T400- XP vs. Vista battery life question

Hi all.

I just received my T400 (T9400 2.53, 2GB, 9 cell battery) last week. I intentionally ordered it with only Vista Home Basic because I planned to install XP as soon as possible and stick with that until Win 7 came out. Prior to installing XP, under Vista, my battery life hovered around 6-7 hours on a full charge. I installed XP and after installing a few of the IDE ATA/ATAPI drivers I was sidetracked by the battery meter which stated that I had 3.5 hours remaining at 96% charge. I plugged in the adapter to top off the battery and let the laptop sit for about an hour. I never saw the estimated time go above 4 hours.

My questions are these, and I apologize if they are dumb:
1. Is there a driver that I missed that would let me see the same battery life under XP that I saw under Vista? If so, please give me a hint as to what the name is.

2. I (probably wrongly) assumed that battery life is battery life and it would perform the same under either OS. Please slap me around a bit and let me know if that isn't accurate.

3. Wouldn't it stand to reason that a resource hogging Vista would consume less battery life than XP?

I really don't want to think I made a mistake by planning to downgrade to XP, but I really don't feel like using Vista either. I greatly appreciate any help that anyone can provide, and I look forward to being a productive member of this forum.

Thanks again.

 

We were all new to things at one time. I wouldn't sweat it. Did you install the latest power management driver for XP? I find it to be the opposite on my R60. I get four plus hours of battery life in XP, but about three and a half using Vista.

 

ZaZ, thanks for the reply.

I wasn't aware that there was a particular "power management driver" so that helps.

Also, I was browsing the forum and read about how I could change from "discrete" to "integrated" graphics in the BIOS. I changed to "integrated" and my battery life exploded to 5.5 hours at 68%!!

I will look in to getting that driver, but this works like a charm in the meantime!

Many thanks.

 

In my experience on my x200 Tablet, I get about 15% better battery life in Vista. I'm not really sure why as both Operating Systems are perfectly patched and updated, but I can get under 6 watts with Vista, but never below 7.5 watts with XP (and can't break 10 watts on Ubuntu). This may be my quirk though.

The big thing you lose on the T400 with XP is switchable graphics. With Vista you can switch this on the fly, but with XP/Linux you must do a full reboot and change the setting in BIOS. Integrated graphics will give you far better battery life than dedicated in almost all cases.

Also, as a general rule, you really should let an OS (especially Vista due to its penchant for indexing) settle down for a week before you start worrying about battery life and power usage.

 

You probably read the battery's life as the laptop was using integrated graphics in Vista. You can do hot-switching between integrated and dedicated graphics in Vista, but not in XP.

 

I don't know if I'm right but I suspect there are some registry tweaks on Thinkpads preinstalled with Vista, because with my T61 the temp also is more cooler than on XP. And it's to be expected to have more battery life on a more evoluted OS. I also like XP so much, and having tried already 7 I'm thinking on doing the change, although the HDD activity increases even in 7, in XP my HDD is way cooler.

 

Vista has better power management compared to XP.

While on battery, Vista temporarily suspends many of its resource-hogging tasks.

 

If you want more battery life, switch to Intel graphics from ATI. On my T400 with 6 cell, I get about 3 hours on ATI vs. about 5 hours on Intel. On Vista of course.

My Linux install gets horrendous battery life due to no power management software installed. I should really get around to fixing it.

 

i just installed windows 7 beta on mine and have noticed a significant amount of battery life between the two. I have both OS on my comp right now. For example I was on W7 and for example i saw the life of the rest battery indicated ~1:30. Then switched over to XP and then noticed that on XP the battery indicator showed ~2:00

 

I assume XP would consumer less resources. Have you tried Vista vs windows 7?

 

doesn't a clean install of vista have only like 40 processes anyway? That's not that bad really...

 

t400, integrated graphics, 9 cell battery, wifi and bluetooth on, 60% brightness

before with vista, i used to get about 7 hours
now with xp, i get about 6 hours

 

Those numbers seem low. Using an E6400 with integrated graphics, 6-cell battery, wifi and bluetooth on, 60% brightness, I get around 5.5 - 6 hours w/ XP.

 

T400 integrated graphics, 6 cell, wifi and 50% brightness on xp with two hard drives(i have the ultrabay adapter) i get about 5-6.
I do believe it may have to do with registry tweaks because I did not do a fresh install but i did remove a lot of lenovo programs.