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    A205 - Battery Discharge Time Seems Short

    Discussion in 'Toshiba' started by Cleaner05, Jul 20, 2008.

  1. Cleaner05

    Cleaner05 Notebook Guru

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    I just bought a Satellite A205 with Celeron processor, 1.86 GHz. I fully charged the battery and only got 1 1/2 hours of battery usage surfing the net /downloading software, etc. I called tech support and was told that you should get 2-3 hours on standby, and about 1 1/2 hours surfing. Does this sound right??? I really wanted to play a movie on DVD while traveling but it doesn't look like this will be possible with this computer as playing the DVD will take that much more power. Should I return it???
     
    Cleaner05, Jul 20, 2008
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  2. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    It might be the Celeron CPU. They don't have the power efficiency of the more expensive Core / Core 2 CPUs.

    RMclock will show the CPU voltage and frequency (and whether these change to suite the workload) while the battery info page will show you the battery capacity and the power drain. You should be looking for less than about 20,000mW power drain when playing a DVD.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Jul 20, 2008
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  3. golin

    golin Notebook Consultant

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    That does seem a little short for such light usage but I have noticed other people mentioning these kind of times for this model so it might be the standard..

    You can check the date on your battery and see if it's not old stock. If it is you can ask them to replace it.
     
    golin, Jul 20, 2008
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  4. Cleaner05

    Cleaner05 Notebook Guru

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    Is there a way to determine how long a charge will last? I know that Lenovo claims greater than 4 hours on their 6 cell for the upcoming R500. But is this 4 hour claim on standby as a standby claim doesn't seem to make sense to me. Maybe surfing time of 4 hours would make more sense. When a manufacturer claims up to so many hours, I just can't believe they mean standby time.
     
    Cleaner05, Jul 20, 2008
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  5. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    Run time = battery capacity / discharge rate.

    Use RMclock's battery info page to see the full battery capacity then look at the power drain under different operating conditions. 6 cell batteries come with a range of capacities between about 40 and 60WHr.

    For example, if the battery capacity is 52WHr (or as RMclock puts it, 52000mWh) and the power drain rate is 14,000mW, you can theoretically get 4 hours battery time. Reality is less than theory because (i) there are spikes of activity with increased power drain and (ii) windows shuts down before the battery is empty unless you change the default settings.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Jul 21, 2008
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