Battery life decreased by half???

When I first bought my VAIO laptop, it used to show as 6 hours something battery life remaining, after a few days it now maxes out at 3 hours remaining time from the time it fully charges till I unplug the power cord. I have formatted many times and this happens right off I know it's not any application in the background doing anything nor it is my power management settings. It is set to stamina and maximum battery profile.

What gives?

PS: Should the isbmgr.exe be turned off or on? i never figured out what it exactly does?



Sony VAIO VGN-SZ484N/C

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz.
2 GB DDR2 RAM PC-4200 (533 MHz)
13.3” Wide Display Clear Bright LCD (1280 x 800)
nVIDIA GeForce 7400 GPU 335 MB
160 GB HDD
Built-in: Fingerprint Sensor + Webcam + Bluetooth + Wireless Network

 

anyone?

 

I did a clean install and didn't even install the battery checker utitlity. You can safely disable the ISB utility from start up. My battery dies in 2 hrs max from a full charge. The ISB program checks whether the battery is a genuine sony one.

 

which OS r u using, i am getting app 5hrs in winxp n 2-3.5 hrs in vista.

 

I'm using Vista and when I first checked the battery life and I got 6 hours it was Vista as well.

Right, so i'm gonna disable ISBMGR.exe right away

 

bump

anyone?

 

Battery gauge software tends to be very inexact, especially when taking their first readings. Over time they will settle into a more accurate prediction. I don't have an SZ, but 6 hours on a standard battery, especially with Vista, sounds highly unlikely to me (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone).

I would venture a guess that the utility initially spiked a high prediction, then settled into a more realistic one.

That seems consistent with what you're seeing, assuming jassalmithu has the same SZ model.

 

You should check your settings in VAIO Power Management. My SZ650 gets 6-6.5 hours battery life in stamina mode, and I use Vista Business, with all the Aero effects.

OS distinction between XP and Vista has no impact on battery life. They are about the same. If your battery is over 2-3 years old then that might be more of an issue...lithium-ion batteries' remaining useful life degrades heavily after a certain point, which is not fixed...

 

What settings could affect in BIOS? I see nothing regarding battery to change.

Also, the laptop s only 3 months old, and ?I never overcharge it. as soon as it reaches 100% I unplug the battery

 

I'm sorry but six hours on a standard battery, for any notebook computer, sounds far-fetched to me. An SZ should get no more than 3-3.5 hours per battery with XP and less with Vista.

The other poster above must turn his brightness down to 20%, which is ridiculous in my view -- Sonys have nice screens, why not use them?

 

ah ok, so I guess it was a misreading since it was brand new.

I have never had any notebook that had a battery life of more than 2 hours anyway.

 

Read this thread for a discussion about power savings and battery life.

An SZ in stamina mode (using integrated GPU) should be capable of getting down to around 10W power drain. You can see the power drain using the battery page of RMClock which also allows to check the CPU speed and voltage.

Also check the Performance page of Task Manager to see the CPU utilisation. This should be less than 5% when the computer is under light usage. Sometimes a process can have problems and continuously load the CPU. If the CPU utilisation is above around 10% look at the Processes page in Task Manager. You may need to add the CPU Usage column which will then show how much CPU time each process is taking.

John

 

thank u bro

 

Correction:I have an SZ 680 and I regularly used to get 5 to 5.5 hrs of juice from it.

Since about a month, I don't know why I am getting about 4 hrs now, in vista with all eye candy. Me still trying to find out the reason. Guess its due to disk thrashing by Vista. Will updrage to SP1 and check it

 

Are you still getting about 6 hrs from ur lappy? Vista is to blame mine, makes it like a 486

 

Its about 3-4 months since I've bought my SZ 680. Are you still getting about 6 hrs from ur lappy? Vista is to blame mine, makes it run like a 486.