T400 realistic wattage use...

hey all. i've seen a lot of threads describing power usage under conditions i consider mostly unusable... i would like to get an idea what kind of power people are drawing under usable conditions. so, at 100% brightness, wireless enabled, firefox open with NBR, my power usage (as per power lenovo manager) is about;

15-17 watts with discreet graphics
12-14 watts with integrated graphics

i am not listing the lowest number i ever get, but the average power usage under these conditions (range the wattage stays in 90% of the time). this is with xp sp3 clean install. what do you guys get under these conditions?

 

About the same... but oddly it takes a good 5 minutes or more to get there. For the first few minutes my laptop is on, it uses up to around 30 watts... quickly draining the battery at first.

 

ok. so i had some time today... and i compared a clean install with the factory install (used acronis).

the clean install used about 3 watts MORE than the clean install. so, in my case at least- the factory image was a bit of a power hog. unexpected...

glad i did a clean install now!

oh, and my power usage is pretty high at first as well. i think that's typical.

 

lol, you should fix that...

so what is your wattege use now with the clean install? is that xp or vista?

 

hehe... the OP is the wattage with the clean install, both are with XP pro. with the factory install i had horrendous power usage!

 

I think kevin was using vista?

 

btw this has been discussed before:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=298549
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=293804
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=302969

 

so is battery life better with Vista or with XPS3? i'm trying to calibrate my settings and I'd like the most battery life outta this thing, regardless the OS.

 

from what I've been reading vista.

here are some tips if you really want to get the most out of your battery
-use 16 bit color(30min + on my sony sz)
-turn off Ethernet, sound card(not just mute) and cd drive
-try to keep the pc cool, not using it on your lap, this will make the fan run less, using less power
-switch to windows classic look(the gray one, win 98/2000)
-clean the contacts on the battery, this will make sure no power is wasted
- if you need a couple more minutes when you reach 5% turn off the automatically hibernate, this will degrade your battery!, but it might run for another 5-30mins below 0%

oh, and if your in vista, look inside the performance manager or whatever its called(start- performance- enter) and look under the disk tab, try to find out which process is using the HD, and disable it, or try to make it not use the hd (lol) this will allow your hd to go to sleep saving another 1-2w of power

 

yeah. let's get back on topic. those of you that have a T400, i'm interested in your power usage under realistic conditions (100% brightness, wifi working, etc.)... please post!

 

lol, it wasnt really that off topic... and most people here use around 60% brightness on the LED screen, not 100%

btw did you read the threads I linked? some other people report getting around 8-9 watts too, and someone actually got 7.5 on linux(no wifi thou)

I am also thinking the 5100/5300 series intel cards draw less power than the thinkpad one. And i've read somewhere that the wifi card eats 1.5w just sitting inside your case turned off, this is kind off wierd

I am battery life freak, I fly over 100 000 miles in a year so I always try to get the most out of my battery on the plane.... The sony sz just isnt doing it for me, the most I got out of the 9 cell was around 6 hours, and it was pretty unusable at that (around 14 watts I think)

 

uh. i asked at 100% for a reason- it's the brightness i happen to use and will be more comparable across users, since a real percentage is hard to define with a 15 tick brightness range.

i have read the other threads. and that is exactly why i wanted to start THIS thread. lol. to get some idea of what people are getting power usage wise with a bright profile.

yes, i have heard the 5300 uses less power, and that the wifi may draw power just being plugged in...weird. it's all good. still, if you are interested in posting- all you t400 users out there. let me know your power usage!

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edit-
after playing around with settings, i am not using about 10-12 watts with integrated graphics, wifi on, screen at 100%.