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    Optimizing my T420s for battery

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by sigface, Aug 5, 2011.

  1. sigface

    sigface Newbie

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    I have a new t420s with the default battery (no ultrabay but I might upgrade).

    How can I optimize my system to save battery life without compromising too much in terms of features/performance? I've heard of people getting about 5 hours but I'm only getting 2.

    I have an mSATA SSD and the default HDD. My Users folder is on the HDD.

    Possibly related but my fan is almost always on, it's quiet for a bit when I turn on the computer but then it starts up and won't go away.
     
    sigface, Aug 5, 2011
    #1
  2. kirayamato26

    kirayamato26 Notebook Deity

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    Go into Power Manager and set your CPU performance to Balanced. Make sure the system is on NVIDIA Optimus in BIOS. Don't do anything too intensive on battery, in fact, don't do anything more than basic Word processing or surfing the web (no Flash).
     
    kirayamato26, Aug 5, 2011
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  3. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    You need to figure out what is using the power. Start with CPU utilisation. Web browsers can guzzle power, particularly if Flash is running (I use Firefox with FlashBlock to stop unwanted Flash activity). For more info on process activity, start Task Manager, go to the Processes tab and on the View menu add the CPU Time column (this shows total CPU time) and see what is at the top of the list. CPU usage should be less than 5% while running on battery.

    For hardware power consumption, see the difference when you turn off the switch for the wireless devices. USB devices can use power and particularly avoid having anything plugged into the the USB 3.0 port. Make sure that the display is less than half brightness.

    You may also want to experiment with putting the Users folder on the SSD so that the HDD can power down. This might require manually moving files around so that you only put the actives files onto the SSD.

    Power Manager can show you the power being used so it is easy to see the effect of changes. For 5 hours run time you need to be looking for about 8W.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Aug 6, 2011
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  4. bogatyr

    bogatyr Notebook Evangelist

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    Add the ultrabay battery. Just switching to power source optimizing and turning the brightness down to 5, I get about 8 hours web surfing.

    Using my Linux VM with wireless and the brightness at 7 or 8 I get about 5-6 hours.

    No special settings.
     
    bogatyr, Aug 6, 2011
    #4