T61 Battery life after clean install

so I just did a clean install of vista ulimate 32bit on my t61. I ordered the commputer with xp pro but i noticed that when i ran vista my display looked much better...don't ask why.

After following these instructions ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=144783&highlight=vista+clean+install) I booted up and everything was perfect.

Now, I'm worried about battery life. With the vista power management...I can't seem to get my battery to stop charging at around 90% while on AC as I did with the thinkvantage power management. I read on some forum that it would be good to keep the AC from charging the battery constantly. I don't want to have to take out my battery everytime I use it so I just stopped the battery from charing. Does anyone know where I can find the thinkvantage power management software? Also, does anyone recommend anything else that would allow me to do this?

thanks for the help

p.s. T61 14.1 wxga+/ 2.2 T7500/ Nvidia Quadro/ 3 gigs ram/vista ultimate/6cell battery

 

Grab a copy of Lenovo System Update from HERE and after installing it just run an update check; from there it should find all drivers and ThankVantage apps that are applicable to your system and offer to download and install it for you. The ThinkPad Power Manager is one of the things it will find.

Hope this helps!

 

awesome...ill give it a try. By any chance does anyone recommend other software in lieu of lenovo's?

 

on second thought...I decided not to go with the thinkvantage power management program...the main reason I did a clean install was to avoid all the extra programs added by lenovo.

Can anyone recommend a power manager that would allow me to set my battery to start and stop charging at a certain %? (i.e. like the one available through thinkvantage

 

Do not get the System Update, you can download just the Power Manager seperate from the rest of the ThinkVantage tools and use that. Takes up almost no resources and gives you much more control than the Vista built in.

 

i was about to edit my post...I just found the program without installing the system update...thanks

 

Bash them as you might the power manager from Lenovo is actually a fairly well written program. It gives you everything you'd ever want in getting accurate information from your batteries. More so it allows you to run calibrations so that when you are on the go you get accurate reports of how much battery life you have left. This is something I think Windows does poorly. I think every laptop manufacturer should provide similar software as Windows in my opinion falls on it's face when it comes to mobile power management.

 

What does the calibration do? Does it calibrate by discharging the battery?

 

The calibration charges the battery to full, runs it all the way down, and then charges it back to full. By doing this the Lenovo power manager knows approximatly how much power it can pull from the battery. This way the time remaining and percentage power left meters are more accurate. This calibration only needs to be done every so often (I think they recommend every 30 cycles or something).

In all my past laptops as the batteries age Windows remains ignorant to it. Then when I'm mobile I'll be at say 30 percent battery remaining and it'll just plummet suddenly to 6 percent and the laptop will hibernate. Knowing how much time you have left on battery (approximatly) while mobile to me is one of the most important pieces of information you can have.