T400 LED, XP SP3, Crazy power usage :|

When just surfing the net on 60% brightness it draws around 15W, when turing off wifi and turning down brightness to 10%, it still draws 14W, ridicolous!

There are no processes using a lot of cpu running, and this is a rather clean XP install, Ive installed all the relevant XP drivers from lenovo.

I did a fresh install to a OCZ SSD II drive, using a slipstreamed XP SP3. The SSD should actually reduce power usage. Otherwise it has the LED WXGA+ screen, the 2.26 ghz cpu and 2GB of ram.

Any ideas?

 

How are you measuring the power usage?

If you are measuring the draw to the power supply, it will be larger than the laptop's draw because of the ~70% efficiency of the power supply.

 

Its not connected to the power supply, and its running in discrete graphics mode btw.

Im measuring it with mobilemeter, tried NHC as well, same result. Speedstep seems to be working.

 

The discrete graphics will draw 2 or more Watts compared to the integrated graphics, so I figure thats where some of the power is going. I usually have my bluetooth off too.. I don't really know how much power that draws. I also eject the DVD rom via the EZeject thinkvantage utility (probably identical to ejecting it via windows). My CPU is set to be on Low setting, as opposed to adaptive or lowest (I use the thinkvantage software to set that, as well as measure power draw)

Basically, I use between 6-10 watts on average with a 7200 RPM harddrive, wifi off, bluetooth off, ejected DVD drive, ~50% brightness on LED, integrated graphics, Low CPU setting. I can get between 4-5 hours on a 4cell battery

 

that is obviously totally normal and i'd say a good result. switching graphics is only available with vista and 15w with discrete graphics mode is still a very low power consumption compared to other notebooks with similar performance. the nbr review said that they got 6:45 h with 13w power consumption (watching dvd under vista, obviously this mode uses the internal graphics in switching mode).

==> i'd estimate you could get as much as 6h with the 9cell under xp even though you are using discrete graphics! that's a good result! what are you comlaining about?

 

Kevin said watching an XVID video off that HD. using a DVD will reduce battery life over an hour.

He's complaning because he can't get the 10.5 (discrete graphics) watt power consumption reported in Kevin's review.

 

I have always wondered about the power usage on Thinkpads.
14w? Unbelievable! I have seen older Celerons with integrated video card run this low, but I would not trust that reading unless plugged in to a Kill-A-Watt.

 

Ah, thanks for pointing out that I was using discrete (confused it with integrated). So now I'm using integrated with all power saving features on, and the power manager with max power saving settings.

But still with all settings set to max saving, optical drive disabled, all radios off, nothing running in the background, LED display at 10% AND one of the most powersaving SSDs, I still only mange 11W Ridicolous compared to 6W.

So Im doing all this, only with lower brightness and a SSD.. go figure.

 

Capacity in Wattage-hours for the respective batteries: (Taken from the lenovo forums)

4-cell: 37.44
6-cell: 56.16
7-cell: 74.88
9-cell: 84.24

One way to test wheter your battery power reading is to divide your battery wattage-hour rating, but the wattage-hour rating to see if you the battery life measures is close.

for example at a continous 14watts, a fully 9cell charged would get about 6 hours, or a 6cell 4 hours.

If you're using a continuous 8.5 watts a 9cell would get about 10 hours.

 

Did you strip your XP install using nLite or similar? That would be one difference between your reported power useage and any reviewer's power useage. Stripping down an XP install can have unintended consequences.

 

i only get 3 hours on a 6-cell
XP sp3

 

Aestiel: What is your exact config/setup?

I tried to run Vista from the 80gb 5400 rpm disk that came with the computer, disabled all startup programs and set everything to max powersaving, turned off wlan and set brightness to 10%, but even then I couldnt get less than 8.6w drain, and you say you get from 6-10 with 50% brightness and wlan on?

How how how, and it pains me to see that xp seems to suck more juice than vista It COULD be the SSD sucking a lot of power, but that seems unlikely.

Any thoughts? Cheers!

 

There was a similar post a few days back, my configuration/settings and stuff are listed on this post

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=297385

and since it wasn't in the previous post, I have a 160GB 7200rpm HD.

 

Yes, but what options did you go for? Screen, harddrive etc?

 

I don't think the options would change the power consumption that much, but this is what i have

P8600 (25Watt) CPU
160GB 7200 RPM HD (Hitatchi)
DVD Burner (Matsu****a)
LG LED Screen w/ Cam
T60 Keyboard
2Gigs Ram 1DIMM
Intel AGN5300
No fingerprint reader
Integrated Bluetooth
Synaptic Touchpad

 

Me neither, I have the same specs, only a OCZ SSD, the 4695abg wlan card and T400 keyboard

Which SHOULD give me better battery life than you, due to the HD, but I'm gonna try to do a few recharge cycles and see what I end up with. Strangeness, and you're on VISTA?

 

Sorry, I knew I was forgetting something,

I'm running XP sp3.

 

I get the same at about 90% brightness, using one note, wifi, and browsing.

 

regarding the the xp clean install. did u put in the intel chipset drivers and power mgmt driver? (not power mgr app)

 

Yes on both accounts, I also use the power mgmt app (that wouldnt work without the drivers I belive)

 

There is two device drivers missing still though, One has location: Intel(R) ICHM9M-E LPC Device id: ACPI\INTC0102\1

And then theire is PCI Simple Communications controller.

Could it be one of those?

 

ACPI is Advanced Configuration and Power Interface so that could be something to look at fixing...I think the PCI could be the Intel storage matrix but thats just a wild guess...

 

Yup.

Vista has a better battery management.

 

Yea, I'd definitely install the ACPI drivers...the PCI Simple Communications controller is related to the Intel's Active Management Tech...install this driver to fix it.

Odd that your battery life is so limited, but more likely caused by the missing ACPI driver. I'd also suspect the SSD because not all are as power efficient as they claim. I have a similar setup:


P8400 (2.26 Ghz), 2 GB ram, 250gb 5400rpm, LED, thinkpad abg, bluetooth, fingerprint reader, integrated graphics, 6-cell with clean XP install and update to SP3.


XP SP3 includes a hotfix for the Penryn deepest sleep state, so that definitely should be helping you out. With all necessary drivers installed, wireless on, bluetooh off, fingerprint reader on and 48 processes running, dvd burner "ejected", and LED screen set to 10/15 bars, I get 4 hours on a 6 cell while surfing the net...after installing RMclock (even though montevina and .5 CPU multipliers are not fully supported), I netted an extra 30 and can surf with the above settings for 4hr 30 min...

*I've also disabled the ethernet, modem, serial, and parallel ports in the bios and set CPU to automatic/adaptive in the bios...hope your battery issue is remedied soon, keep us updated...

 

Observations:
System: T400, 2GB ram, LED WXGA+, 4 CELL, 4in1 reader, discrete graphics.
Setup: Windows XP SP3 with only drivers installed, no programs running, set to max powersaving and using integrated graphics. Wifi off, wlan not plugged in.


32GB OCZ Flash SATA II SSD

Idle, 50% brightness 8.75w
Idle, 50% brightness, w wired network, 10.20w
Idle, Min brightness 8.5w
Idle, Max brightness Max 10.5W
Browsing folders 10w
Typing in Word 9.10w


160gb Hitachi hts5416 5400rpm (about 0.9W idle power usage, most 2.5" consume 1w)

Idle, 50% brightness 7.6w
Idle, 50% brightness, w wired network, 9.20w
Idle, Min brightness 7.25w
Idle, Max brightness Max 9.48W
Browsing folders 10.2w
Typing in Word 8.10w


Notes:
-Turning up brightness to 70% only increases power usage by 0.3w
-XP and VISTA has similar powerusage with both the SSD and HHD
-The SSD gives 13%! worse battery life when idling.
-The most powersaving SATA notebook harddrives manage 0.6W idling (Fujitsu MHX2300BT,SATA150/NCQ,120 GB, 8 M).
-The 4 cell batt states that it's 42Wh, which would in theory give me 5:30 using the HHD, realisticly I think 4:30 is possible with text editing.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2-5-hard-drive-charts/benchmarks,25.html < for benchmarks of almost all recent 2.5" drives.

In summary: Just buy a huge 2.5" HHD, saves energy and you don't notice the speed difference much with "normal" use anyways.

 

do you have the core series OCZ drive like so
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227343
?

 

Yep, that's the one.

 

according to this review http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=16
that OCZ Core Series v1 had a bit worse battery life compared to other SSD because of its bad random writes. I heard its due to the JMicron controller and being MLC. I couldn't find any specs on how much power it consumes during idle.
I'm pretty sure with the OCZ slc or maybe the new intel x25-m which only comsumes like .07w idle you will get better battery life

 

Okay, the wifi card is partly to blame, with the Atheros producedThinkpad BG card the comp draws 9.8W idling at 50% brightness, with it removed from the comp it draws 8.25W idling, 1.55W less!

 

First of all measure your power usage with Lenovo software - the Power Manager. It measures accurate power usage when on battery. It gives you the ELECTRIC CURRENT, measured in amperes and WATTAGE in watts, ok ?

How to do that ? Launch the power manager, go to advanced mode, then go to Battery tab and see the Current and Wattage...

 

T400, T9400, LED, 4Gb, 500Gb Samsung M6, intel 5300, vista x64, lowest I got is 11w around 0.95 As

 

t400 t9400 led 4gb samsung 32gb ssd and gskill 64gb ssd in ultrabay, xp 32 lowest i get is 8w with wifi off and lcd to half and using integrated video
when i use dedicated this jumps to 10.8w
however, these are both when computer is idle
With regular usage in integrated and surfing the web it jumps around but avg i get 4-5 hrs