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    erratic battery reading

    Discussion in 'Panasonic' started by Stewboy, Feb 28, 2009.

  1. Stewboy

    Stewboy Notebook Consultant

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    Very happy with the battery life of my fleabay cf29; I've had it on for about 5 hours now, with some of that time in hibernation and standby, and I've still got juice left. But how much? I've gone through the battery refresh procedure, but I still get a variety of readings on the charge meter: 2:31 followed by 3:14 followed by 2:05, though I'm taking the readings in quick succession. Is that normal? Thanks.
     
    Stewboy, Feb 28, 2009
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  2. inspectorgene

    inspectorgene Notebook Consultant

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    Probably has more to do with accessing the hard drive etc. Theres a neat little battery app that I posted up a while back that gives a good readout. Might be able to find it by searching through my posts...


    ahhh, found it for you

    http://www.freewarefiles.com/BatteryBar_program_43207.html
     
    inspectorgene, Feb 28, 2009
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  3. marconi

    marconi Notebook Consultant

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    I agree with the inspector.. That is a good ap.
    I highly recommend it
    I use it on all my laptops
     
    marconi, Feb 28, 2009
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  4. rjenkins

    rjenkins Notebook Consultant

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    I was looking for a better CPU power manager for my CF-29 a while ago as it was getting quite hot even when idle.

    I found a program call Rightmark CPU Clock utility (RMClock).

    This seems to be extremely effective reducing power & heat, and also has a very good battery status indicator.

    It is free from this site:
    http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml

    It's about the 5th block down, look for RMClock.

    Once installed, go through all the config pages an hit 'default' where it appears, this seems to set it up well to match the machine it's on.

    I also set it to run minimized at start up and replace the Windows battery indicator.

    Robert.
     
    rjenkins, Feb 28, 2009
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  5. Toughbook

    Toughbook Drop and Give Me 20!

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    The battery will give you an idea of how much time is left at the time it shows it... So... If you are installing a program while on battery and the DVD is running ti may show you have 2 hours left... Then when it finishes it may go back up to 3-4 hours... Then if you turn off your wifi, bluetooth and dim you screen... You may see it go up to 6-7 hours.

    I have had my CF-30 (with media bay battery) go for over 10 hours by monitoring what I was doing energy wise. Dim the screen and turn off what you don't need... You'll almost double your battery life.

    This is only somewhat true on the CF-28 battery I find. Those batteries (unless new) are getting a little long in the tooth and give bogus times. I had one the other day that showed 3+ hours then was dying 15 minutes later...

    Recalibrate every 3 months MINIMUM and you'll keep your battery properly exercised! ;)

    I've used RMClock too.. On my old Dull Laptop... Doesn't it also have a lot of stuff in there for fan speed too? As I recall, it does...
     
    Toughbook, Feb 28, 2009
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  6. Stewboy

    Stewboy Notebook Consultant

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    That's very helpful, as usual--thanks.
     
    Stewboy, Mar 1, 2009
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