Sony Vaio Power Management?

Just curious for people who have Sony laptops, and more specifically, those who have the SZ series.

Do you use the default Sony Vaio Power Management tool that came with the laptop? Or do you use some other form, such as RMClock, NHC or perhaps none at all and just let Windows take care of it?

If you could, please tell us a little. Just wondering what people use and I am thinking about switching from the default Vaio Power Management to maybe using RMClock.

 

I use Sony's and coupled with NHC. So I'm not sure which to choose.

 

Notebook hardware control for me, works perfectly.

 

Hi Bomfunk,
I have also a S5, can you manage your fan by Notebook hardware control? Currently I am using Centrino Hardware Control.

 

I've been using Sony's but I've tried to change some of the settings in the power manager (so that it wouldn't mess with my color depth or power down stuff so soon) but it won't save changes. The Power Policy Manager brings up a little window titled "unable to set policy" where the text in the window says: "Indicates two revision levels are incompatible." when I try to save changes. =(

This is bothersome. Even if I reboot into stamina mode or something, I'd rather control screen brightness and aggressive hibernation myself.

So I'm curious what transpires in this thread because maybe there's a better alternative for me than just disabling what I have in whatever way I can.

-Pip

 

I feel NHC is very comprehensive and efficient

 

NHC way too confusing for me.

I only use it cause the battery on the task bar looks nice.

 

So what is the average battery life for SZ laptops?

 

2.5 to 4.5 hours, I'd reckon.

 

Its weird how Sony claims this can run 6-7 hours.

I try turning everything low, brightness 1, 16 bit, lalalala

I can't even get 5 hours.

 

Hon, that's overkill... You're making yourself suffer on behalf of Sony's deceptive advertising and poor design

I recommend, when working, to turn brightness down to 3, turn off all devices but LAN (only if you need it). That should get you a good 4 hours, which isn't THAT bad.

 

To NuntiusLuminis,

Just curious. Why did you buy Sony if you hate them? Whenever I saw your postings, it is very clear that you hate Sony. Also, it seems to me that you are intentionally giving some distorted information on any questions regarding Sony laptops. If you are not satisfied with Sony, don't use their laptops.

Anyway, why do you hate Sony?

 

Sony hasn't always been known to play to the consumer. Instead they rely too much on their name. It is a little annoying for computer companies to claim they can get 6-7 hours of battery life when the people that have done the research know that is impossible with most laptops.

Sony only puts that in their adds so that they can draw in the people that have no idea about the other quality laptops out there. You don't hear Asus saying that their laptops will last up to 6 hours on a standard battery do you???? Sony has always tried to deceive the consumers into thinking that because it says Sony on it and it looks "cool" it is the best and is worth the extra money you pay.

Personally I have not been all that impressed with the build quality of most sony laptops, but I will say that they are better than Dell, HP, and Compaq. So at least Sony is not the worst. I do respect the new innovations that Sony has come out with and the fact that they are trying new things with their ultraportable notebooks, but Sony products aren't all that great when you compare them to other companies that aren't as well known.

As for battery life on my S360, I get around 4 hours with screen brightness at 5 and Wifi on (with a 6-cell battery). So if I had a 9-cell battery I could easily get at least 5.5 hours and probably more. I use NHC, but for some reason it is not monitoring the fan correctly so I also have Sony Power Management on too.

 

I do not HATE Sony, I am critical of Sony. Hatred is reserved for the man who kills your family, burns down your house, and leaves you penniless. A question from me: what compels you to call them "postings?" I'm just curious, considering I've heard this terminology applied to posts before. And, under what impression are you assuming that I have been giving "distorted" information? All the information I give is completely accurate, based on my own experiences and that of many, many others who frequent this very forum. Thus, you must be bitter about your own purchase if you are so deeply troubled by my criticisms, my posts.

 

wow I can only get 2.5hrs on speed and a little over 3 hours on stamina. What is the tricks to get the battery to last longer?

 

I use Vaio Power Management, only the processor on adaptive - everything else is just as when on AC.
VGN-A190, 2 year old monster.
I still get ~2.5 hours from the original battery!

 

Using Sonys power management and ultimate battery, I only get a little over 2 hours(in Stamina) on my sz360 What else could I try to extend that, short of a very dim screen/

 

I need to add that the previous posts time was with an aircard on. When I tried it this afternoon without the PC card, it rang up about 4 and a half hours.

 

Cards eat power!
Good to hear you found the problem.

 

Without hikacking this thread, for those using the Sony Power Management, what settings do you use when on batteries versus plugged in?

 

depends

running on batteries

i have a custom one call typing / surfing which disable firewire, dvd and network land and i get about 5 hours on stamina (not bad i guess)

i keep my screen at 32 bit with brightness @ level

plug in

power management off but with cpu level on adaptive so it doesn't burn my desk down.

 

I have not played with the Sony power management much. It appears that I am running Vaio optimized for both. On batteries, maybe I should use Vaio max battery or max battery? On the plug I think no power management with a adaptive CPOU may be work?

 

hm, when in stamina,and vaio max battery mode. screen brightness 1, all devices turned on, my sz gets a little over 3hrs.

 

I did a fair bit of travelling over xmas and the new year with my SZ. Most of the time I had the wireless turned off and the screen fairly dim (but still bright enough for my tastes, about 2 - 3). Battery tended to last from 3 and a half to about 4 hours, mostly watching DivX movies and viewing photographs etc. Pretty happy with that.

One question though: on my old Vaio A217M, you could reduce the clock speed from 1.6Ghz to .6Ghz in the Vaio power management settings when you selected "Adaptive". With my SZ though, Adaptive only drops the CPU speed from 2.2Ghz to about 2.16Ghz... surely I can drop the speed a bit more than this in order to have the laptop run a little cooler?? Pleeeeeeease let me know, this would make a hell of a difference to my lap and my fertility ;-)

 

i notice when i'm running in stamina mode and using vaio maximum battery and i look up the system in the control panel it says im running at 1.0ghz (T7200).

 

Anyone else run into problems with the WIFI on their SZ330P when they upgraded to Vista Ultimate? Mine can no longer see any wireless networks (slightly problematic). Thanks.

 

dsappen,

Have you installed the drivers for the wireless adapter properly? I know Intel has Vista compatible drivers on their website. That is what I am using. I recently upgraded my SZ to Vista Business and all is working for me (except the S1/S2 buttons). Go to the thread about upgrading to Vista and it has links for almost everything you will need...

Don

 

i'm using NHC for all my laptops and it's the best power management IMO. i've undervolted the cpu and it's giving me more than 3 hours with wifi, 3 brightness and on and light surfing on my vaio FE which quite surprised me.

but i have a question for people using NHC on core 2 duos.. how do u reduce the clock speed at idle? i have an idle clock speed of 1GHz on my vaio which i find it too high and useless. but i can't find where to reduce the speed

 

I don't use any Power MGR -- I disabled all of them. Saved me 18-20MB of RAM.

I re-enable them when I plan to take the FE somewhere.

 

The core (2) duos can't be clocked under 1000Mhz.

This comes with the Santa Rosa Platform though.
This chipset supports to clock down the FSB, or to disable parts of the CPU and chipset.

 

Can you disable a the second core in the SZ's BIOS?

I'd imagine if you wanted to breach the 5hr mark on a standard battery (and all you were going to be doing was typing/lite-surfing/divx...maybe), disabling the second core would work wonders for your charge duration... I mean that, combine with "ultrimate battery" combined with NHC undervolting combined with low-brightness should offer huge gains over conventional methods. Since you reboot in between stamina and speed mode, you could just re-enable the 2nd core when you make the switch.

That's what I'd do anyway as I tend not to do any heavy lifting with a lappy unless I'm running off AC.

 

You can disable all cores except one using boot.ini on a seperate configuration (which you have to select after post). Duplicate a booting configuration in your boot.ini but adding /ONECPU switch to one. Ofcourse it would be wise to name it something like "Windows XP Single Core Boot".

Chow.

Edit: Forgot to mention that doing this in dual core processors isn't worth the tiny bit of battery in comparison with the speed. Its not much more power to enable the second core, really almost next to nothing under stand usage.

 

There is a utility called VistaLaptopBatterySaver that changes the display from Aero to Vista basic when on batteries. Its good for an extra 10 or 15 minutes on Stamina mode and about twice that improvement on Speed mode.

 

I turned AERO off manually.
Don't need that crap