Windows Vista Question

Hello. I just bought a Sony Notebook with Vista and I just had a quick question. When I unplug the power chord I just wanted to know how to see the time remaining before the battery dies. When I hover over the icon, I only see the percentage and power plan. Is there a problem? Please help.

 

No, there's no problem.

I don't know why but for some reason either Microsoft or the OEMs seemto be phasing the 'remaining time' part of the battery out.

 

So are you saying that there is no way to tell how much time is remaining on the battery? Dang. This whomps.

 

There are freeware programs out there that can tell you the remaining time on the battery.

Check out Notebook Hardware Control (NHC). I think that it can tell you your remaining time.

 

NHC doesn't work with Vista atm.

 

I'm just confused because I've been checking out the Vista Help website and heres what it says, "If you hover over the battery icon, you can see the percentage of remaining battery charge, the amount of time remaining before the battery dies, and the power plan that you're using." *sigh* I'm confused. By the way...Thanks for all the suggestions and help!

 

I think you will find that even if you do see that remaining time thing, it's wishful thinking at best. It's a pretty rough estimate.

 

I agree that it's a rough estimate at best.

 

inaccurate!!!

if u click the battery icon, it should display time

even though its irrelevant like everyone says

one minute its 2hours remaining, the very next minute its 1hours 35min remaining and the very next minute it jumps to 3 hours 10 mins remaing

 

Still doesn't explain why it doesn't show the info though...
Could it be a sony only thing?
Don't really know since I haven't upgraded yet.

 

Here are pictures that prove it does display time & percentage.

Whenever u yank out the plug, it takes sometime before it displays battery time info.

just give it sometime, it would display both

even after installing the sony vaio battery check utility driver, it would still display both percentage and time.

of course if the power is plugged in it will only display percentage

so therefore its not a sony issue

 

i have also the same problem. anyone already found a solution for this?

 

I am having the same problem with a new Vaio that is running XP. Anyone have an idea on how to fix this?

 

I'm running the final release of Vista Business on an SZ3VP and I've also installed the Battery Check utility from Sony. When I plug out the power, it initially only shows the percentage, but after a few moments it displays the time remaining. Don't know why its not working for you guys.

 

anyone else with this issue?

 

I have the same porblem..any fix for it as yet?

 

I've just brought my new SZ with Vista Business with Vaio power management software running on it, and it displays the remaining time and percentage left on the battery when I unplug it.

Maybe you should try and download some utilities from Vaio support website?

Also yeh the "estimate" isn't very accurate but I did find if you continue to do the same thing for a while - it'll be much more accurate cause I guess it has to work out the estimated battery left depending on current usage?

Like when I'm browsing on the net via Wi-Fi, its fairly stable at 3:40mins, despite when I first turned on, it would say something like 2hrs only. I can see it steadily "recharge" itself.

 

Yup. When you turn on your Vaio when running off battery, it has to load everything up, spin the DVD drive, read from the hard drive, and CPU usage is generally increased. So the battery gets sucked up fairly quickly over a short period and the remaining time reads as low, such as 1hr 47mins. However, once you "settle down" and start doing what you usually would (browsing the web, typing a Word doc etc) then it stabilises to a more accurate reading (usually about 3 and a half hours in total for me). It seems pretty accurate to me then.

Only thing that bothers me is that Standby mode sucks the life out of the battery. Approximately 50% over a 12 hour period. Seems a bit high really. I remember on an old Toshiba laptop with XP you could leave it on Standby for 2 days and the battery would only be down about 35%. Ah well, the price you pay for Memory / Speed gains I supppose.

 

Well I always prefer the good hibernation mode. Definately longer battery than standbye, slow than standbye but faster than from a restart. Perfecto balance for me.

 

Its not just Sony. I just bought a HP 6258SE and its doing the same thing. No time remaining indicatory. I've tried the Vista Gadgets for battery and the Yahoo Widget for battery. Nothing is working. I know its a rough estimate but I would still like to see it working.

 

The battery remaining indicator works on my XPS M1210 running Vista but doesn't on my Vaio C
Would love to see it owrking on the latter too

 

i talked with hp customer support last night and they told me that some manufacturers are disabling this feature because they don't think its a good estimate. I guess Sony and HP have already done this.

 

Well I only just brought my SZ4 last week with Vista on it so it's pretty new I think??

And it is accurate in my opinion (obviously not to the 100% accuracy).

 

I'm having the same issue with my dv9000t. On a separate note, not specific to sony laptops but applicable to Vista users -- Is there a way to disable bluetooth easily? Lets me toggle wireless settings in the mobility manager but no sign of bluetooth options.

 

my sony FE890 doesnt show the time remaining on the battery icon either...would love to see this no matter how inaccurate it can be at times...

I feel like "percentage" alone doesnt tell me enough about how much is left in my battery...

 

There's quite a few sidebar gadgets for Vista that are battery gauges. Can one of you try temporarily installing one and seeing if it will give you the time remaining?

I used to use one but found it seemed to be giving me a different time than the one in the tray (less time than the tray utility).

 

Hi rEVOLVE...what do you mean by temporarily installing one of the sidebar gauges...I'm willing to try it...just dont know what you meant by it.

If you have instructions...Id be happy to try it--

Does your battery icon show you time remaining?

The only battery indicator Ive seen on my Vista is on the taskbar tray at the bottom right corner of the screen and it only gives me percentage of battery left...

Thanks!!!!!