x220 battery life

Yeah, I'd say if you're coming in at about 6 hours on the 6-cell, you're probably right on target. I just re-read the thread here, others reported the same, and the 9-cell users are reporting about 10 solid hours.

Oh well, another manufacturer battery estimate, gone bust. Although many of the pre-reviewers claimed they got more with these batteries.

 

I haven't read any of the online reviews. Makes you wonder if they lied or reviewed machines manipulated for longer battery life

I would tend to take the cynical view of human nature. The business knows full well how much sales can by swayed by these reviews..and how gullible we are and foolish enough to read them.

 

Where are u getting the 1.16 Bios, all I am seeing is 1.15

 

Look at the last few pages of the owner's thread, you'll see it in there. A mod on the lenovo forums said that the ibm support website is being upgraded, and a lot of the pages there wont be upgraded for a few weeks more.

 

If you are a native of the UK, then your cynical outlook is to be expected

I am an American, so I prefer the more optimistic outlook!

 

Most of those reviewers are more confused than many forum members here, and less hands-on. Even Lenovo claims should be taken cautiously.

 

thanks floz23,

 

1.16 bios fixes the fan issue with the x220 ... it's in the owners thread somewhere.

no one have that reg tweak yet? haha ...

also, I was thinking of getting another stick of 4gb ddr3, how much more power would that use up? I already have an SSD, with pagefile disabled. memory usage is low anyhow ... 1.4GB~ win 7 pro and 4-5 app running.

 

OK,
I just notice after installing the Bios to 1.16
my battery jumped from 5.25 to 6.47.

Need to monitor this a little further.

My fan dropped from 32-3300 RPM (I am someone who did not have fan problems prior to this) to 1850-2000 rpm under the same stress.
Temp rose ~ 2 degrees.

BTW the battery life has not dropped, in fact it jumped to 8.7 hrs at 98%.

This can't be right.

 

5.25 o 6.47 hours? or is that wattage? i am curious about wattage ... mine hovers around 6-10 still, which is good.

 

between 7-8 right now.
also the battery has dropped back down from 8.7 to 6.2

 

Yeah, I saw larger numbers reported too, after I installed the new bios and the Intel Rapid storage driver. I though the increase was due to the rapid storage driver, but i guess it was because of the bios.

 

Not anything official but it does look like I gained ~ 45-1 hr battery overall. I am going to monitor this over the new few days.

I dot have the Rapid storage driver.

The only Thinkvantage software I have is the fingerprint reader. I am trying to change this to the manufactures software.

 

I'm seeing the same increase in battery life. Lets see what happens over the coming days. Also, I installed the Rapid Storage Technology package from intel, to make sure I was able to access the TRIM command on my Intel 320 ssd.

 

I did suggest a while ago that the over-spinning fan might be having a significantly detrimental effect on battery life.

That's what endless grey weather does to you -)

 

ha!

But, on the battery issue, even before this 1.16 bios, when i set my machine on "reduce noise dynamically" the fan still hardly came on. I think maybe something else was changed too, to get the slight boost.

 

Ah damn. My new status as forum genius is short lived

 

I was thinking of getting another stick of 4gb ddr3, how much more power would that use up? I already have an SSD, with pagefile disabled. memory usage is low anyhow ... 1.4GB~ win 7 pro and 4-5 apps running.

 

You won't notice anything with another stick of RAM.

 

how sure are you? would it increase even .5-1w of usage with another stick? or would it help/reduce it?

 

Between bios 1.16, and installing the Rapid Storage Technology driver for my Intel 320 ssd, I am now seeing 7 hours of battery life on my i7. 6cell

This is truly amazing.

 

Is the rapid storage tech just for SSD's?



With the bios update I'm getting around 7 hours consistent with light tasks. I need to disable the fingerprint reader and mess around with times.

This doesn't solve the whining fan, but it definitely helps the issue.

 

What is the "slice" people here are referring to?
What possible batteries are available for the x220t ?
9-cell is available? Anything better?

 

BTW,
I have 3-cell and I can get hardly 1.5 hours with my x220 t.
Damn!!

 

Slice Battery: Lenovo - Laptop and desktop - Batteries & Power 0A36280 (US)

Batteries
ThinkPad Battery 52 (3-cell) 0A36285
ThinkPad Battery 52+ (6-cell) 0A36286
ThinkPad Battery 19+ (6-cell, Slim External) 0A36280

Probably you can get the Lenovo Slice Battery (and others) cheaper from vendors other than Lenovo, such as Cost Central.
Lenovo ThinkPad Battery 19+ (0A36280) - UPS & Power

 

Thanks Gom Jabber!!

So I have only three options. What exactly is the difference between the second and the third ("slice") battery? They seem to last the same ~9 hours, no?

In the hardware manual Lenovo writes there is a 4th option:
"6-cell plus slice battery: up to 17.8 hr". What does this mean?







-----------------------------------------
Lithium Ion 3-cell or 6-cell, supports optional external battery (0A36280) as 2nd battery
Some: Slim external Lithium Ion 6-cell battery (ThinkPad Battery 19+, 0A36280)
3-cell: up to 4.0 hr; 6-cell: up to 8.8 hr; slice battery: up to 9.0 hr;
6-cell plus slice battery: up to 17.8 hr

 

Jessica Beame

The second battery is a larger internal battery than the 3 cell. The third "Slice" battery is an external battery in that it attaches to the bottom of the X220t and can be used along with the internal battery. Look at the images in the link above and the link below.

Lenovo - Find accessories for your laptop and desktop - Batteries & Power 0A36286

 

GomJabber

I see now, thanks!!!

 

1.16, 6-cell and 320GB HDD. Only around 5 hours today browsing and a little downloading. Was on wifi for most of that time and a 3G dongle for about half hour. Whaddya think?

 

Well, now im getting close to 7, but then again, I have an Intel 320ssd, so that might be part of the difference. Also, I run my laptop on balanced cpu mode, with reduce fan noise dynamically. My brightness generally sits at about 7-8 indoors, I always have my wifi on. I really have to count my hours on a clock in order to get a good estimate of the battery life. I don't like the way lenovo power manager estimates battery life.

EDIT: I'm now testing batterybar free http://osirisdevelopment.com/BatteryBar/index.html

 

Where is 'balanced cpu mode' located? In Power Manager?

According to someone on the Drives thread, there isn't much difference between a SSD and the Hitachi.

I timed by the clock. In Power Manager, system settings I have it set to 'low', 'deeper sleep enabled' and 'balance all parameters'. Brightness to 6/7. Browser is Chrome, which I believe uses more battery than Firefox.

The 'reduce noise dynamically' only seems to apply to the AC settings, not Battery ?

 

On a side note...
Hitachi HDD; I have the Segate in mine. How many different brands did Lenovo use?

 

That it does.
Browser Power Consumption?Leading the Industry with Internet Explorer 9 - IEBlog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

 

6 cell, i5 2520, 1.16 bios and 320gb hdd, I've removed most of the crapware, not doing a clean install until I get an msata ssd, but anyway:

Screen at 4, wifi on, max battery profile, playing .flac with foobar 2k to earphones(full file buffering to keep disk activity down) and browsing with firefox I'm curently at 7 hours(by the clock) and the meter recons I'm good for another 40 minutes. Power draw averaging about 7.3W.
I love this thing

 

With your screen at 4, that sounds about right. Also, your use of firefox probably helps too. I did some testing last night with the latest chrome, and the latest firefox nightly. Chrome average about .5-1watt more power draw than the firefox nightly... Makes the switch back to firefox seem more swallow-able.

Check out batterybar too, it does seem to give me more accurate estimates.

 

sorry if this was asked/ mentioned, but I didn't see it in the quick skim of this thread's 14 pages -_-'.

Does anyone have expired with the X220 Tablet version battery life with the 6 cell?

I'm trying to decide between the notebook and tablet versions and the cost of battery life for the tablets functionality is a concern.

 

Hey everyone, Just thought I'd update everyone on my battery status.

Using batterybar, I've been able to keep better track of my average power draw on the battery... It's coming in at around 10watts.

At around 10watts, with a 62 watt/hr battery, that means I average about 6.2 hours on it.

I think if I switched to firefox4 or ie9, id get a bit more, too.

 

On my (latest) i3 x220i, the battery seems to stop charging at 98% even though I haven't changed any settings in Power Manager/ Battery/ Battery Maintenance. ie it is still on the default 'Automatically optimise for battery lifespan'.

Previous i5 x220 charged to 100%

Any insights appreciated.

 

AFAIK - it will charge to 100% if it's below a certain threshold (probably around 90%).

If you charge to 98%, and then unplug your laptop - and plug it in again - it won't charge it to 100% in order to stop it from topping off - to help extend the battery life.

That is my assumption atleast - because that's what my X220 does - and I know a few other laptops that do that as well.

 

Strange though, it didn't do that with my other X220. Maybe the X220 i is more intelligent

Edit: Seems to be charging to 100% again.

 

I've been here at the airport for a couple of hours. Using my Sierra Wireless 890 ExpressCard WWAN card for my internet connection. I have Battery Manager set to power source optimized, except I set the display brightness level to 9. Remaining battery life on gauge is 5:07 hours, but fluctuating. I have the 6-cell battery.

 

FYI the tablets 6-cell is rated at 62watt/h and i believe the notebook is 54watt/h. Given that the tablet may idle at maybe 1-2 watts more than the plain notebook the extra juice should make up for it.

With that being said, I have the tablet and ran it on battery a few times and can tell you at around 2 hours of watching a movie, brightness 10, max battery profile, wifi on, it still showed 3+ hours left. So i personally think 5-6 hours is would be a good estimate.

 

Well I've been getting some pretty dang good battery life with my 9-cell.

On battery, with the settings configured to use little battery (brightness on 11 though), I've been getting around 11 hours of usable battery life.

I've only had to charge my computer twice in a week, and that has been strictly using it on battery.

 

I'm also getting pretty good battery life with the 9 cell about 10-11 hours, but I do hate that it sticks out about an inch. Ill prefer getting the 6 cell instead just fot that reason.

If anyone that has a 6 cell is willing to trade it for a 9 cell, please let me know. I am in nyc by the way.

X220 laptop here (non-tablet).

 

helluva deal for anyone with a 6 cell!

 

How in the world are reviewers getting 8 hours of battery life with wifi on, 70% brightness, and refreshing a webpage every couple seconds....

 

9 cell battery, I presume? However, I share your surprise. One secret ingredient may be to have only one web page open in the web browser and have the computer close to the router so the WiFi doesn't need much power.

John

 

I get about six hours on the six-cell with a fresh install of Vista, screen on 10/15 and WiFi on.

 

They claim that with the 6 cell....

"The ThinkPad X220 with Intel Core i5-2520M processor delivered 8 hours and 47 minutes of battery life with the 6-cell battery. Our standard battery life test sets the screen to 70% brightness, wireless active and continuously refreshing a website on a 60-second interval, and Windows 7 set to the "balanced" power profile. " ( Lenovo ThinkPad X220 Battery Life, Heat and Noise. Accessed June 12, 2011).

Other reviews also say similar times. I'm wondering if its because power manager and other thinkpad tools drain battery life that significantly.

 

I don't think so. I have a fresh install of 7 and currently no thinkvantage software installed... I only get around 6-6.5 hrs. That is with wifi off usually and brightness at or below 4. I thought it might be the different fan bios, but even after updating to 1.16 for it to run at a lower rpm... I only gained 15-20 mins.