x220 battery life

Do you guys have any hardware monitors running? Those can keep things awake and sucking more power than normal. I have a W520 with a 9 cell battery and I'm getting 8 or so hours, I have to imagine you X220 guys can get more than 1 hour/cell of battery. Something's got to be running a small number of cycles and keeping your machines sucking a little more power.

 

The X220 I'm considering comes as standard with a 6 cells battery. Now I can either upgrade to the 9 cells battery OR get an additional 6 cells battery for almost the same price.

The second option is tempting because I'd have one 6 cells battery in the laptop for normal usage (low weight, battery not protruding at the back) nd a second one for long run time needs. The 9 cells is 0.5kg and the 6 cells is 0.3kg. So for 0.6kg I'd get 12 cells with an even longer run time than the 9 cells...and that's just 100gr more to carry for probably close to 15hours of runtime....only when needed!!

What should prevent me going that route? I know that a battery will wear out even if not used but since I'm often plugged in, I wonder if the 9 cells would not suffer as well so a spare 6 cells may be nice. Do you think that its better to get one 9 cells or 2*6cells?

By the way is it possible to charge the second 6 cells battery in the ultrabase 3? There is a battery location somewhere on the ultrabase...

Thanks for input

EDIT: I may also get a 4 cells additional battery instead of the 6 cells for something like 20$ less. This would get me a total of 10 cells for actually less money than getting the 9 cells upgrade... sounds even better! The only issue is will the unused battery wear down?? Really what are the disadvantages of a system with 2 batteries if the second can be charged in the ultrabase? Ok you need to swap battery in the middle of nowhere but this isn't going to happen very often...

 

How is everyone configuring their power settings? In Lenovo Power Manager, is it better for battery life to use Maximum Battery Life or Energy Saver? Since the Energy Saver plan visualizes a lower "Power usage" setting...

 

The screen is by far the biggest battery drainer on a laptop. The lower you can set it, the better you'll do with the battery life. I personally set the CPU to the lowest as it runs cooler and more quiet that way, and nothing I do needs more, but it will gimp your SSD. If you want to put it in adaptive, that help and it can still keep in on low when you're not doing anything.

 

Is there a large difference in performance (and more importantly, battery life) between the i5 and i7 CPU's?

 

Neither present much of a difference.

The performance differences between the i5 and i7 are nearly negligible. Only difference is USB 3.0

The power consumption might be slightly greater on the i7, but probably also negligible.

I would get whatever is cheaper.

 

I haven't tried running the battery down from 100%, but I can get >>10 hours easy (9 cell). I ran it from 80% to 50% for 5 hours with screen really dim and wireless radios off. With a 100% charge I could definitely do useful work for probably 12 hours. Very happy with the battery life.

 

I'm curious what you guys are getting for your idle watt usage on Max Battery Life. Mine is usually around 8-9 on bios 1.16.

Anyone getting something around 5-6?

Also, is anyone actually getting 8+ hours on the 6 cell. I think Vin is the only one I've seen. Curious if anyone using the factory install is getting the same result.

Someone said their watt usage went up after updating to 1.16. I can't really confirm that because I just installed power manager a few days ago.

 

Hey, I know many of us have been talking about this here and there already, but I'll just update you and everyone else on my situation.

Using the battery drain meter on the "battery bar" third party program, I am still averaging about 8-9 watts of drain for the most part. There have been a few times when I've noticed it staying much more consistently at 7-8 watts, but those instances have been few. If i minimize all my running programs, it will idle at about 7.2-8.2 watts, but as soon as i start using any program, it shoots up to about 9 watts.

I want to make clear, that I am on a factory install, but i have uninstalled and re-installed several of the utilities in order to upgrade them, or fix problems I was having.

I would like more people to chime in on this issue too. Im not saying that getting 6hours and 15minutes is bad for a machine like this, it certainly is not, if im doing something wrong, or if there is something wrong with my install, i'd like to get it fixed, and help others do the same too.

I notice that DWM.exe sometimes has a 4-5% constant CPU usage. That is strange.

Vin, do you have all your aero glass, transparent window effects turned ON when you're on battery? Maybe you're disabling those effects on battery?

 

Exactly how I feel. Six hours on a six cell is mind blowing to me coming off a computer that lasted 2.5 (if lucky). However if I can eek out 2 more hours, I definitely want to know how.

I actually disabled Desktop Windows Manager, it definitely makes my computer feel snappier. Coming from XP, I don't really mind how basic everything looks without it.

8-10 (with no usb, monitor, etc attached) seems to be about what I'm getting and I'm hitting around 6-6.25 hours. It would seem to me you'd have to average around 7-8 to get 8.5 hours right? I just don't see how it is possible when you have any programs open. On my machine I'd have to be doing nothing. When I first turn on the computer on a full charge it would say 7 hrs left, but quickly drops when I start doing anything.

On battery I set it to max batt life, 0-4 brightness and idle timer at 30 sec to turn off hard drive. I am using bios 1.16 on a clean install. DWM is disabled and only hotkey, power manager and fingerprint (disabled) are installed thinkvantage software. The only things I have enabled in bios are the USB, HD and Ethernet... everything else is disabled. Speedstep and power management enabled.

I have 38 processes running at start up, but from what I'm told it doesn't matter as much on W7. I just used black vipers guide, I personally like disabling stuff I don't use anyways.

Hope that helps a little bit when comparing setups. We should just litter this thread with tips and tricks people are using to extend life.



Also, floz did you use power manager when you had earlier BIOS? I'm curious if the earlier BIOS idled at lower watt usage. Someone said it was idling at 6-7 instead of 8-9. That would make a pretty significant difference.

 

Yeah, I had the power manager installed. When I first got the machine, I messed up the factory install when i moved the hdd to the ssd. I decided I would re-image and start from scratch. I don't remember what my usage was when i first got the machine, but I know I was not getting 6.5 hours that I am now. I remember the machine averaging about 5:25 when i first got it, so I think I did at least something right the second install around.

 

One possible factor is the power consumption variations between different CPUs. The electrical specs on page 97 of Intel data sheet 324692.pdf show that HFM_VID (the voltage at highest frequency may range between 0.8V and 1.35V while LFM_VID (the voltage at lowest frequency) may range between 0.65V and 0.95V. Power is usually a function of V squared, so that's potentially a big range of power consumption. At the low frequency end it will just be a difference in idle power consumption while at the high frequency end the system will control the CPU speed to keep within the power ceiling.

HWiNFO32 displays the CPU voltage. Below are what seem to be the minimum and maximum voltages of my i5-2520m CPU (in theory it will run at up to 3.2GHz, but that's a rare sighting).





It would be interesting to see what voltages other people observe. HWiNFO32's Sensor tab also provides an estimate of CPU power. I'm seeing about 4.3W if I switch over to battery. [Note, I have the T420s, not X220, but most of the internal hardware is the same. I can get down to around 8W total power consumption with maximum power saving and the display on half brightness.]

John

 

Thanks.

My i7 is coming in at .7655v at 800mhz.

According to hwinfo32, the CPU Package Power, idle, is right around 4watts, a little higher and lower fluctuations.

 

Exact same here, right around 4 more or less on max battery life.



My x220 i5 2520...

Low: 0.800 at 800
High: 1.1409 at 31xx


What is your high Floz?

I'm quite curious what Vin has for some of his numbers.

 

Aero vs. Non-Aero is worth around .5W in my machine. I use the Classic theme which makes everything looks like XP, not for the power consumption (though it's a nice bonus), but because imo all the Win Vista/7 themes look horrible and give you less space on the taskbar.

According to BatteryBar:

Idle: ~6W
Non-Aero forum browsing at 800mhz, screen at 7: 7-7.2W
Aero, same as above: 7.6-7.8W

X220, i5-2520:

Low: .7655 at 800
High: 1.1609-1.1659 at 31xx

Posted this in the owner's thread:

 

That is crazy that you are getting 7-7.2 while actually using programs. Mine idles at around 8 usually, but as soon as I start using firefox or anything really it jumps up to 10-12.

Do any other factory installed users get this same usage? So far Vin seems to be the only one reporting back such good life. Most people I talk to with hte factory install on Max Battery Life are reporting about 6 hours.

My system does get down to 7 watt on occasion just idling, but usually sits at 8. I'm going to mess with different bios versions and report back my findings. I'd like to get my hands on bios 1.04 since that is the one used in all the reviews. Anyone know if that is possible to download?

 

Just an FYI.... on my W520 I get around 8-9 hours. Two things that I've found add to idle and in use wattage: performance monitors (any that poll hardware, wake that hardware up), and Windows gadgets. Windows gadgets made a fairly measurable difference actually. Once I turned them all off I got a noticable improvement.

Keep what you have running in your system tray to essential items as well.

 

Dude, what is the w/hr rating on that battery???

 

The 9 cell is 93w/hours I believe? My idle and in use numbers are around 8 and 10 watts. Power manager settings are set as aggressive as they get with screen at 50%, and using only integrated graphics (set via the nvidia control panel).

 

Are there any performance monitors on Windows 7 that can be disabled? I mean any that just come with the OS? I haven't installed anything additionally to monitor. Except HWiNFO, but I usually only have that open for a few minutes, then close it out.

In my tray I only have Clock, Volume, Network and Power Manager. No gadgets, all that is disabled. I'm pretty bare bones with things.



So I did test out the different bios and monitored watts used. All 1.11, 1.15, 1.16 and 1.17 used 8 watt's idling for me. That is with 0 brightness, all things disabled in bios except for USB, HDD and ethernet. I did have occasional drops down to 7, but it was usually only for 30 secs or so. Longest battery life I saw was 7:30, however it was only for about 10 secs.

I also disabled everything except for the HDD in BIOS and saw no real change. It seemed to idle at 8 watts consistently.

Vin definitely got some magic fairy dust sprinkled on his machine ha. I'm just waiting for someone else to come in that is getting 8+. If I let my machine idle after startup doing absolutely nothing, I'd probably get 7:15 as it would bounce between 7-8 watts.

 

Yep, this is all in line what what I observe. Between 7.5 and 10 watts, normal usage.

 

Have you actually timed how long it goes? For me, power manager always estimates between 6.5 and 7.5 hours, but I nearly always get longer.

 

I did before I adopted power manager, used a wall clock. Usually got around 6 with my normal usage. That is amazing coming from my old computer. I need to do it again as I have made a few power related tweaks.

 

Anyone notice they idle at around 5-6 (4 with hard drive spun down) watts on max battery life while on AC power? Then it goes up to 8 (7 with hard drive spun down) when you take it off AC.

 

If no one else is getting the kind of battery life I'm getting, the only thing I can think of is that I won the lottery in terms of tolerance stacking. Each component has a range of power consumption as spec'd by the mfr. A combination of the big consumers like screen, processor, etc must be at the low end in my machine to produce to good overall draw.

If anyone's not using the factory image, that's the first step. It alone is worth a couple of watts.

 

Think it could be the mSata possibly?

When my hard drive shuts off after 30 seconds, my Watts drop to 7 at idle. I assume if my HDD never turned on at all while on battery I could easily gain an hour. Do you usually just disable it while on battery or are you using a program to automatically do it? Supposedly the Intel 310 consumes .175 w while active.... I believe that would be the one I'd get.

Also, are you just putting the OS and applications on the SSD then all media on HDD?

 

Yes using the msata, hdd combination helps. As per the datasheet for my Toshiba drive, when it's just idling it uses .5-.6W. Once I start accessing it, eg. browsing through files, looking at file properties, etc, power consumption jumps up at least another 1W. I don't use anything other than Power Manager (Idle Timers) to keep the hdd spun down when on battery.

In the other thread, I read that you're on a clean install. Go back to the factory image and get a msata ssd. Sounds like you could have even lower power consumption than what I'm getting.

 

I'll be buying one soon.

Out of interest, do you take the factory image from the recovery partition? I've had my machine a week and I've yet to do any imaging, recovery discs or backups whatsoever.

Also got a small issue with HWiNFO. Messed around and it now always starts when windows starts and displays the Sensor and Summary screens (but not the one with options). Trouble is, I cannot seem to uninstall it because its not listed as an installed program.

 

I've even noticed a difference in battery life from simply having a USB device of any kind plugged in (ie: dongle for a mouse). It keeps the USB bus awake, hence, draws more power. When you are talking 7 or 8 watts, it doesn't take much at all to make a large difference.

I think there are just too many varied setups to really compare. Most people don't realize how little it takes to dramatically swing battery life.

 

I'm a little new to having two drives let alone an ssd. So programs and boot goes on SSD. Does that mean when you want to access the other drive it is just like accessing an external? Meaning, visit My Computer and go from there? Does it just appear like an external in that it is basically just a folder?

These questions may sound a little dumb and obvious, but I'm curious ha.

Unfortunately I don't have the factory discs or image anymore. I did want to install that with all my new tweaks on the SSD to test out the differences. Can I just have Lenovo send me a copy?

That is what I noticed. My external keyboard raises it one watt. My external mouse however doesn't raise it at all (until I actually use it of course). I also noticed my external monitor doesn't raise the watt usage either. I assume this is just because the computer isn't actually powering it? Guess I thought it would raise the watt usage at least a little.

You probably already checked this, but is it listed in MSCONFIG under the start up?

 

This was recommended on the 310 thread. Maybe it can help?

Paragon Migrate OS to SSD - System migration to Solid State Drives (SSD) - Overview

Thanks. I just unticked it.

Edit: But it's still listed there even though it no longer starts with windows. How can I get rid of it from my computer completely?

 

That is a pretty cool piece of software. Might have to check that out.

I'm debating on just doing a clean install on it... I'd like to get the factory install on there to test the differences between it and a clean.

Right on.

Hmm, I usually just use Your Uninstaller to erase stuff. But it probably won't show up in any uninstaller software. What about just going to /Program Files/HWiNFO32 and then hitting the uninstaller icon. On mine it is "unins000". Or is it just nowhere to be found on the computer, but still shows installed?

 

Thanks, dude. Got rid of it.

 

I'm finding that the latest BETA version of chrome, 13.0.782.32 APPEARS to be giving better battery life. Can some others give the BETA channel of chrome a try, and see if we can get some more confirmations on this?

 

With i5 2520m, SSD, mid brightness, internet browsing, what can I expect:
-6 cell, ? hours
-9 cell, ? hours

Safe to guess 1 hour per cell ???
So 4h, 6h, 9h for the 4,6,9 cell batteries ??

 

Yes, I'd say 1 hour per cell is a good bet. It can only get better from that estimate.

 

Johnsondelbrat and I get 9hrs+ on the 6-cell, medium brightness, browsing.

 

Battery Bar and Power Manager say I get about 11 hours with web browsing with the 9-cell battery. With the new Intel graphics driver about 5 or 6 brightness is just fine for me.

 

Ahh nice, so more than an hour per cell with light usage.
I'm stll debating, 6 or 9 cell ??

The extended part that sticks out look ugly.

There should be an 8cell option like x200, where the sticking out portion runs the full length, but doesnt stick out as much and symetrical.

 

Agreed. I dig the more streamlined look. But it really comes down to personal preference. Do you need 12hrs of battery life between charges? For me, I work out of the home so I generally don't. If I go work somewhere else (library, starbucks, etc.) I'm usually there for about 6 hours. The 6 cell more than covers me for that. Plus its a little lighter and a reduced footprint.

Now if I was on an international flight to Japan, I'd want that 9 cell. I think they both have their place. However for me, being that I bought this computer for the small footprint and light weight... I went with the 6. What would be really cool is if the 6 cell was the size of the 4 and the 9 was like the 6. Then I'd most definitely get the 9, ha.

 

Agreed. Lenovo, make that quantum space time compression already so i can have 9 cell without having it stick out

 

It would be cool if they extended that lip of the 9-cell to the edge so it still sticks out, but covers the entire backside. That would make it like a 10 or 12 cell? And it would look a lot more streamlined IMO

 

9 cell + i7 + 8GB RAM + Crucial M4 512GB SSD

Browsing the web + editing documents = around 9 hours (estimated)
Stress test with Linpack = burns within 2 hours

 

So guys, what do you recommend I do when I get my x220 to maximize battery life (6cell)?

It's coming with a 250gb 5400rpm but I'm going to replace it with a crucial M4 128gb SSD. Do I clone the drive onto the SSD, or should I do a clean install + lenovo drivers?

 

I'm just curious, why not the mSATA drive? You'd be left with 320GB as opposed to the 128GB the Crucial offers. I doubt the real world usage is any different. This of course means no WWAN and you haven't bought the Crucial yet.

As far as batteries go I just put it in and use it. I figure I'll have to buy a new one in a few years anyway. It's not worth the effort to micromanage it to get a few more minutes out of it, but that's only my opinion.

 

Never really thought about using an mSATA... it's more expensive $/gb right? 128gb seems good enough for now.

 

I'm putting a M4 128 in my X220 aswell (whenever it gets here)

Do a clean install to get rid of preloaded junk. That should help reduce power consumption.

Make sure your M4 has the 002 firmware.

 

Why does that matter? The end result would be you'd have more space for less cost with mSATA drive. You don't need speed for storage. The other thing about having dual drives that's nice is you re-install Windows without having to mess with the storage partition.

 

What is the difference between 002 and the older one?

It's odd, my battery life has gotten a bit worse the past month ... and the laptop is using more power (11W compared to 6~W) that it was using when I first set it up.

Anyone find any new drivers for the wifi to get better battery?

 

Yeah, I noticed a strange battery drop over the last few weeks too. I swore it happened after I did the last huge windows update. Then on the same day, I upgraded my Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers, and installed the Intel SSD Toolkit (Because the intel RST drivers do not natively support TRIM ((crazy, I know)), so you need the SSD Toolkit with the RST drivers, in order to use the SSD optimizer). Also, the official chrome13 was released around the same time.

To make a long story short, after a day of futzing with drivers and settings, in order to try and figure out where my battery life went, I uninstalled the RST and SSD optimizer, and re-installed... seems to have fixed the issue?

I found that the RST drivers, instead of the native windows7 ahci driver, seem to give improved battery life.

As for the wifi drivers, I'm on the latest version listed on lenovo site... Havent seen much change in power consumption.