Battery Life Decrease In Windows 7 [ Edited ]

[Rumi]

I've recently installed Windows 7 Professional.  And I have to say the overall experience is great so far.  No issues installing it on my X200.  All the drivers work, and all my previous software does too.

However, I've run into something I didn't really expect.  The battery life on my notebook now has decreased quite a bit.  Usually on Maximum battery profile, my computer only drains out anywhere from 8 to 12 watts.  But now, it can hit up to easily 20W sometimes more on occasions while in maximum battery mode.  And, it usually stays around 13 to 18 when not doing anything.  This really isn't good.  That's about an hour worth of battery life for me gone.  It's not really a massively HUGE issue but keeping the wattage low as possible is always a big plus in the mobile world.  

Any tips or maybe software updates that would fix this, would be greatly appreciated.

Another note: Intel Turbo Memory, only ReadyDrive really works if you have more then 2GB.  Having ReadyBoost on slowed down shutting down, and sleeping greatly.  Once I turned it off, it made things a lot faster.  ReadyDrive seems to be okay.  I don't really notice a difference but it isn't doing anything bad so I'll keep it on for now.

[msommerlandt]

Hi,

I've upgraded my T500 from its original Windows Vista to Windows 7, including updating the ThinkVantage Power Manager and Switchable Graphics drivers. However, since then, in Energy Star mode the battery power only lasts for 2 hours or less, whereas it did last for up to 9 hours with Windows Vista installed. The laptop has a 9 cell battery in it... 2 hours sounds absurd to me. I haven't upgraded the BIOS yet.

Does anybody know, what I can do to bring back its old power consumption and battery life?

Thanks,

Martin

[RealStranger]

Hi,

I do not know whether this is the case for the T500, but the switchable graphics driver for the T400 still has the problem that after coming out of standby both graphics adapters are running and thus draining energy. Switching to high performance and back fixes this.

I am of the opinion that the power management drivers for Win7 are still less optimized (on 6-cell I get ~5h on Win7, >6h on Vista) - but hopefully Lenovo will fix this soon.

Greetz!

M.T.

[Sayuuk]

That's definately the same issue!

I was going crazy because of the power consumption (~25-30W when playing a movie at 30% brightness!!)

You need to switch to the dedicated graphics adapter and back to bring the energy consumption down to the "normal levels", but they are still somewhat higher than in Vista....

Anyway, would be great to see this fixed as soon as possible, but I guess Lenovo's already working on it =)

Cheers!

Stefan

[msommerlandt]

Hi,

thanks for your responses!

I've already switched "Switchable Graphics" to "Energy Saving" (which is the Power Manager menu item for integrated graphics, right?) and the Power Plan "Energy Star" is activated as well. Yet the battery only lasts for less than 2 hours...

Any other recommendations?

Thanks,

Martin

[Sayuuk]

Still, if you used standby (or rebooted the pc?), you need to:

1. activate High Performance

2. activate Energy Saving

even if you already switched to the integrated graphics.

Just switch back and forth a second time!

You need to do this after every standby (and after every reboot, as far as I believe)

Stefan

[msommerlandt]

Hi back,

ok, I've switched to High Performance and then back to Energy Saving... the result is - after pulling out the power supply - it shows remaining battery power for 4 hours instead of 1:50h... ok, that's an improvement, but not quite 9 hours how it was suppose to be in Power Mode "Energy Star" under Vista

Maybe I need to wait until the final version for ThinkVantage products with Windows 7 support will be released... should be Oct 22nd... hopefully

If I make progress, I'll post it here.

Thanks,

Martin

[Sayuuk]

9hrs sounds like a lot to me....

I never got that much out of mine....

[msommerlandt]

Hi,

9 hours was simply possible with lowest/nearly lowest display brightness setting, energy star power mode enabled, battery stretch activated and re-activated wireless adapter... without wireless adapter activated I could work for almost 10 hours

using the following T500 configuration: 9 cell battery, SSD hard drive, switched to integrated graphics, WSXGA+ resolution, no USB device plugged in, battery strech enabled (optical drive disabled, audio muted, display settings changed, but wireless LAN enabled)

That's the reason I'm still not really satisfied with Windows 7's power consumption...

Thanks,

Martin

[matram]

Hi,

My T400s comes in at around 10-11 W on lowest power setting with the latest Lenovo drivers.

Something does not seem quite right on your machine? May I suggest you try to disable different devices and see if you can pinpoint what is causing the high consumption.

Mats