lenovo t400 battery pissing me off

So i just got my brand spanking new lenovo comp and I was excited for 6 hours of battery life... but what do i get instead? 3:30 on integrated and 3 hours on discrete.... the only thing i did was perform the battery gauge test...... How do I get it up to 6 hours? are there any drivers I can download? I downloaded the latest power manager driver already

 

i still suggest, as i did in the other thread, that you use the power manager to look at your wattage usage. it would be good to know if it is out of whack with what others are getting. then you could work on finding the cause. also, what is your battery full charge capacity (listed in power manager/battery information)?

 

Well you could turn off stuff you do not use. First thing I did when I got my X61 was to turn off the modem, LAN, Bluetooth, etc. because I have no use for them or rarely use them.

Second I would create a profile that suits my need with the Power Manager. My brightness level is set at around 50% most of the time and that suits me though your mileage may vary. And with the battery plugged in you can see the wattage used.

I also use the Access Connection program to set my WiFi transmit power level to an appropriate level (in my case 50%/best power savings - which translates to 5mW). Why transmit at 100% if your wireless router is just two walls away?

 

hey 000111 i jus tread your response on my other thread and i want to say thanks so much. that helped me alot. I just realized that my notebook cooler was plugged in haha. but still i only get about 4 1/2 hours max while surfing the net and stuff. usually it stays around the 13-14 watt area. its sitll a bit dissapointing

btw on a side note... does it take you like 10 seconds to boot up power manager because everytime i try to open anything on the task manager bar such as the intel access connection thing and power manager it lags for a good 10 seconds

 

It would also help to know your configuration. Also, if your watching a lot of streaming videos and multimedia stuff on websites that will consume more power as well.

 

oh also xseries... that sounds like a good idea to turn the wireless power to 50%.. but I can't figure out how to do that in the access connection. could you guide me through it?

 

glad i could help. getting that wattage down is addictiing! you will be able to get better than 13-14, probably.

it does take power manager a bit to load when i boot.

it took me awhile to get good wattage numbers as well, but after some tweaking, you will likely be getting great battery life. give it some time.



to access your wireless configuration settings;

start>>control panel>>network connections>>wireless network connection>>properties>>configure>>advanced

on this page there is a drop down property menu. scroll down to power management and turn it down. you can also turn down transmit power. i have both at minimum because my router is like 15 feet away. this might save you a watt or so...

 

Open Access Connection. Locations - Create New Profile. Here you can create a new Wireless profile. Under the wireless settings, go to advanced configurations. Here you can select the WiFi's transmit power and power saving mode.

Technically you can do so under the Device Manager as well, but Access Connection allows you to set different transmit power for different profiles. For example I set 50% at home, but 25% at the local library (it has more APs).

 

Make sure that when it says Energy Saving Graphics (integrated)... it means it. Often on mine, when it wakes up from hibernate, for some reason the ati card will turn on (is visible in device manager), and it uses MORE wattage than either card alone... I think it's powering both.

 

hmm my wireless is already set at max power saving, I turned off my bluetooth, my screen is around 60%, im on integrated graphics... what else can I do to get my wattage down. I'm getting about 5 hours which is nice but I would like to get 6 hours.

 

what is your wattage usage now?

you should also go into bios and make sure the cpu settings are on max battery. you could also turn off things in the bios. i turned off my camera and fingerprint reader. you could eject your ultrabay drive.