M8660tu Solid State?

Hey all,
A while back I purchased a new Sager m8660tu. It's an absolute powerhouse when it comes to performance, so its not surprising that the battery life with it is not so great. I purchased this machine hoping that I would be able to use it for classes at university, but the problem is that most of my classes are 2 hours or more. The only way that I can make the computer's battery last that long is to sleep it strategically throughout the lessons.
Naturally, I have been searching for ways that I could improve the battery lifeso that it will last for a full class. Ideally, it would last through my longest class too, which is 3 hours, but I believe that is too optimistic.

So my question is whether anyone has completed a HD swap to a more efficient solid state drive, and if so what were the gains in terms of life?
Also, are there any ways to increase the life that I might not know of? I use power saver mode and turn my screen brightness as loww as it goes and it still dies after about 1:45.h

 

I don't have the answer to your question but I'm buying this laptop for college next year and I'd just like to know what classes you use the laptop for.

Edit: And don't most classes have outlets?

 

To be honest:
This is an amazing machine. It is great but make sure that you buy it for the right reasons, eh? It is awesome for gaming and applications, but when its unplugged I find that it just doesnt have what it takes to be a university laptop. Compared to some other high end 15 inchers that have up to 4 hours battery life, the 1:45 I get makes me regret the purchase. Had I known about the battery issue before, I may have ordered a different machine.
I use this thing for everything, its pretty much my life here at university. I run Office, internet, movie players, downloaders, and plenty of games. Some of my classes have outlets, but by some cruel turn of fate most of my longer classes are so full that you need to get to class 30 minutes early in order to get a plug.
Im thinking that if I put in a solid state drive I might get to the 2 hour mark? Thoughts?

P.S. Don't let this dissuade you from buying the computer... it comes with my recommendations.

 

don't you think its better to buy 2 more batteries... cheaper than a solid state drive and more effective

 

Buying an extra battery is a good idea. To further improve battery life, try undervolting your cpu, turn off wifi if not needed, and ssd should improve battery life too, just not sure how much though.

 

Yea 2 hours isn't much i feel your pain. I can get just over 2 hours changing some of the advanced battery settings and lowering the brightness. That currently gets me just through two 1 hour and 20 minute classes. I definitely just try to get an outlet for my longer classes though.

 

I get about 2 and a half hours with power saver, silent mode and very little hard drive activity (user profile for presentations and classes). From what I understand, Windows 7 is better with this and gives over 3 hours of battery life, so there is some optimistic things to look for.

But its no scene to find a plug in a classroom. I see people doing it all the time and with no real complications. It's a powerful laptop, it wasn't made to be battery optimized as well as other laptops with low to mid graphics. Don't feel too bad though, such laptops will become obsolete in the graphics arena very quickly (which I assumed you primarily bought this laptop for in the first place).

P.S. Try disabling the optical drive if you aren't using it. I heard you get an extra 30 minutes that way.

 

How is that a good thing???

 

I average 1h55min with my X9100 and my intel SSD. I have my CPU undervolted and all my power savings options on. Brightness is set at 3 clicks.
Might be a good idea to try windows 7 like deathwinger says. I am gonna go to 7 soon and see what thats all about. I don't think that a SSD really saves a whole lot of power but I'm sure it helps. It would probly be cheaper to just buy more batteries, turn off bluetooth, camera, wifi and your dvd drive. But the speed of the SSD is nice as well.
Good luck.

 

I was talking about the laptops with 9600m and lower graphics cards.

 

I get about 3 hours, a little bit over...

Undervolted GPU
DVD drive disabled
Webcam disabled
WiFi disabled
Power saver
2 ticks of brightness
Windows 7

 

How do you disable dvd drive? Simply disabling it in device manager?

Is there a way to permanently turn off the wifi and camera after restarting the laptop?

 

I use windows 7 right now, man. It doesn't increase battery at all FOR ME. I say FOR ME because I dont want to be flamed by dudes telling me that I havent set it up right or something, and that is totally possible that I haven't.

However, I have not tried disabling my DVD drive or webcam. All I use is power saver mode with my brightness turned all the way down. I could also probably set my HD to turn off after awhile, since taking notes and stuff wouldnt use it right?

 

Yep, just disable it in device manager. Same with your WiFi card and camera if you want to do that permanently.

 

Ok. Any more tweaks?

I turned off the dvd drive but when you press the eject button it still ejects the tray, is that normal? Because I remembered that VAIO laptops have an icon in the taskabar that lets you turn off the dvd drive completely including turning off the eject mechanism of the drive.