Some questions about my T400!!!

Hello all,

Yesterday I received my brand new T400. I have made my recovery discs, ran Norton updates, and installed Windows updates. My first impressions are that this computer is very fast, the trackpoint is awesome (getting used to it by the second), and the flex is not noticeable when I am typing normally like. Also, I checked the FRU and it turns out I received the LG-Phillips LCD so I am very happy about that.

So my main questions are about the battery,

1) I have set the thresholds at start at 60%, stop at 90%. Is that good?
2) How do I turn off the Bluetooth.... actually when I set my battery options for battery powered vs. AC powered, where can I find the options to turn off bluetooth, switchable graphics, and etc.?
3) I know at school that the computer should be left on sleep (low power state). What about when I go to bed? Should I shut down the laptop? Leave it plugged in?

I have the battery settings at Power Source Optimized... unfortunately I have no idea how to adjust the settings to squeeze the most life out of the battery. I hear people all the time talk about balanced and whatnot but I can't see that in the options?

 

I was going through the manual last night, and it talked about the best practice to maintain the battery is to charge it to full, leave it unplugged, and use it until the battery indicator light goes orange - meaning it's nearly out. This seem like prudent advice, and is consistent with other battery-powered devices(like a iPod)

For the "switchable graphics" option, look for a green battery icon next to your sys-tray. Right click on this icon, and you'll see the option. I have it set to the Intel GMA onboard, since I rarely need the extra power of the ATI gpu

Lastly, I've disabled the trackpad for now, so I can force myself to learn to use the trackpoint.

 

1. I personally have my max charge threshold at 95% and minimum charge threshold at 70%.

Link to Article About Laptop Battery Care

2. Check the Lenovo Power Manager application, you may have to switch it to advanced mode to have full control over your devices.

3. Standby is fine if you have the notebook in a regular notebook bag, but not if you keep it in a sleeve because while on standby the notebook produces some heat and it can get warmer than you want it to in it's sleep and heat is no good for the battery, so don't even think about leaving your laptop in a hot place.

 

If you left click on the Vista Battery icon in the lower right hand corner that will bring up a menu. From there, go down and you'll see "More power options" > "Show additional plans"

 

Hit Fn + F5, and it will bring up your wireless radio options from which you can turn Bluetooth on or off.

In Power Manager, you have to select advanced settings. From there you can customize each of the five power profiles by adjusting the system settings, idle timers, etc.

Hope this helps, enjoy your new notebook

 

1.) Thats what I have min set at after reading some threads on this site. Seems to work ok.
2.) Check out power manager and under the profile settings there should be 2 columns. One column is setting for when the laptop runs under battery power and the other is for when it is running on AC.
3.) I like to put my machine to sleep when I want to turn it off and on again a short time later. If I am not using my machine for several hours then I Hibernate it.

As far as squeezing the most out of the battery, I created a my own custom power plan in Power Manager. There are 2 states, one is on battery and one is on AC. For the battery state I have everything set to the lowest possible settings I can handle such as setting the CPU to the lowest power and the screen brightness to the lowest level I can handle(I have it on 5 bars). On AC I am not worried about this stuff, so I have everything set to the fastest and most powerful options, like having the CPU at full power(but I still leave the screen brightness at 5 bars since I want my eyes to get used to this level. Going brighter will spoil me and I will hate to use my laptop when on 5 bars in battery only mode )

 

Don't keep running down the battery and fully charging it...

Most of us keep the top threshold at 95%. The lower can be something like 65% or something so you aren't always topping it off.

If you are not using the battery for extended times you can leave it in a cool area at about 40%. Also make sure you do cycle it through and do a battery reset every couple months or something.

 

I basically did the same thing as The Fire Snake to maximize battery life when mobile. Typically the most intensive tasks I do while mobile are word processing, and internet browsing. So I really do not need any kind of power and it sure does maximize battery life.

 

Thanks for the help guys

Do you guys have any additional advice when it comes to having the ThinkPad at a consistent wattage? I am unplugged right now running on battery, 71% battery left (3:16 hours left), optical drive disabled, bluetooth disabled, sidebars and Aero disabled, display @ 4 bars, and custom power settings where everything is pretty much set the the lowest possible. Battery stretch and Vista Battery Saver on as well. My computer jumps from 9 watts up to 14 watts (over one hour difference) which is unsettling since all I am doing is opening up Power Manager and using Firefox. I imagine it will jump even higher when I am taking notes via Microsoft Word or Open Office. Wattage usually stays at 11 watts when I'm just reading posts on here or something.

Any tips?

Btw, when I download files from Firefox, right as the file is about to finish (approx. at the "scanning for viruses" step) all the browser windows freeze up for about a minute. What's the dealio?

Thanks!

Edit: So right now my battery is at 80% remaining, it was at 11 watts and jumped from 3:30 left (11watts) to 4:20 left (11 watts) and now back to 3:26 left (13 watts), now 3:34 (12 watts) -_-

The CPU usage jumps around a lot too. I have updated the BIOS.