power saving features off, with both Prime95 & Fumark running, the display to brightest, wireless on streaming HD A/V, sound at max, etc. There was no problem, the same can be done without the battery.

 

Hmm, my six cell is 5500 mAh ????????? I guess they call it the high
capacity six cell, it definatily isn't 4400mAh

 

Alright, well here are the facts-
6 Cell: Only graphics mode that doesn't lag horribly is Battery Saver
9 Cell: High performance mode works but can't turn off PowerPlay or massive lag
Plugged in: Everything works 100%

So whatever the reason... How can I fix it? I don't think it has always done this, I remember gaming with the 6 cell a while ago.

 

Get Game Booster and use it's power scheme...
Game Booster 3.0 Free Download, Speed Up PC for Top Gaming Performance

 

Does it work well?

 

When I run Game Booster on battery power the performance drop just like I turned PowerPlay off.
On another note, turning PowerPlay off when on AC power also kills my performance.

 

In the switchable graphics menu is "Automatically select power-saving GPU when on battery" checked?

 

No. Trust me, I'm using the AMD. The fps only drops under stress, when i look at a wall I get normal FPS but when I turn around I like get 20. The Integrated graphics always get 20.

 

I'll do some GPU-Z tests later about the clock speed and voltage under the different modes to see exactly what's happening.