SZ - getting MAX battery life?

This SZ670 is terrific, but I'd like to work and watch movies on long flights and that takes better battery life than I currently experience with the standard pack (and the extended battery is almost $300!). And, Empower is available only on some seats on some airlines.

Here's what I've done:

Set BATTERY CARE to 100%, and fully charge before flying
Set video card to the Intel "Stamina" option
Chosen low brightness - sufficient for an a/c cabin
Turned off the Bluetooth and WiFi switch

QUESTIONS:
Will it help to use 800x600 (small screen) rather than 1280x800?
Should I store DVD movies on the hard drive, and if so - how?
Is there anything else that should be turned OFF?
Is there anything else I should do?
Does it make sense to build an external Lithium-Ion pack*?


*My rechargeable Li-Ion cells are 3.7V and 1000mAh, so 5 cells in series would get the voltage and four such series strings in parallel would provide 5000mAh - about what's in the original battery pack. I can build a charger that will be safe. But would the airlines let that on the plane?

 

Look at Les's Vista tweak guide;

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532&highlight=gary

It includes some changes that can help you save power, such as disabling indexing.

 

Notaguru, where are you located? Of course Sony will sell the extended batteries for very high prices, but I'm sure you can get good deals on them from other sources.

You can also get external batteries for laptops, of course they are external and can be unweildy but it lets your computer run longer.

Yes, ripping DVD movies to the hard drive and viewing them there will give you noticeably more battery life. There is much software out there to rip DVD movies, how about searching on Google?

Using a lower resolution natively (smaller screen), will not help at all since the entire screen is on anyways sucking power.

 

Les's Tweak Guide is great - not only for battery life. Thanks.
I found external battery packs on eBay for $120 and up, but would prefer a Sony spare battery. However, I've seen notes indicating that the laptop must "recognize" a genuine battery, which is costly.

 

I hear Sony puts a small bloatware application which will freak out if you put in a non-Sony battery. Remove the program and the issue is gone. Its been discussed in these forums.

 

You could also disable the dvd drive if you do rip your movies to your HD.
You could also disable the webcam, fingerprint reader and ethernet card via the device manager.
You could also try running the computer in 16 bit as opposed to 32bit.
You could also turn Aero of and run your computer in classic mode.
Vista's power saver is also better than Vaio max battery as i have found that Vaio max battery is equal to the balanced mode in Vista.

 

Thanks for this great tip dude

 

What uses more power - the hard drive or the DVD drive?
If it's the hard drive, is there a way to make the SZ operate like a DVD player, without the computing functions?