Vaio CW Battery Drain

Indeed, and very powerful analogy!

My wishful thinking is a BIOS update to fix the battery drain and add GMA switching.

 

Same here! I can't switch my graphics, but I sure am waiting for Sony to bake up a new BIOS update (lol.. like it'll happen in the foreseeable future).

 

So I just ordered the Vaio VPC-CW21FX/L from Amazon and now I am bumming after reading this thread. Are all users having the battery drain issues even with the newer i3 processor? Now I am thinking about returning it before I even open the box.

The Sony site says up to 4 hours with the standard battery, but I have seen other pages that list a battery life of only one hour. What is the real world battery life?

Can anyone recommend a comparable laptop with nVidia graphics in the same price range (not more!) with better battery life?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

NM

 

Some are having battery drain and some aren't. I would be one that's not experiencing any battery drain.

 

Can you please tell me what your battery life is under normal Web browsing / email use and gaming use?

Are there any generic extended batteries available? Sony wants $250!!!

Many thanks.

NM

 

Well, when I'm not really gaming or expecting to watch a Blu-Ray anytime soon... I can downclock the NVIDIA graphics, turn screen brightness down to about 75%, and set the power management to "Power Saving" mode to get about 2hrs 45min... not really that great, but the graphics aren't switchable, and that's what kills the battery soo quick. But a lot of CW owners are complaining about the battery drain while the notebook is in sleep mode. But about the extended battery, IDK? I've never really looked for one.

 

I have the i3 and mine typically runs from 2 1/2 to 3 hours with just browsing, no song in the background or any youtube videos. I also don't dim my backlight.

I'm experiencing the battery drain and its not that bad. Usually I lose around 7%-10% when in hibernate mode. I just alwasy keep it plugged when I'm not using it. I understand why it sucks up juice. I'd rather have a fast laptop than a longer battery. I had an Acer netbook with 6-7 hours of battery but it was sooo slow. Couldn't even play flash based games.

For me the battery life is livable but when you're going to travel, I suggest getting a back up batt.

 

I received mine Friday and noticed that the battery was draining as well. Not sure if this has worked for anyone else but last night before turning it off I turned Wifi off, and to my surprise it had very minimal battery drain when I booted up this morning. Kind of annoying that I have to turn the wifi off every time I shut it down to save battery life. Let's hope a Bios update solves the issue.

 

I was having the battery drain issue, even after a clean install of win7. What seems to have solved the problem in my case was disabling wake timers (in advanced options of the power plan). since then i left my notebooks overnight three consecutive nights and no more drain. Don't know if this would help others, but may be worth a try

 

I did notice less drain on my CW27 with wifi off, but I think I'll try your suggestion lusisto. Sounds promising and I hope it really is this easy.

I don't know the details of wake timers, but I can't imagine any negative effects to disabling them.

 

Ok so wait. I just read this entire thread and i'm still not sure.....
Do we know exactally what is causing it and what the fix is? or no?

 

Hello All,
First post here.
Ive had a CW (i3 M330 with Nvidia M330 grx) now for a couple of weeks and I also noticed that it drained quite a bit ovenight when it was supposed to be sleeping. I also noticed that it would be put to sleep but when I turn back on it was hibernated.
After a bit of looking around in the event log I noticed it was automatically waking up (with lid shut etc) to do the flippin Media Centre TV update, I havent even set it up with MCE yet!! Anyway I disabled this in the task scheduler and have just tested it for the last 6 hours, and I put it to sleep and just woke it up and the battery still shows 100%.
Hope this was the cause and it might help others. I presume that it would previously wake up from sleep, do its update then wait until 30mins up to hibernate as per my power settings, therefore 30min battery drain when I'm thinking it asleep.

 

This is happening because you haven't set it to NOT hibernate after 20mins. I found that with it set to hibernate after 20mins, the computer would wake up 20mins later and not actually go into hibernation until a while later, which is IMO where the battery drain comes from. You can easily disable this in the Windows Power management panel, just go into the advanced settings for sleep and change the "Hibernate After" from 20mins to something like 6000mins. Solved it for me!

 

I'm having this issue and I completely shut down my laptop every night. I shutdown at 100% battery, and have awaken to anywhere from 95% down to 84% battery life once I power it up again.

I'm getting just at 2 to 2 1/2 hours out of the battery for my basic business work that I am doing. I'll even toss in a some youtube vids and listen to some music. Doesn't seem too bad, but I'd still like to know what the deal is as well.

 

Is this with a clean install or is this still on the OEM Sony setup?

 

I have not performed a clean install at this point. Would it really make a difference? From my understanding, a clean install is to remove bloatware, not to necessarily "fix" anything... but let me know... its appreciated

 

i'd try it, apparently clean installs fixed some issues

 

Yes they do! And if there are anymore problems it makes it easier to find the cause, because the only software that will be on it is software that you will have put on it, so you can find the cause of problems MUCH easier.

 

Clean installs will fix a few issues from a windows point-of-view, though from experience it won't fix the battery drain.
We're looking at a BIOS level problem where a piece of hardware (suspected to be the bluetooth module on the Z series) doesn't turn off despite windows shutting down. Essentially, we need a BIOS update that fixes the power states of the hardware (that is, the power mapping needs to state the hardware to SHUT DOWN when windows and the machine is SHUT DOWN)

My factory Vista installation had the problem, and my clean install W7 with the latest Sony drivers from the ftp site, still has the same problem.

Though I'm curious. When you fully shut-down your CW, and place your ear near the machine, do you hear a high-pitched sound from anywhere? Do you hear it when if you take the battery and AC adapter off the machine?

 

Once my machine is off, I don't hear anything. No sounds at all.

Now I thought I heard the faintest, high pitched sound coming from the machine one day while I was on battery, but whenever I would put my ear close to it, I wouldn't hear anything so I figured it must have been a noise coming from somewhere else. I work from home and my heat is on most times since its still pretty cold where I live. The noise drowns out any faint noises, but I will continue to listen and report back.

One thing I will add, just to test, yesterday, I let the battery fully charge on the AC adapter. I took out the AC adapter and ran on battery from 100%, no shutdown of any kind, and from 6:49PM - 11:15PM, I was absolutely fine. At 11:15 I received the popup to plug in the laptop, I was at 7% left. I went over 3 hours on that battery.

 

why would only some people have the drain if we all are running the same BIOS though?

 

Hmm... Now that is something I didn't find / read on this thread...

There have been reports / findings that the battery level sensor on VAIOs are not accurate. An example is shutting down the lappie at 100% charge with the AC brick attached. Detach and leave it off for an entire day and then attach the AC brick. The charging indicator doesn't turn on. Then turn on the lappie with the AC attached and get into windows; it says it's fully charged.

But repeat the same test but do not attach the AC brick after the entire day's worth of shut-down. Turn on and windows says you have 80-70% battery. People here on the Z's battery drain problem thread have discussed whether it's possible for a startup / boot sequence to suck up 20-30% worth of battery; well, you decide (ie, HELL NO!)

Sony has put up some official statements on the Oceania site (and elsewhere too I believe) that the VAIOs do suck up extra power when powering on, but 20-30%, I don't think so. And they have even stated that the battery drain is a feature. Again, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that Sony employees would have been laughing to themselves when they were told to put that statement up...

But with the Z which I'm experienced in, the fact that there is a high-pitched sound when it's supposed to be off tells me that there is a drain, regardless of what the windows battery meter tells me. There are reports of the FW, TZ, TT, and a helluva' lot more VAIOs with the same draining issue, so I thought I might share my test results.

 

Exactly. On my CW I don't have any battery drain issues whatsoever. And I've given up on try to figure out what other people are talking about. My father has a VAIO F, and a good friend of mine has a new CW with an i3 and after they have let me get all that OEM crap off of theirs with a clean install and a little tweaking... they don't experience it either. And I've tested them before giving them back. None exhibit power drain in sleep, hibernation, or shut down.

 

Curiouser and curiouser...
Can I ask all those who are and who are NOT experiencing this drain on the CW, what country was your lappie bought in, and if it is a CTO? And what generation is it (1st or 2nd gen)?

If a CTO, what hardware was custom added (CPU, RAM, HDD / SSD, Optics, 3G Card, Graphics, LCD type etc etc). It might just be that a motherboard difference might be the issue (because I'm aware that there are CPU differences with the new and old CW series), but this is extremely interesting... If you do have a pre-configured machine, I'd be pretty keen on knowing as well...

 

Mine is preconfigured and was bought at bestbuy, so is my friends i3 CW. My father's F series was a CTO with all the bells and whistles with 1920x1080 screen, bluray burner, i7 820qm, 8gb DDR3, and GT330m.

 

And the new CW's are on a whole different platform than the C2D CW's. The previous generation had the Intel PM45 chipset with a socket p design. The new CW's have a PM55 chipset with a PGA988 socket.

 

I have a VPCCW27FX Core i5 from Best Buy (US). It definitely has the battery drain issue, and the incorrect reserve battery power display. I'm a bit ticked off about it because I imagine it's doing quite a number on the useable lifetime of the very expensive and proprietary battery. I strongly believe these issues go beyond the usual battery issues that have been associated with Windows 7.

 

Windows 7 doesn't have issues reading battery levels. This may be a marketing ploy for Microsoft, but they have said that it's more accurate than previous versions of Windows, making battery life seem more 'crap' than usual; that's W7 being more accurate and saying your battery is nearing it's life etc etc...

It's rather strange that this battery issue is so broad in a sense. Yeah, the CW 1st and 2nd gen are completely different internally, but I still don't get why some are problematic while others are not. I would like to think some piece of hardware, despite being the same generation, has been changed on the 1st and 2nd gen models. Like an updated bluetooth module with a newer firmware or something, and Sony is using the 'problematic' ones to empty their stock of 'problematic' parts. So that basically means those experiencing battery drains have 'outdated' parts in their lappies, and those without the battery drain issue have the 'updated' ones.

Well, if that's the case, I'd like to think the battery drain would be gone on the newer models (probably on SOME of the new Z series too) in a few years / months time. A newer, updated part, or a covert fix by Sony, though all this is speculation...

I'll hang around and see how the new Z fairs with this issue, and its heat management ^_^

 

A clean install does NOT fix battery drain.
I'm on a clean install, i had my computer shut down for 5 hrs and lost 10%.

 

I have the same model, royal indigo, and experience the battery drain also. Not sure if this helps but if I turn wifi off while it's shut down it isn't nearly as bad. I am really, really hoping that a BIOS update fixes the problem. I love this laptop besides this issue.

 

Well, i'm confused.

Everytime i turn the laptop on, it looses between 2-4% battery. And i just had it sitting for around 2 hrs and it only lost 2%, but three hrs last night lost 10%.

I'm starting to think that it might just be a super unreliable battery meter.


Post here if you have 100% no battery loss and do it quickly. I'm half tempted to open up my extra (depends on what best buy's return policy is i guess).

see i don't think that it's BIOS related though, since some people are not getting it.

W/e, im calling best buy then opening the other one to test.... Lets hope i don't have to pay a restocking fee!

 

Well, i'm reporting in from laptop number 2.

This one also has a warm palmrest, but that's not a concern of mine, i frankly don't know why people are complaining about that. Temps are a minuscule few degrees less and i'm charging the battery up to see if there is any power loss (i'll charge it, turn it off, then check it on 7 when i get home from work).

I also left my other one at 65% battery sitting off as well too.

Dear god I hope the person I talked to on the phone was right about the no restocking fee! (i explained the battery drain thingy)

 

aan310, please let us know your outcome. I have another week to return mine, but I'm worried about a restocking fee (which I don't believe we should have to pay since this is a defect, IMO). I'm even more concerned if there will be an availability to get another CW27 from BB. I will give them a call as well.

EDIT: I was just transferred to the GS and I think I'll just work with it. I don't trust them to mess with it. Its a really nice laptop and with the model always being unavailable, I probably won't be able to get the same one in time for a return either.

 

well if both of these have the issue, they all have the issue. Reason being is the serial numbers are not close to eachother on my two, so there is no way that they are from the same production set.

as for the restocking fee, if you are exchanging it i believe you are ok. As for a refund, idk. This will be a really interesting trip to BBY too because i also want my shipping $$ back (which wasn't going to be a problem before i opened it, but now we'll see xD)

 

Mine isn't to the point where it's annoying the heck out of me but I'm very interested in what you find out aan310. I can't wait to read your post on this issue. Thanks aan310!

 

I came home to 90% battery.....

So i've decided it's gotta be something to do with the mother board not fully shutting down. I'm about to boot up the other one (which was at 65% and we'll see where that's at).

 

I always figured the battery drain issue had something to do with the actual battery and not the rest of the hardware, it makes no sense for a clean install to fix it (who in the world suggested that?). Somehow the battery is continuing the discharge even when the computer is shutoff.

Does the battery drain still occur if you have the battery fully charged, than take it out of the computer and leave it somewhere else?

 

Well, the sleep mode battery drain is fixed by a clean install.
Apparently, if the battery is not in the laptop, then it will NOT loose the charge. I have not tested this though.

EDIT: The other laptop went from 65% to 49%

 

I don't know if this has been mentioned before. Try shutting down in power saver and high performance mode and see if you notice any difference.
I noticed with one of my Vaio's that when i leave it in power saver mode and turn my computer of and disconnect the adapter that i don't get any battery drain. However, i shut it down in high performance mode not that long ago and came back and my battery charge whittled all the way down to 20 odd percent and in power saver it always stays about 50 where i cap it it.
It is worth a try anyway if you haven't tried this.

I don't get any battery drain with my two Vaio's.

 

I'll give it a shot tonight. Thanks for the heads up.

That's so odd though that windows setting would effect it... especially since i had one sitting with no HDD in it (and it still drained a little).

 

Alright, my second laptop is being reboxed and prepared for return tomorrow. So... Who (who has the battery drain issue) want's to fully charge their laptop, take the battery out, then let it sit over night?

 

Last night I shut down at 48% in Power Saver mode.
I turned it on today at about 20%
28% loss in 9 hrs.

 

28%...Anyway, I ordered my CW

BTW, have you guys tried to talk with sony?

 

yea, i mis typed.

Check over on the other thread I made. And i'm going to contact Sony tomorrow.

 

First, lemme say that: as soon as I got my new CW27FX last week, I charged the battery to 100%, then removed it; been operating on the PS exclusively. This weekend, I put the batt back on (decided to surf in the backyard sun) and it was at 100% after sitting all week. I also got in excess of 3:30 actual runtime (which was pretty consistent with what Windows reported).

Looking at the cover-off photos posted in other threads..... You may notice a small NiMH battery on the mobo. I'd guess this little guy is there to, not only retain CMOS settings, but keep power to the mobo in general (wake-on-LAN perhaps). I'm going to assume that, with the presence of a main battery this small electrical load is placed.....on the main battery. I'd also surmise that if the little NiMH battery was discharged, it might also be recharged using the main battery.

So my advice: plug the freaking thing in, and / or remove the battery when not in use. Battery drain problem solved ;-)

 

++ I have done the same thing. When I first got my CW26 a week ago I charged the battery to 100% and removed it. I just have it plugged in since I use it at home. The few times I have put the battery in and used on battery alone. I got 3 1/2 hours.

I don't know what the deal is. Take the battery out. It is clear that Sony has some odd and questionable power settings/bios, etc... That is causing this. Lets hope they fix it.

but I have come to the conclusion that all batteries have loss. Until batt technology catches up with these devices we use. Deal with it...

 

I don't know if this has happened to anyone else, but I'd like to hear opinions:

Yesterday, I used my CW27 until it went dead (< 5% battery). I plugged it in at home in the afternoon (~4:30PM) with the battery in to charge. My BatterySaver settings caps the charge at 80%.

I left it plugged in and charging until I had to turn it on the next day (~7:30PM). During this span of time, it was always plugged in and never turned on or lid lifted. WiFi was also off and no peripherals were connected.

The thing is, when I turned it on for the first time since charging, the battery indicator said 64% right after boot up. This seems totally strange since with a cap of 80% and having been shut off this whole time, I don't see how it would have lost a charge. Boot up doesn't suck that much charge.

FYI: I turned off the "wake timers" or whatever they are called, and basically any other setting that would cause the laptop to turn on by itself. This is to the best of my knowledge and research. I used to find my laptop had turned on by itself, but it was totally off this time around, meaning I had solved the problem. Also, it was a cold boot and not a boot up out of hibernation or sleep.

Any thoughts?

 

Your laptop charged until 80%, it stopped charging since it was full, then because the Battery care is written poorly, it never re-initilized charging, and you lost battery due to the drain of the battery care program

 

That is plausible. I think the span of time and/or the fact that it was actually off while it is connected and charging is a factor.

I say this because if I have it plugged in and on while in class when it is already at max 80%, it will stay there at max, not trickle down.

So, yes, it may be that the battery care function is messed up because it doesn't keep it at max 80% while off and while it is off for a long time. As you said, it doesn't reinitialize charging if it starts to drain.

I hope this was a one time anomaly, but if someone cares to test with their own unit, feel free to do so and report.

 

There is a whole darn thread on battery drain that the (older) Z suffers from.
We've tried practically everything and in the end concluded a BIOS updates of sorts is required (or as the newer CW here suggest, new hardware or hardware with more updated firmwares). Basically, it ain't the battery's problem; it will not drain if left detached off the machine.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=299109&highlight=vaio+z+battery+drain