The Great Sz Battery Showdown !

Alright, SZ'ers... here we go !

Let's do some battery tests !

Step 0) Charge up battery to FULL

Step 1) Download BatteryMon 2.0 Build 1007
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/BatteryMon.shtml

Step 2) Install, and open... set the following options:

Edit > Configuration:

Check "Stop System from sleeping"

Step 2) Close as much as possible, and open Windows Media Player

Step 3) Set Media Player to loop in "Play > Repeat"

Step 4) Open My Documents > My Music > Sample Music > Beethoven's Symphony No. 9

Step 5) Press Play and then minimize Media Player... make sure that you cannot see the visualizations, since that will use more battery life !

Step 6) VERY QUICKLY press START on BatteryMon !

Step 7) Go to sleep

Step 8) Wake up the next day and check BatteryMon's LOG file or last report !

FINALLY post your battery settings (i.e. brightness level, disabled peripherals, etc...) and your total time !

I did a test the other day, but my machine went to sleep (hence the "Stop System from Sleeping" checkbox note...)

I'll do the test tonite and report the results ! Hope everyone else can do the same !

We could do this test with a common movie another day, so everyone uses the same AVI to compare results...

 

Or should we all test with Battery Eater instead ?

www.batteryeater.com

 

Battery eater! lol. Ill run this test tonight as well. Are we doing speed or stamina mode?

 

Hm, good question... how about Stamina.

 

If I still had my sz120 I would. Btw, I like my test better. Charge till 100% boot computer and run a dvd at 100% brightness and 40-45% volume and hibernate at 3%. Run in stamina mode. Best I got was 2:40min.

 

okn stamina it is

 

What about volume level? zero?

 

does the volume level even matter?

Anyways i have mine in stamina/ultimate battery mode. Everything is turned off except wireless.

 

If thats true, wouldn't the laptop automaticly turn off since youre not touching it? I mean, isnt there a 2min time limit for the screen to turn off, then 5mins for the hardddrive to turn off, then like 10mins before going into standby or something in ultimate battery?

 

Um........ your right I guess i better switch modes then . Sorry i still havent started the test. Im busy setting up syncing software (btw power toy is a life saver) its gonna be a few hours when i finally get to sleep before i start the test. And that'll be around 6am

 

Even with Battery Eater running, your lappy will still go to sleep based on the standby and hibernation settings you have setup in power management. My suggestion is to create your own profile with everything the way you want it, but leave it plugged in. Once done with that, close everything and fire up BEP and check the box on the main screen. Oh, BEP has three modes to test: Idle, Reader and Classic. They're battery intensive from least to most, respectively.

Ok, the bar is set at 7.5hrs on my TX in Reader mode and level 4 brightness. Oops, this is only for SZ's.

 

hehe nah, its open to anyone ! as long as you're clear about all of your settings and your machine...

 

SZ140 (custom), wireless on, extended battery, stamina mode, max brightness

Battery eater on classic (most intensive)- 2:21:12

Regular battery is up next

 

Regular battery, same settings as before- 1:30:18

 

WOW !

Battery eater is great !

Here are my results...

Hibernate, Stand By and Turn Off Monitor all set to Never... Turn off Hard Drive set to 3 minutes.

Turned off screen saver.

No wireless.

On Stamina mode.

All 4 options disabled in Sony Power management.

Used the CLASSIC test which is:

- 3D rendering
- Pi calculations
- Hard drive access

3:30 hours.

I've attached my results... this program is great !!

I'm going to do the same test in Speed mode next... I'll post the results.

 

I set my SZ140 P05 to Ultimate Battery Mode on Stamina and left to go out shopping. I got 4h 22mins. If you don't believe me I can run the test again and take a screenie for yall. This is on the standard battery and wireless off. I also do not have the finger print reader nor the webcam and bluetooth.

 

How about everybody post their screen brightness? I know for my TX, Sony lists it as having nine levels. All the way down is level 1, so 1 bar showing would be level 2, etc... Level 4, for me, is totally comfortable and 3 would be plenty in a darker room.

 

Previous post edited to include brightness.

Same settings, Battery Eater on "Reader":
Standard battery got 3:14:23
Extended battery got 4:56:26

 

Were you running the battery eater program?

 

Wow, nice numbers ceridwen...

What were all of your VAIO Power Options settings ? Anything disabled ?

Can we learn anything from these numbers so far ?

 

Here's a TEMPLATE everyone else can use for their future tests...

Just copy paste and away you go !

==========================
- COMPUTER TYPE: (i.e. SZ160, TX, VGN-120P, etc...)
- WIRELESS: on / off
- BLUETOOTH: on / off / non existant
- (for SZ) GRAPHICS CARD: stamina / speed
- SCREEN SAVER: on / off
- BATTERY TYPE: standard / extended
- Power options (hiberate, standby, hard drive, monitor, # mins or never)
(The next three are all found in the VAIO Power options)
- LCD: Brightness & Color quality
- CPU: CPU control & fan control
- OTHER DEVICES: which devices are disabled
- BATTERY EATER TEST (classic, reader, etc...)
- TOTAL TIME: ##:##:##
==========================

 

Did it all with the power management on "Vaio optimized" with screen saver and hibernate set to never.

Here is my data in the template:
- COMPUTER TYPE: SZ140 customized
- WIRELESS: on
- BLUETOOTH: off
- (for SZ) GRAPHICS CARD: stamina
- SCREEN SAVER: off
- BATTERY TYPE: standard
- Power options: Everything set to "never"
- LCD: Max brightness (8 levels on my non-premium), 32bit color
- CPU: Adaptive, fan level 5
- OTHER DEVICES: Nothing else disabled
- BATTERY EATER TEST: classic
- TOTAL TIME: 01:30:18

- COMPUTER TYPE: SZ140 customized
- WIRELESS: on
- BLUETOOTH: off
- (for SZ) GRAPHICS CARD: stamina
- SCREEN SAVER: off
- BATTERY TYPE: extended
- Power options: Everything set to "never"
- LCD: Max brightness (8 levels on my non-premium), 32bit color
- CPU: Adaptive, fan level 5
- OTHER DEVICES: Nothing else disabled
- BATTERY EATER TEST: classic
- TOTAL TIME: 02:21:12

- COMPUTER TYPE: SZ140 customized
- WIRELESS: on
- BLUETOOTH: off
- (for SZ) GRAPHICS CARD: stamina
- SCREEN SAVER: off
- BATTERY TYPE: standard
- Power options: Everything set to "never"
- LCD: Max brightness (8 levels on my non-premium), 32bit color
- CPU: Adaptive, fan level 5
- OTHER DEVICES: Nothing else disabled
- BATTERY EATER TEST: reader
- TOTAL TIME: 03:14:23

- COMPUTER TYPE: SZ140 customized
- WIRELESS: on
- BLUETOOTH: off
- (for SZ) GRAPHICS CARD: stamina
- SCREEN SAVER: off
- BATTERY TYPE: extended
- Power options: Everything set to "never"
- LCD: Max brightness (8 levels on my non-premium), 32bit color
- CPU: Adaptive, fan level 5
- OTHER DEVICES: Nothing else disabled
- BATTERY EATER TEST: reader
- TOTAL TIME: 04:56:26

For what it is worth, I do not have the USB patch installed at this time.

The scientist in me is making me vary only one variable at a time, so the only thing changed between my runs was the type of test. Anecdotally I think the reader test is pretty close to what normal use would be for me, giving a similar battery life to what I got browing the web and whatnot.

 

Fantastic work !

I'll make sure to post my results in the same format after I do the Speed test tonite.

 

Thanks for standardizing the report format, ikaris and thanks ceridwen for being the first to report results using this format.

ceridwen, will you try the tests again with the only changed variable being "wireless off"? The reason I ask that is that I have a sense that I am getting better battery life when I am on long flights (when wireless is set to "off") as opposed to when I am using WiFi for long periods at the airport lounges.

Thanks!

 

I will, but it will take some time. The tests + recharging the batteries takes quite a while. I've been running the tests this weekend while I study for finals during the day, and charging the batteries overnight, but I've got exams and work this week, so it will reduce what I can do. Might be a week or so before I can get those done.

I'm running an "ultimate" battery life test right now with 50% brightness, dvdrom off, 16 bit color, and the "idle" test on Battery eater which is predicting a little over 5 hours battery life on the standard battery. Obviously this is not a real world test, but I wanted to see how far the battery could be stretched just for fun.

50% brightness is at the bottom end of the useable range on my 140 IMO.

 

- COMPUTER TYPE: SZ140 customized
- WIRELESS: off
- BLUETOOTH: off
- (for SZ) GRAPHICS CARD: stamina
- SCREEN SAVER: off
- BATTERY TYPE: standard
- Power options: Everything set to "never", Vaio ultimate battery setting
- LCD: minimum brightness (1 bars), 16bit color
- CPU: battery life, fan (grayed out)
- OTHER DEVICES: DVD drive disabled, network disabled, modem disabled
- BATTERY EATER TEST: idle
- TOTAL TIME: 05:10:21

So if you arent doing anything, you can get the battery life up quite high hehe.

 

My numbers have been consistent except today I noticed that while on the plane and doing a lot of hard drive work where the HD was nearly constantly spinning for awhile, it severely affected battery life. Expected, but was interesting to watch.

So the pure numbers alone based on the power options are 1/2 of the equation.

Just my $.02.

 

Yeah I ran the battery eater program and yes I did get over 4 hours on a regular battery.

 

What type of test did you run with battery eater?

 

Re-post of my original test, using the template:

==========================
- COMPUTER TYPE: VGN-SZ160P
- WIRELESS: off
- BLUETOOTH: off
- (for SZ) GRAPHICS CARD: stamina
- SCREEN SAVER: off
- BATTERY TYPE: standard
- Power options: All set to never, except for Hard Drive set to 3 minutes
(The next three are all found in the VAIO Power options)
- LCD: Brightness 3, 32 bit color
- CPU: Battery Life
- OTHER DEVICES: All deviced disabled
- BATTERY EATER TEST:Classic
- TOTAL TIME: 3:35
==========================

When we have enough templates, I'll put them all into a nice little chart !

 

Did the same test with Speed this time instead of Stamina...

Comparing my two tests, I can see that Stamina gives about a 10% boost in battery life.

Not amazing, but not bad either... would have been nice for Sony to put either a less powerful Intel card or a more powerful nVidia card to make the gap bigger.

==========================
- COMPUTER TYPE: VGN-SZ160P
- WIRELESS: off
- BLUETOOTH: off
- (for SZ) GRAPHICS CARD: speed
- SCREEN SAVER: off
- BATTERY TYPE: standard
- Power options: All set to never, except for Hard Drive set to 3 minutes
(The next three are all found in the VAIO Power options)
- LCD: Brightness 3, 32 bit color
- CPU: Battery Life
- OTHER DEVICES: All deviced disabled
- BATTERY EATER TEST:Classic
- TOTAL TIME: 3:04
==========================

 

I thought I'd also post a screenshot of Battery Eater Classic in action.

Not a lot of people realize that it's going at 100% CPU the whole time !

That means, 100% CPU for 3:04 hours on Speed and 3:35 hours on Stamina...

Not to mention that it's rendering a 3D object the whole time.

Pretty good in my book...

 

ikaris- On the ols sz120 I had, if I played wow(wolrd of warcraft) I would get about little more than 1 hour to play before draining the normal battery. I can believe that the led backlighting used that much less power that you can hit 3hrs at 100% cpu and using 3d rendering. Man, I have got to take a look at that sz160 today again.

 

I will run some more tests... I want to re-do those tests to make sure I get the same numbers.

If anyone else can do the exact exact same tests with an SZ160 as well that would be great to verify my numbers.

My brightness is at 3 for all tests... what was yours for when you were playing WoW ?

 

I'd like to do the test as well, but would anyone be kind enough to tell me what specific devices (specific name as shown in the device manager) should be turned off and how to turnn it off?

 

<QUOTE>would have been nice for Sony to put either a less powerful Intel card</QUOTE>

There aren't any.
The GMA950 is build-in into the 945GM chipset. The interesting bit is that it seems only Sony put a way to activate this graphic controller when I believe all other laptops based on the 945GM chipset and Core Duo also has this graphic controller. They could all do the stamina/speed switch if they wanted to

 

I didn't run through all the battery eater tests yet that are mentioned in this post but I will shortly. just to give a bit of a real world test result to you i did get 3:45 while watching a dvd, with volume all the way up and brightness two from the top.

I have an sz160 so I will try and run through the other tests as well to see what I get. i think the dvd time is fantastic considering its with the normal capacity battery. My former laptop, the M1210, got a little just about that score, but with a 9 cell. The integrated graphics switch is awesome. well done sony, (for a change