What's the current news on Sony SR's drain and incorrect estimation?

Hey everyone,

I bought a SR140D just now and was wondering if those 2 problems are still big issues.

Thanks

 

AFAIK the problems still exist.

 

I bought a CTO SR for my g/f, i tested the battery drain problem twice. From 100% charge after starting it up and when it finally got working, there was a 98% and 97% charge. I don't feel that i have the problem.

 

well the battery drain usually show when you put the computer to stand by or hibernation on battery

you probably won't notice any drainage if you shut off your laptop on AC or when battery is fully charged

 

But i would say it's not even a big deal
most people are still getting really great battery life from their SRs.

 

Tony I have a question. If the battery meter is inaccurate, how do you determine the total battery life? Like how I will know when my battery is getting low or something?

Thanks

EDIT: I just put my SR in low powered state for about 40 minutes and the charge didn't drop. Why hibernate when you can just power down?

 

Yeah exactly.. the estimated battery life drops really slow.

Well, i mostly use my laptop in school, and i don't want to wait for minutes for my laptop to turn off at the end of a class, and then wait a couple more minutes for it to turn on when i get to my next class...

 

Wait, I don't get it... so I was under the impression that the batter meter goes faster than the actual battery. For example:

The battery says there's 80% juice left and it'll last 2 hours and 10 minutes

In reality, there's 85% juice left and will last for 4 hours and 20 minutes.

Is that the correct assumption here?

From what you've just said, it seems to be the opposite.

Also, what's the difference between hibernate and low power state (just close the lid).

Lastly, how do you notice the battery drain? I was under the impression that when you open up the laptop from hibernation, the battery life % drops significantly. However, I just powered off my laptop for about an hour and it didn't drop a single percent. Am I looking at the wrong thing?

Thanks

 

It seems the battery drops super fast when I am using it. Like 1% every minute. However, this reduction slows down significantly at about 15%. In fact, so slow that if I turn on full power with full brightness, it would take 10 minutes for 1% to go down again.

Would this be kind of the equalization of it draining fast in the beginning? So if the battery says 60%, there's probably 80% left still. It gets more accurate once it drops below 20% it seems.

This is all very weird!

 

yes, your assumption is correct.. i wasn't being clear enough in my last post, sorry about that.
my battery life estimate never go over 2hours40minutes..

well, the computer completely shuts off when it's in hibernation (which means no power is (suppose to be) being used...)
in stand by, your computer is still in a low power state

Umm.. I only see battery drain when i put my laptop to stand by or hibernate on battery.. I don't see any drain at all if i shut off my laptop.

 

it just means the battery life prediction is not accurate at all..

have you calibrated your battery yet, that might help a little bit.

 

Ah that makes sense. I think one thing to keep in mind is that there might not be battery drain at all...

Why do you ask? Well, if the battery meter is the only way to indicate battery life level and it's inaccurate, then who can say for sure that there's battery drain? What if it's simply the battery meter scaling off?

 

How do you calibrate the battery? I recall seeing the option on some other laptop, but not on this =\

 

Well your laptop is still gonna think the battery is out of power (even if it's not)
which makes it impossible to turn on the laptop
some users have reported that if they let their laptops sit there for a week, they couldnt turn on the laptop, and had to plug it in the AC adapter to turn it on.

 

you just totally discharge your battery, and recharge it.

it's recommended that you calibrate your battery once a month

(don't completely discharge the battery too much though, it's makes the battery go bad faster)

 

Okay last 1 thing!

Like you said, if the battery meter goes to 0, the computer wouldn't turn on, and the battery meter is inaccurate. Does that not mean SR has crappy battery life?

You said you never see above 2hr40min, which means even if the battery can realistically last for 6 hours, but the battery meter says 2hr40min. Does that not mean even if there's battery left, the computer would not actually utilize those juice?


So..... if the computer says there's no more battery, but there's actually 50% battery. The computer would not turn on because it thinks there's no battery. Therefore, the computer has only 50% battery that can be used. Does that make sense?

I am just kind of confused about this all!

 

I'm not really good at explaining so I don't really know how to explain it to you
but you shouldn't really worry about this.
I can still get through school everyday just fine
I'm getting about 3hours and 30minutes of battery life per charge.. which is very close to what sony claimed (4 hours for SR with the ATI card)

 

and I have heard people reported even though the computer only estimated 2hrs40mins of battery life, they actually got 5+hours of battery life

You should really check out these two threads for more info
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=295886
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=282258

 

Yah that makes sense. Because when I first got the laptop this morning, the batter was only at 30%, but I used it for almost 2 hours because I recharged it. I think the battery meter works inversely, meaning that it appears to be discharging really fast, but slows down as it gets lower and lower. When I go to school on Monday, I will test my theory and see how many hours I can actually get. I got the integrated graphics, so I will see if i can get 5 hours using power saver and 4/8 brightness while writing documents and listening to music, if I can't get atleast 4.5 hours, I will probably return it.

 

uninstall the bloatwares on the laptop (or do a clean install).. and turning off unneeded services can also help battery life
turning off sidebar, aero, indexing serivce, etc, can also help battery life a lot..

 

The battery drain problem is also when you shut off your laptop.

I'm not sure if it needs to be on battery or if it also shows up on AC.

On standbye it is supposed to drain, so i would not call that the battery drain problem.

 

Exactly

I fully charged the lap to 100% on the a/c and then shut it down. it stayed that way for roughly 10 hours. I turned it back on using battery power.

The two times i did this i was at 98% and 97% once it finally was totally started.

 

well try shutting off/or hibernating when your battery is not fully charged or try shutting off/or hibernating on battery

I havent heard anybody reported any battery drain when they shut down their SR on AC with the battery fully charged

 

good to know!

 

hmm i bought the sr yesterday and shut it off at around 12:00. I turned off the wireless and cd/dvd drive before I shutted it off. the battery had 53% and when I turned it on this morning it was only 38%.

 

exactly.. i think that the battery only drains why you shut it off on battery/ or when it's not fully charged.