T400 troubles

Hi all,

First-time poster here. I've had my T400 for almost 2 years now (running Vista) and I've had some consistent problems with it that I thought I might try to deal with once more. I've tried searching the forum and I'm pretty sure my questions are new.
Thanks!

1. By battery life is nowhere near what other people seem to get. With the 6-cell I've had since purchase, I've never been able to get above 4 hours life; usually, I struggle to get a full 3. I'm aware of the different power settings and all, I'm using the Windows Standard graphics theme and, in general, I try to keep the comp well maintained (in short, I'm know the solutions people normally prescribe). Is there anything I could be doing to cut battery life? Is having many windows open (but not necessarily in use) a big drain on power?

2. My disk drive died within the first few weeks of getting my computer. It worked once or twice, then I installed, had trouble with, and uninstalled Media Monkey and the drive hasn't worked since. When I put in a disk, it spins briefly, then stops, and the computer tells me there is nothing in the drive. Lenovo sent me a new drive but it had the same problem. Is there any way this can be solved without scrapping the computer?

Thanks again!

 

1- that's pretty reasonable. I'm gettgin 4-5 on my 9 cell with wireless on

2- could be a problem with Lenovo Power Manager turning off the optical drive. I know mine is always off and to turn it on I need to physically pop the drive out and put it back in. Saves power though I guess, and who uses cds these days lol.

 

Your battery life is actually on par with what I'm getting, as well. My 9-cell is slightly degraded and gives me about 5.5 hours on a full charge.

Your optical drive problem is kinda puzzling... I don't really know of a power setting that disables the Ultrabay drive and my optical drive(I use a second HDD bay about 99% of the time) has always worked when I needed it.

 

1. Sounds a bit low, but not too terribly bad. I realistically get 4-5 on my 5-month old T400 with the 6-cell. I could rarely achieve 6 hours even after a fresh Windows install--wifi would have to be switched off. (ALL the aforementioned figures are on the maximum battery power scheme)
Yes, having windows open, but not necessarily doing anything, does increase your power draw. Open up the power manager, browse to the battery section, and you'll see a thing for current wattage which will fluctuate. But watch how much it drops when you close programs that are supposedly using 0% cpu. Another thing I've noticed: Firefox draws less wattage than does Chrome with the same amount of tabs open.
Some other little tweaks you could do would be to go into the power manager, make a new power plan, and make sure you look at every setting; set everything to give you that little bit more. You could then go into the Windows Vista/7 settings for the scheme you just created, and look at those settings.
I've also heard that certain colors draw less power from the LCD. Not sure exactly which ones, since surprisingly, on the Google Nexus One phone (maybe the HTC Hero actually? I forget just which), turning down the red and blue pigments in the display (leaving it mostly red), gave something like a 50% battery life increase. Granted, that's an extreme case with a different LCD technology, but I'm sure different color backgrounds and etc make a difference. (I believe I've seen some reference on various sites to 'energy-saving desktop backgrounds before)
Most of that stuff is all small, but if you combine it all together, it'll make a noticeable difference.

The biggest thing is just what power management scheme the CPU is on. Having it locked down on the low-power speed as opposed to the dynamic speed will make a large difference. (However, that's not a solid rule because with my T60 and a 1st-gen Core 2 Duo, at times, having the CPU locked on the max battery scheme would yield less battery life than on 'dynamic' at times because the CPU was always 100%. But, with my T400 and P8600, I've never experienced that)


2. Have you tried updating your BIOS and well as running Windows Update and Thinkvantage System Update?

 

I think it also depends what graphics card you have. If you just have the integrated Intel one than there is some thing wrong. Even now, 2 years later, my T400 gets about 4 hours with the Intel graphics and I also have a 6 cell battery. However, if you have the ATI and always leave it on the dedicated then 3ish hours sounds about right

 

my T400 using P8600 and Intel GPU with the 6 cells manages only about 3 hours and 40 minutes max even on new battery.

Regarding the disc drive problem, burn a linux live cd and test the disc drive, if the cd works then you have a software problem, if it doesn't then you have a hardware problem and needs to send the laptop back for repair.

 

Are you sure you're not thinking of the 4-cell? (The T400 is available with a 4-cell which does not extrude from the system, a 6-cell which does much like a 9-cell on a T60, or a 9-cell which sticks out and up at an angle)

 

also, is your LCD led or regular ccfl backlit. If you have the led screen it consumes less power

 

i have enough Thinkpads to know the difference, i only have the 6 cells battery for this series of Thinkpads.

The current T400 that i have is wxga+ with CCFL backlight, the other T400 that i had has a WXGA LED, but the battery running time difference is minimal between the two.

 

Thanks for all the help, guys!

I do think there is some problem - I have literally never been able to go above 4:30, even with wireless off, max battery power settings, aero off, and generally all power settings tweaked to my preference. And my power manager tells me the battery condition is "good".
I do have the ATI graphics card though; does anybody know how I could check to make sure it is switching to integrated when I go on battery?
I guess I'll also keep closer watch on what applications I have running / how many windows I keep open.

As for the disk drive, I'll try updating everything and that linux live cd as well. Thanks for the ideas!