Vaio SA battery life

Is anyone else having problems with the battery life on their Vaio SA? Their website advertises 7 hours, but I'm lucky to get half of that. I've got the screen on approx 75% brightness, and was downloading updates and installing software. I've gone through a few battery drains and recharges, and battery bar is showing 52,170 mWh, and a Full Lifetime of just over two hours!

 

No one else having this problem? I also have heat problems, and when the fan does decide to come on, it's usually when the laptop isn't that warm. In addition to that, the screen hinge is terrible, you either have to have the screen tilted forward or too far back to see clearly. Anywhere in between and the screen will move forward and backward depending on how you sit with the laptop. It's practically impossible to use in bed as the screen has to be tilted back well beyond 90 degrees or it just flops forward.

 

Unbelievable... Just got off with a Sony rep who tried to tell me that 2.5 hours is good battery life for a Vaio SA and that it will only get the 5 to 7 hour advertised battery life if I'm not using my computer.

 

Lol @ Sony rep.

I don't know what I get without my slice battery since I have had it attached at all times so far. I am getting 8-9 hours with slice battery, speed mode, full brightness, fairly constant web surfing and word processing.

 

Battery bar shows a discharge rate of around -16mW. I have no clue what is normal.

 

2.5 hours? haha. This is why I'm cautious of moving away from my current laptop/netbook. Obviously it has no chance of reaching performance but I'd like to stay away from the charger for longer than 2.5 hours.

 

Around and around we go. The latest rep said that I should only be getting 1 hour of battery life. Where do they get these guys?

 

Well, if you look at this review of the SB version which states about 5h11min of surfing with WLAN and 4h18min of DVD playback you should assume that the SA with the i7 cpu will be a bit under that but nowhere near low as 1 or 2 hours of battery life (only if you use it on maximum brightness and 100% cpu/gpu load -> see review 0h59min).

P.S. (with additional sheet battery multiply the time by aprox. 2)

 

Are you on Stamina mode? because if not that would explain a lot. Speed mode drains the battery at least twice as fast as normal.

 

Wow. I have an SB with the i7 and 6630 and my discharge rate is -8mW on stamina and -13mW on speed....

 

What sort of rep? Sales, tech support, etc? You may want to try again without saying the problem is battery life (by now tech support people are tired of dealing with marketing claims). Instead, try saying the problem is that battery bar discharge indicator is goofy and go after the issue that way.

 

I also mentioned the hinge problem, and they are finally willing to do something about it, even though I think the hinge problem is by design in this model.

The switch was on speed mode, but my battery options were set to balanced and the screen was at 50% brightness. No way I should be getting that low of battery life.

 

Putting it on speed mode is an issue because the marketing claim is assuming stamina AND power saver along with 50% brightness. My Z gets to the advertised 5 hours on stamina and power saver but barely reaches 3 hours under speed and balanced.

 

The SB gets about 2 hours on speed, high performance, running starcraft2. You couldn't possibly expect 5-6 hours with the video card on?

 

Just tighten the screws used to hold the hinge. They are accessible.

 

Usually, advertised hours for a laptop is for idle mode on low power settings; not normal usage. So, I would subtract around 2 hours from the advertised hour and that would make the Sony SA be around 5 hours on light usage.

Now, you're running around 75% screen brightness (still pretty high & power consuming; power-savings mode is around 30%) and speed mode (video card always on). So, getting half of the advertised hours or less seems quite normal for how you are using your laptop.

Dim your screen brightness to around 30% & use power-savings mode; then maybe you'll reach closer to 4-5 hours.

Also, the type of processor and battery capacity are some important factors to consider for battery life. The Core i7 will obviously drain more battery life than a Core i3/i5 and having a higher capacity battery will give you more hours if you choose to buy one, et cetera.

 

Not necessarily. The Core i3, i5 and i7 are all at 35 W TDP so they should consume more or less the same amount of energy, if there is any difference. The problem lies within the processor power management-setting it at 40% maximum should do the trick.

 

30% brightness? The screen on that thing is terrible and looks even worse at 50% brightness. 30% would be all but unusable unless you're in a pitch black room.

Fortunately I found a decent manager at the Sony store and was able to return it without a restocking fee. Unless the Z is spectacular I am probably done with Sony for good.

 

It's great that you were able to return the laptop without a restocking fee.

Most advertised battery hours are usually bogus and are based on the laptop being in idle mode (with power-savings settings) and not in normal usage. Just do some research before buying a specific laptop and you'll be fine. Good luck on your next purchase.

 

Hard to research brand new products

I have never had a laptop that had such a large difference between advertised battery life and actual battery life. Even DVD playback was supposed to have 4.5 hours.

From the sony website:
* Default Settings: Up to 7.5 hours
* Full Brightness: Up to 6.5 hours
* DVD Playback: Up to 4.5 hours

My Dell is MUCH closer to the advertised battery life, I get about 80% of the advertised rate.

 

It's interesting that the SA battery capacity is 52w.
I would be interested in seeing what other SA owners with an ssd are getting in stamina mode with the optical drive disabled.

 

My SA battery is just 4400ma 49wh... are there different models around?

 

I have read this before, the OP claims that their SA has a 52whr battery.
Did you look in HW Monitor?
All the batteries are advertised as VGP-BPS24 so battery capacities should be the same for all models.

 

Ok this is strange. The writing on the battery claims 49wh but HW monitor claims it is 52170mWh.. so who's right? Any why is it like that?

 

I would say that HW Monitor/Battery Bar was correct. Why it's like that i'm not quite sure.

 

its a normal deviation from the curve, happens in most batteries

 

^
I was thinking that was the likely reason but not being 100% certain didn't want to elaborate on it. Some batteries may be over and some may be 48-49whr. If that's not the case may be i would have expected them to be aware of this. Sony's i've owned whr has been pretty much accurate, we can expect a 1wh difference etc. I see that some of the SB series are advertised as having 48whr or a 50whr battery. Still though we have to allow for that margin as you say. 3-4wh is a bit more though.

 

from the notebooks that I used there was always some deviation of 1-2wh, thats why I said that. So far that was 7 machines (including work ones) so its indeed a small pool to say anything with float point accuracy

 

There is a slight difference in lithium polymer and lithium ion batteries with voltage. so it could be the software that is calculating a little different, or the readout is different.

i am getting pretty long battery times on my sb, i have installed a ssd and the lowest consumtion i get is around 5,6w, normal use is around 8w.

The thing is, the cpu low in energy use, together with the igp and the other parts in the laptop are quite efficient as well, so almost all of the energy is being used by the screen, thats why the battery doesn't last that long with higher brightness.

 

Where are the screws??? The ones below the hinge aren't the one, they're already screwed rock tight.

 

You are simply kidding yourself. Just look at the results for the SB ( http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Sony-Vaio-VPC-SB1Z9EB-Subnotebook.51214.0.html), they're pretty accurate. The reason you're getting poor results is that you keep using speed mode, which uses TWICE as much power, hence your battery life is always HALF.

The review website states 8hr40min for max battery life (Stamina), 5hr11min for normal usage (Stamina), 4hr18min for movies (Stamina), and 59min for max load (gaming will probably be about 2 hours). So how are you not getting the advertised battery life?

 

Just to give some real test results: Sony Vaio SA i7, 8gb, 128GB SSD, 40% brightness, WLAN On, Keyboard Backlight permanently on, bluetooth off, wwan off, standard battery (no aditional sheet battery)
Readers Test: ~7hours
Surfing, Office, Mails etc.: ~5 hours

I'd say that is pretty good concidering the permanently enabled backlight keyboard and WLAN on at all times. I will check how the sheet battery effects the time but I'd assume its aprox. double time.

 

Hi all, does anyone know the appropriate way to use the battery in conjunction with the sheet battery? E.g., is it bad to keep the sheet battery attached all of the time? Is it good/bad to constantly be charging/uncharging the battery even if its only depleted 20 or 25% of the way? HELP w/general battery usage techniques please!

 

I second that request! Would love any insight into getting the best out of sheet.

 

My SC on speed/performance is around 1:45 gaming. The game is pretty light weight though graphically (Eschalon Book II).

 

Are you able to control the charge threshold for each battery?

A good way to manage battery longevity is to restrict the recharge threshold to something like 'charge when battery is less than 80% full, up to 90% max'. This can be done in Thinkpads, and I know Sony has similar features in the power managing software. The percent will differ, but hybrid vehicles do this to their battery (near 50% mark) too to keep them working for a long time.

Things to avoid are completely depleting the battery to 0%, keeping it fully charged 100% for a long time, and of course the heat. If you attach the sheet battery, you should pay attention how much more heat it gets from restricted air flow.

I wouldn't worry about recharging constantly from 80% to 90% max, but would try to avoid charging from 90% topping off to 100%.

 

Both you guys mean W, not mW. If it was mW, battery life would be over 3000 hours with a 50 Wh battery.

Discharge rate of 8W on mostly idle seems like a typical Sandy Bridge laptop with 12-13" screen and integrated intel HD graphics. 16W might be from powering on the discrete graphics card as others pointed out.

 

Read everything here:
How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries – Battery University

To summarize the key points:
1. Store in cool and dry place, do not expose to heat
2. If storing for a long time, store at about 50% charge, not at full charge
3. Try not to drain it completely too often, but once in a while, charge to full then drain to max then charge to full again to recalibrate battery gauge.
4. You can charge the battery from any level (20,25,50%) as Lithium batteries don't have memory effect.

Yes, Sony Control Center has 2 options for prolonging battery life. 80% threshold if you use the battery often and 50% if you're on AC most of the time.

 

My battery got hit hard today and only lasted 55 minutes or so gaming. Windows 7 did an update last night... now I'm concerned.

 

So my battery life is OK...i cant possibly see it getting 10 hours with the sheet battery...on stamina mode w/out sheet battery and on 70% volume its giving me about 3.5 hours...

 

70% volume = meant to say brightness

 

I get around 5 hours from 80%battery to 15%battery or so.

Wifi on. Brightness auto controlled (in office setting), web+excel+ppt.

 

Only found sony UK official site has this battery and in store.

VGP-BPS24 (VGPBPS24, VGPBPS24.CE7) : VAIO & computing : Sony

But look a cheaper replacement site to purchase, they said it's original.

4400mAh, 11.1V sony VGP-BPS24 Battery | 6-Cell sony VGP-BPS24 Laptop Battery Pack

Any suggestion?

 

Why/how would this affect it?

How do you manually turn off the optical drive?


SA - (I have i7)
Finally, w/o the battery sheet, 0% brightness and volume and WLAN, etc off, stamina mode and using Powerpoint and Word I get about 7 or 8 hours.

With the battery sheet, WLAN on, again 0% brightness and volume, stamina mode and just surfing the net I get about 10 hours.

EDIT: Both are balanced power plans, I've never put it into power saver - does this really make a difference?