Poor battery performance (SZ780)

Laptop Specs:

Sony SZ780 N7
2.5 penryn
3 gigs of ram
200 gig 7.2k rpm HD
Full Brightness
Wifi on
BT off

I can barely get 2:55 min on a full charge. This is with everything closed. No major progs running.
With firefox and a number of tabs open, the battery life drops to 2:30.

Isnt this pathetic? I was expecting 4hrs+ per charge. Should I ask for a battery replacement?

 

The wifi drains alot of power. However I'd recommend you check the vaio optimization settings as you can turn off lan/dvd/audio (in case you dont need any of them) which should get you a small increase.

 

Its the full brightness that is killing your battery life. Reduce the brightness to half and you will probably get 50 minutes of battery life back.

 

Is your setting on the X3100 or 8400?

 

With full brightness, dont even dream to get much more battery life...
You are asking too much!

 

It's on speed mode.
well, I am satisfied just by knowing that this is the norm and that I don't have a defective battery.

 

From my view:
7.2k HD is also killing your battery --> normal 5k HD prob. increase your 2:55 to 3:15-3:20 at least.
Full brightness is also killing your battery --> 50% will bring a normal 5k HD to 4-4:30
last with WIFI off (this is rare nowadays) --> you will prob get 5-6hrs with a normal 5k Hard drive, 50% brightness and Wifi off.

 

Speed mode....
If you dont want to reduce brightness at least go on stamina for more battery life...

 

i used to get 7 hrs (lowest brightness, no wifi, disabled unused hardware, undervolted, everything to optimize the battery, etc)

a year later i get 2.5 hrs.

i blame the battery

on the other hand my sony psp battery seems not affected.... and i use it 10x more than the vaio

 

It Sonys battery, BUT thats normal time for what youre using it for. Back when I had my SZ160 with the slower processor/drive/vid card, on max brightness, I got jst under 3hours of normal use. I dont think they changed teh battery since then, so it will be less.

 

I was quite purchasing a SZ a month ago...I didn't know that is so bad the battery of the SZ, but after reading a lot of reviews reporting this battery life this drop me off. Maybe the cheap keyboard I could get used of it but for me battery life is very important. I understand that the SZ has great performance but for portability you must take the AC adapter with you.

 

starstreak: What do you mean? I thought Sony's 6-cell battery was 5800 milliamp hours, which is pretty much the same as most other 6-cell batteries out there today?

The later SZ models get more, not less, battery life, according to most reviews I've read. According to the notebookreview of the SZ6, at least, it can get over 4-5 hours easily. This is because the latest technology takes less power, in addition to being faster. BTW, I think Sony did increase the battery capacity since the SZ1 series from 5200mah to 5800mah.

Anyway, g800, try switching to stamina mode (I think this requires a reboot), try lowering the screen brightness to 80% or something, and make sure you're set to a battery life optimized mode when on battery.

I don't have a SZ7 myself but I've been doing a lot of research and I think you'll get 5+ hours (probably more) easily if you enable power saving properly. Just don't expect to get good battery life with the "Speed" mode, because the GeForce 8400 is always going to eat up the battery comparatively fast.

Please let us know how it goes too, because battery life is very important to me also and I'm planning on buying an SZ7 soon.

 

I absolutely DONT agree with that...
Battery life is very good, like written above, maybe you should go on stamina and reduce brightness...
I, on my SZ650, get like 3 hours of battery life on stamina and brightness level at 60%, on Vaio Optimized mode... (with Wifi ON)
Meaning that I could easily get 4+ hours by using Maximum or Ultimate Battery modes (disabling DVD drive and ethernet/modem/audio).

 

bad is wrong word. I mean more that Sony rates battery life the same as car manufactores rate mpg. Its normally overblown. You're not going to get 6+ hours on the notebook, unless its in sleep mode or everything turned off and youre not touching anything.

Someone said Sony battery life increased as the models got newer. I doubt that, at least not while the notebook is "working" and not sitting idle. Theres no way the same battery will last you longer when they upgraded the CPU from a 1.6 to a 2.4+ and upgraded the GPU to a faster one.

 

Well you can speculate all you like, but SZ6's do get 4+ hours fairly easily, and 5+ can be achieved with maximum power saving options enabled:
http://www.notebookreview.com/defau...O+SZ470N/C+-+Core+2+Duo+T7400+2.16+GHz+-+13.3

 

I would regularly get 4+ hours on my SZ360P. When working off the battery, I'd turn devices off, put the screen to around 30%-ish brightness, and always worked on Stamina mode (no reason to use Speed unless you need to do some semi-serious 3D rendering, right??). My new SZ780n5 seems similar --- although the estimates that Vista give me are a bit higher than the ones offered with my 360P.

To the OP -- as other people said, use stamina mode and reduce your screen brightness to get a pretty significant boost in battery life.

I'll also say that the battery on my SZ360P still offered ample power-time after a year of usage. It's definitely worth reading the battery guide on this site for advice RE: taking care of your battery.

 

I was typing on my sz680 last night under stamina mode....

With wifi off and brightness at 2/8 I was on pace for 7 hours of battery.

After typing for an hour in word I still had 85% of the battery remaining.

 

Faster cpu doesn't mean more power is required. Technology is evolving everyday... my old 700m (Dothan 1.6 + 855GM) with 8 cell battery lasted 4:30 - 5 hours, same as my current XPS M1210 with T7200 and GF7400.