Sager 9262 Battery Question

I know people have discussed the awful battery life that the 9262 has. However, I have a couple of questions that I feel would be alright to ask even though it has been discussed a little in the past.

My biggest question is if there is an extended battery one can buy for this particular laptop. I know under the accessories you can buy another battery, but I am really looking for a battery that will fit on my sager and provide more juice.

In addition, what can I do to provide myself some more battery life? I already know that Gophn said that you can throttle your CPU speed and voltage dynamically, but I was wondering if there is anything else that can be done?

Last but not least, can anyone tell me what an estimate would be on how long my battery would last on my setup (my first two questions are really the most important to me but I thought I would add this one on to get a little info before I buy). My setup is as follows:

Sager 9262
Intel q6600
Nvidia Quadro FX 1600M
4gb of ram
160GB 5400rpm SATA 150 Hard Drive

 

well mate i had the same questions as you did regarding battery life,

and for our batteries there is no known solution as yet to a battery extender capable of supplying the required power to our laptop.

I went to battery geek www.batterygeek.net to see if they have a battery that could power the laptop but unfortunately their batteries can only supply a current of 6A max, but can output a voltage of 20V. Our laptop requires a current of 11A.

http://www.batterygeek.net/200Wh_Portable_Power_Station_SPPS200_3V_28V_p/spps200_batterygeek.htm

but hey if anyone knows any other battery extender that can supply 20V and 11A then let me know too.

as for increasing your battery life turn your screen brightness down, stop one of your harddrives when not in use. turn off blutooth.

 

So far as I know, there is no extended-battery option on the 9262 (or any Sager model, for that matter). No smart-bays or such to swap an extra battery into.

There's quite a lot of info regarding maximizing your battery life on these forums. If you've read some of Gophn's posts, you've seen the best of it. You can try under volting your CPU, which might buy you 10-20 extra minutes. Other than that, it's cranking down the screen backlight, setting your HDD to spin down after a few minutes, turning off Bluetooth (and WiFi when you don't need it), and making sure not to do too much GPU intensive activity while running on battery.

I'm not sure how to guesstimate battery life given your model and specs. I'm unfamiliar with the Quadro FX 1600. But 2 hrs. is probably a generous guess.

Others will have more info, I'm sure. But read around as best you can, it's a topic that's been discussed rather extensively.

 

welcome to the NBR forums.

The battery life may seem dismal, but for such a powerful system with a 120cell battery... getting 1.5-2.0 hours is respectable.

Undervolting and bringing the brightness of the screen down are the easiest ways.

Also you got a low powered card, the Quadro 1600M (equivalent to 8700M GT) has shown nice results for extending the battery life of these high end beasts.

 

Alright, awesome. Yea I knew I wasn't going to need the 8800m gtx because I wont be doing anything too graphically intensive like playing games. I'll probably watch videos on it but I think the graphics card I picked out can handle that. My main focus was that this will be my main computer for awhile and I needed to make it last. Therefore, I chose the quad core and upped the ram to help it last. And since I have a pretty big external hard drive, I chose to save my battery and stick with one internal hard drive. I hardly ever use bluetooth and with all your other suggestions, I think I can make the battery life last longer than normal. I think the main thing thats gonna hurt me is that quad core, but its necessary if I want to keep this thing for awhile.
But, hey, definitely let me know if you know of any other ways to extend the battery life. I'd love to carry around an extra battery, but I don't know how I am gonna charge it other than swapping out the batteries. If I were to use this method, although it seems tedious, how fast would the second battery lose power after its charged?

 

for saving more power, you can toggle off components like the wifi adapter and bluetooth when not using them.

I am guessing the same as the first if its fully charged.

 

When I was talking about the second battery, I meant when it is sitting in my bag not being used. Like, if I charged it on a Friday, would it still be fully charged on that Monday?

 

yes your battery will still retain its power.. but take a screwdriver with you too since you have to unscrew the battery from the chassis to get another one in when u swap it out.

 

the secondary battery will have a good charge if kept in a cool dry environment (not the refrigerator) for a recommended 60-90 days

it is recommended to use it at least 3 times a year with a full charge cycle (from low 5% to max)... in order to keep it healthy.

 

The battery should still have a "good" charge, as Gophn states, but it won't have a complete 100% charge - "smart" Li-Ion batteries have components that continually draw a slight amount of power from the battery, even when not in use, and will slowly bring the charge down.

 

Sorry guys, another question. Which display would you choose in my situation? Obviously the 9262 is a 17", but would you go wsxga+ or the wuxga? Again, I dont play games, but I will be watching movies etc. Does either one have a big effect on the battery life?

 

Question, I just read online that the power consumption of the quadro 1600m is 50 watts and the power consumption for the 8800m gtx is 37 watts. Would the lower power consumption help my battery life out any? I think it is kind of odd that a higher-end card is listed with a lower power consumption, but I might be totally off base on this one.

 

at this point I am still not sure whether 1600m consumes 50 watts or not, it seems very odd compare to power consumption of 8800m gtx, considering 8700m gt = 1600m.

 

I know it is weird! I got the 50watts from the actual website so I am pretty sure that is legit. http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadrofx_go.html
And there has been a few posts about the 8800m gtx ranging from 35watts to 45watts. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=253468 http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=186768&page=2
Both of which are less than 50watts. I just dont understand it.

 

Can anyone let me know which one will provide me with a longer battery life between the two gpu's? I'm going to buy the laptop sometime this week so I need to figure this out soon?
What are the pros and cons of both? I really will be using this laptop for everyday use with a lot of video playback. Maybe some video editing and rendering, but nothing too heavy duty. I might also play a few games, although it will be very rare.

 

An idea for ya, just don't tell your seller you did this, and its a bit of work... but worth it! Its a little expensive too... Purchase another battery pack, open it up and grab the cell's information. There should be 12-cells in the 9262. Go online and find a cell that matches its voltage and size. 95% of the time, you'll fine cells that are higher amperage than the ones your using. Purchase 12 of them, Solder them together in the same fashion as whats in your current battery pack, and pop it in the system! I got about an hour extra life on my old Dell 1520 on heavy use.

Just thought I'd pass that by your mind...

 

Sounds good, however I don't have a soldering iron and I am not very good at that kind of stuff. But, have you ever thought of making a business out of that? I bet you'd make some bank because I know a lot of people must have the same problem as me.
On a side note, which gpu should I get and wuxga or wsxga+?

 

You know flyinonice4, I never though of that. I very well could. And the cells shipped are cheaper than the actual battery, if I could get ahold of a battery pack chassis, I could sell just about the cost of a normal one and make almost a 50% markup. Or I could just mod current packs. I don't know how much demand there would be though. Plus the liabilities... I really like the thought of it though. What does everybody else think? Any interest in a battery with 20-25% more juice in it?

 

I say absolutely! Do you have any info on the gpu while we wait for response though?

 

Oh yes of course. If you don't think you'll ever play games, leave it with the stock Quaddro FX 1600M. Cheaper, and has all the basic hardware acceleration techs. If you want to use-proof and future-proof your system, get the 8800M. You can pull the idle voltages down from .85 to .8 a you'll be pretty close to the power usage of the Quaddro. Also, the Quaddro is built off the older fabrication process, and the nature of the G80 uses more power and puts out more heat than the G92. You can pull the idle voltages down from .85 to .8v, downclock your vBIOS to slower speeds, and you should be pretty satisfied with the power gain over stock.

If your going with the higher res screen, then again, the 8800M GTX is your card. Just one though!

 

Alright, the 8800m gtx is what it seems like I should get. So your saying that the 8800m gtx uses up more power than the Quadro? (you said I would have to pull the idle voltages down to have comparable power usage). I thought that the Quadro used more power? I am definitely thinking of buying the WUXGA but let me know which screen you think is better for my setup.

 

Sorry I changed what I was writing and forget to change everything. Ya the G92 uses less power than the G80.

Honestly, since I'm not using bluray, and the games I play would lag at that high a resolution, I'm happy with my 1600x1050 display. Thats solely up to you. My screen is beautiful and I'm very happy with it.

 

So it should say, "You can pull the idle voltages down from .85 to .8 a you'll be pretty close to the power usage of the 8800m gtx"?

 

Well I was just trying to say you can pull the voltage down from .85v to .8 and save power that way.

 

Yea pull the voltage down of the Quadro not the 8800m gtx right?
btw if you do decide to start making and sellings abtteries let me know, I'll be your first customer. Of course, you gotta test them first lol.

 

No I'm running the vBIOS on my 8800M GTX at .8v instead of .85. Gets me another 20-25 minutes of battery life when watching a movie.

I will let you know if I decide to do that.

 

Hmmmm alright, I guess I am just confused with this, "You can pull the idle voltages down from .85 to .8 a you'll be pretty close to the power usage of the Quaddro." Wouldn't that make me even farther away from the Quadro's power usage?

 

No no lets just forget the Quadro altogether. Its out of the picture. I'm not sure how it compares, as I've not used a mobile Quadro.

Just saying that lowering the idle voltage will increase your battery life without sacrificing performance/stability.

From what I know, the 8800M GTX does use less power, but don't quote me on that.

Heres a comparison of the 8800M GTX and the desktop Quadro FX1700. You'll see the 8800M blows even the desktop variant out of the water. Quadro is for CAD/Animation/CUDA apps. Not so much for multimedia/games.

Comparison: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=569&card2=558

 

Hmmm yea I am still confused but it seems as thought I am going to get the 8800m gtx anyway so it really doesnt matter. How does the 8800m gtx perform on CAD/Animation/CUDA apps btw? I took an animation class not long ago and really enjoyed it so its not beyond me to do some animation.

 

It really depends on the app. The biggest difference between a Quadro card and a standard card is the instruction set built into the GPU. The Quadro is just much better at handling mass mathematical computation. Since the advent of a programmable interface into the G8x+ series with CUDA, standard cards have been far more flaxible in what they are capable of. Vue/Max/Maya/Lightwave/Softimage/etc all use OpenGL for rendering realtime data, which the 8800 will pick right up on. Either way, its the CPU that really makes the difference in rendering times.

 

Good enough for me! Just wondering why no one brought the upgrade to 8800m gtx before. Gophn said I did a good job by picking out a lower powered card for my computer. Guess he didnt realize I could get the 8800m gtx. Any other tips to extend battery life?

 

Well use RMClock to undervolt the CPU, turn off indexing on battery, use Diskeeper 2008 to keep your HDD defragged, make sure you got 4GB mem, if your playing movies, store them on an externally powered hdd and stream off that. I think there is a post on here somewhere about optimizing battery life...

 

Alright, all sound like good things that I can do. I have a different defrag (O&O) but other than that everything seems perfect. Why do you say have 4gb of ram btw?

 

4GB because that means less HDD access time, and Vista is really good with its mem management and power savings that way. Turbo mem also helps with battery life, as does any of the HDD's that NV Cache built into it.

 

EDIT: never mind I figured out the answer to my question. My computer model wont let me do the Intel Turbo Memory though. And as much as I hate going to Vista, I guess its time to make the change.

 

You'll love Vista once you get to know your way around it. Especially if your running 4GB. 2GB is a little bit slow for me in Vista. Yes make the change, and do it in x64!