Minimizing Power Consumption - T410

I'm trying to squeeze the most battery life possible out of the 9 cell battery in my T410, while still keeping performance at a comfortable level if I need it.

I've already setup a power plan with the Power Manager (the only ThinkVantage software I reinstalled), disabled the drivers of things I infrequently use (SD reader, Firewire, Modem), and obviously dim the screen to the lowest comfortable level when in use on battery.

I'm looking for any tips and tricks you have in lowering power consumption, as well as how to disable the PCMCIA slot, and if possible the optical drive (without removing it).

What have you done/what do you recommend when it comes to reducing power consumption?

 

the optical drive can be disabled through the Thinkvantage Power Manager, there is an option for that.

 

Can't see it.

I see an option to restrict the speeds, but not disable it. It also requires a restart, I'd prefer an on-the-fly option if possible, such as disabling the driver.

 

Make sure you re in Advanced mode. Under "System Settings", and "Automatic Optical Drive Power Off".

 

under my T400 Power Manager 3 there is an option for automatic optical drive off.

 

Mine DVD drive powers off, but how do you power it back on?

In explorer when I right click on the driver this is a menu option "Power On", but clicking it has no effect.

I have to reboot once switched off to restore it to working!

I read somewhere that pressing the eject button powers it on, and while it flashes lights and opens the tray etc, it is still not really 'on' from a Windows perspective.

 

When I hit eject it works fine...

 

Any other tips? According to the basic view in Power Manager I'm at ~22 watts. Any way I can lower that?

 

Whoa. That's ridiculously high for idling power draw for the T410. Is your laptop a discrete graphics version? Doing things like disabling the CD drive barely makes a dent in power consumption - you're going to have to hit the major problems first.

 

Mine's ~23 W and I have the T410 with dedicated graphics and 9 cell. I only get 4.5 hours.

 

Isn't the 9 cell, 84WHr? If you're getting 4.5 hrs then your average power consumption is around 18-19W.

 

93.6 WHr.

Nope, integrated. Specs are in my sig. I found out how to disable the CD drive in the Battery Stretch settings. Without any battery stretch features, and with my power plan which is only rated 2/7, I'm using 19 watts while web browsing and listening to music.

I'd really like to get around, or below, 15 watts. I think I should probably calibrate my battery through the Power Manager as well, I did not do that when I first received the laptop and now Windows says the battery is ~1 hour less than it usually would be (based on the first few days of use).

 

The new Tx10 9-cell batteries received a bump to 94Wh.

That is in line with your power usage, which also seems high, although slightly more reasonable given that you have discrete graphics.

That seems really strange. Run Process Explorer, enable the CPU usage history column, and keep it running in your System Tray for a while, then check to see if any process is using more CPU than it should - that could prevent your CPU from downclocking to a lower power state.

My friend who has a T410 with an i5 processor and integrated graphics can get up to 8 and a half hours on his 9-cell with WiFi on (after I clean installed Win7 for him and enabled a few basic Power Manager tweaks), so 15W seems like a perfectly reasonable target for your system.

 

I'd love 8.5 hours...



Looks pretty normal to me.

 

Recalibrating the battery didn't help.

 

How do I see idle power draw in Power Manager? I have Power Manager 3.25.

 

I see it by switching to basic mode.

Still needing help with this! Can't get below 21 watts. It really sucks to only be getting 5 out of 8 possible hours I should be getting.

 

Final bump. If no one can help I may try reinstalling.

 

Try going lower than adaptive for the CPU speed, like keep it at the lowest. I also disable Aero on battery using AeroFoil (It also lets me select to only hibernate when hybrid sleep is enable).

I think (IIRC) I can get my power usage down to 12W with WiFi off. I have the 620m