battery drain

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 10:24 pm

So, I usually have my screen brightness to the dimmest possible setting when on battery because having it bright drains it faster. What I didn't expect is that it was giving me at least twice as much battery lifetime. Anyone else with a laptop experience that much difference? It's about 1.5 hours vs. 3 hours for me

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 10:29 pm

Yeah mine's like that too. But for me it's more like 1 hr vs 2 hrs.

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 10:34 pm

Mine lasts for at least a week (then again, it's a cell phone)

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 11:01 pm

yea, turn on B&W if you want your battery to last a decent amount

Post by **Jonathan** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 11:19 pm

Mm. Haven't fiddled with it. When using the DVD drive, Amber's laptop goes from like a 5 hour charge to less than 2 hours. That sucked.

I will say that my battery reports a cycle count of 294 discharges. This apparently means my battery will need to be replaced soon, according to my battery. The design capacity of my battery is 43.2 Wh, but I'm down to 28.2 Wh of total capacity now. When I get below 30% charge remaining, it jumps down to 5% and tells me to hibernate or die now. Fun fun fun.

Post by **Jonathan** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 11:36 pm

From what I remember, CPU, disk, screen, and wireless all consume the same order of magnitude of power. Depends on your form factor, of course.

I think memory's power draw is smaller than all of those, but still not altogether ignoreable.

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 4:24 am

Dwindlehop wrote:I will say that my battery reports a cycle count of 294 discharges. This apparently means my battery will need to be replaced soon, according to my battery. The design capacity of my battery is 43.2 Wh, but I'm down to 28.2 Wh of total capacity now. When I get below 30% charge remaining, it jumps down to 5% and tells me to hibernate or die now. Fun fun fun.

From what I understand, batteries are designed such that if you cycle it all the way down to nothing, it's supposed to recalibrate its discharge rate. Apparently, you have a sucky battery.

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 4:27 am

Dave wrote:yea, turn on B&W if you want your battery to last a decent amount

I think everyone just ignoring Dave's post as too silly to reply to is mean. We should at least be nice enough to nod and smile.

*nods*

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 4:32 am

VLSmooth wrote:Mine lasts for at least a week (then again, it's a cell phone)

The fact that your only portable device is a cell phone just seems kinda sad. I seriously would feel limited without wireless and my laptop. It's so much nicer to just up and move to a different room when you're tired of being in one place. Also, watching movies in bed becomes much easier. And, if I fall asleep watching the movie, I won't be cramped from the stupid chair *cough* vinny *cough*.

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 4:33 am

I just leave my phone on vibrate most of the time.

Mmmm, vibrate.

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 4:36 am

sorry alan, I rewrote my post to narrow the scope of my arguement. And yeah, vibrate is good, loud ring BAD.

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Sun Jan 25, 2004 2:47 am

quantus wrote:The fact that your only portable device is a cell phone just seems kinda sad.

I have this strange stigma against anything requiring batteries, since I'm too lazy to replace them. Yes, I know lithium ion is supposed to have "little to no battery memory effect", but so long as it's still there, I'd prefer not to use it.

This may change in the future, but I doubt it'll be anytime soon.

quantus wrote:And, if I fall asleep watching the movie, I won't be cramped from the stupid chair *cough* vinny *cough*.

Hey, I only did that a few... um, nevermind.