NX8220 - Increased Battery Runtimes

Recently, I updated my HP Compaq BIOS from F.0A to F.0E from the HP website. I read that this was supposed to fix the high-pitched squeeling, but that was a no go. While using my notebook recently to test my new G router, I noticed that MobileMeter was reporting that my battery comsumption was approx 11.5W and checked my battery runtime, 5+ hrs (Windows battery icon in systray). That was pretty surprising since my normal consumption was approx 14-16W with a runtime of a bit over 4hrs. Below is my current setup:

OS: XP Pro (manual load)
BIOS: F.0E
PM set to: Notebook/Laptop
Screen Brightness: Ambient Light Sensor enabled & lowered all the way down
Wireless: ON

Even with wireless on and brightness jumped up a bit, I's sure I was still capable of getting over 4hrs of usage (didn't actually keep track). I even installed some drivers from CD and connected a USB 2.0 G WiFi adapter for testing and it ran great.

Has any other nx8220/nc8230 user out there update their BIOS? If so, what kind of results are you getting for your battery consumption/runtimes?

You can download MobileMeter from here:
http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8259/

-Vb-

 

Interesting power numbers. I am also running F.0E (I think), and my idle consumption is 14.26w while on battery, screen brightness turned all the way down, HDD spinning.

(2GHz M @800MHz, 1GB 533MHz DDR-II, 7200RPM Travelstar, 128MB graphics)

My temperature numbers might give a hint where the power is going:

T1 41c
T2 42c
T3 31.1
Discharge Rate 14.47 (while typing)
HDD 36c

 

Mtnmasher,

That's pretty good for a 2GHz CPU, 1GB of DDR2 & a 7200RPM HDD. I only have 1 1.73GHz CPU, 512MB DD2 (400Mhz I think) & a 5400rpm Hitachi & a 128MB video card (all stock). With your specs, I'd expect a higher drain on the battery.

I'm currently running BatteryEater Pro v2.60 to test the battery life. Below is the change in setup from above:

LCD has the Ambient Light Sensor Off with brightness lowered all the way
BIOS has the LAN/WLAN auto switch enabled (disables/turns off the NIC if WLAN on & vice versa) as well as the LAN power save function (drops LAN speed to 100MBit if 1GBit is not needed)

Currently the test it still running, but BatteryEater Pro is reporting that the runtime should be in the area of 4hrs 40mins. Before the upgrade to the new BIOS, I was only capable of getting 4hrs 11mins. So a 30min increase is pretty sweet for just upgrading the BIOS.

Mobile Meter reports a power drain of 14.2-14.9W on my unit now with the above settings. The increase in consumption is because I disabled the Ambient Light Sensor. You can dim your LCD 2 levels, 1 with the sensor off and another level when on.

While on battery, with the Sensor off, drop your brightness all the way down, now turn on the sensor (Fn+F11) and then drop your LCD brightness again. This will reduce your brightness another 25% (approx). This should reduce your consumption to under 12W (11.88W approx).

All your valuse look pretty much like mine, but your specs are higher, that's a bit weird.

-Vb-

 

I did as you said, and the power went down to 12.95w.

LAN/WLAN auto mode- enabled
LAN Power save mode - enabled
Bluetooth module - disabled (I'll see if the noise changes )

Ambient light sensor off - 14.04w
Ambient light sensor on - 12.95w

It looks like the 2GHz cpu, extra 512MB DDRII, (@533MHz), and 7200rpm HDD are adding up to a 1 watt increase over your machine.

[edit] - Also, it took a while for the power to settle down to those numbers. Sitting in front of the laptop and keeping my itchy fingers off the keyboard was a real exercise in patience!

 

LOL, yeah, I was the same when trying o test my system, but at least I had TV to watch while the test was running.

Only an extra 1W for a faster CPU, more ram and a faster HDD, that's not a lot when you think about it.

I got 4h35min of runtime on my unit before I plugged the AC back in. I did notice a weird thing though, my power consumption near the end started to increase above 15W. I didn't see any additional HDD activity or anything, so I wonder where this extra power drain came from?

-Vb-

 

I also noticed an unexplainable fluctuation in power consumption during long periods of idle, with no noticeable audible change.

I've heard that the HDDs 'patrol' while idle, which means that instead of leaving the heads at one spot, they move them around. It could be that the increased power is a result of the heads being moved to the outer edge of the media, which increases drag on the spindle motor. I don't know if this alone would explain the fluctuation.

 

That's a pretty weird option to include on the drive. Especially when running on battery and the battery is low.

Also as an update, I did a quick test on the unit with the Wireless card disabled and ambient sensor enabled with brightness dropped all the way down. I looked at MobileMeter's battery consumption and it read under 11W (10.66W). The battery runtime at this consumption level was listed at approx 5.5-6hrs.

-Vb-