U330 power management

So I've been using my U330 for a few weeks now, and I'm relatively pleased with it. My main complaint, though, is the battery life. Running Firefox and MS Word with wireless on, bluetooth off, integrated graphics, and the Power Saver setting, it estimates anywhere between 3 and 4 hours (usually closer to 3). Also, this may just be my imagination, but it seems like the battery performance is already getting worse; within the past week, I've occasionally gotten estimates around 2 hours, 30 minutes. For a 13" notebook with a 6-cell battery that promised 5 hours of battery life, this is an issue.

I'm assuming that my battery isn't defective since it still gets a minimum of two-and-a-half hours, but I was wondering what other U330 owners have been getting for battery life in case I should ask Lenovo for a new battery.

 

That's my experience and I think it's also the origin of your problem. My post on lenovo forums:

"Recently, I notice an issue that may or may not be one o the causes of the bad battery life on the U330. Normally, when I turn the notebook on with full battery charge I get an expected battery life of around 3:20 hours (2 levels of brightness, wifi on, bluetooth off, in battery saver mode). In this condition, if I use the notebook for light web surfing I get close to the promised 3 hours and a few minutes before the computer goes to sleep. However, if with a full charge battery I close the lid and put the notebook to hibernate when I turn it on again I don't get anywhere near to 3 hours of battery life (the difference of charge is normally of only 2-3% before and after the hibernation). I normally get only 1:40 hours of battery life, roughly half of what it gives without having hibernate.

I went further and nstalled Notebook Hardware Control to investigate this issue. The notebook normally consumes 14-16W idle with the configuration stated above. After coming back from hibernation on the same conditions my U330 consumes 22-26W, what is clearly the reason to the decrease of the battery life. The only way to return to the normal 14-16W is to restart the notebook. Charging till 100% or putting it to hibernate again doesn't work."


I think it is the cause of your poor battery life as well. It was confirmed by two othe people already. I'll post it again on U330 owners tread to see if other people here are experiencing the same.

Best,

Lmac.