Battery Life Decrease In Windows 7

[TheDude]

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AleHop wrote:

What I cannot understan is why we have to stick to Lenovo drivers. Why is not possible to download a switchable graphics driver from anywhere else in the world. Is there a Microsoft driver working fine for that purpouse? Intel? Ati? Anything at all?

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You have to use Lenovo drivers because the switchable implementation is unique to Lenovo. If you disabled one or the other chips in Bios, then you should be able to use standard drivers for the working chip, but with swichable enabled, you need the Lenovo (well, ATI actually as modivfied by or for Lenovo) driver.

[TurboMecca]

I also experience the same battery decrease problem since uppgrading to Win7 Home (from Win7 Beta). Win7 used to offer better battery life under Beta, I used to get ~6h with a 6-cell (same figures as with XP or Vista) when Win7 Beta was installed.

Since uppgrading to Win 7 Home Premium after it was released I'm getting 3,5-4h at best and I can now hear the fan spinning at low-intensive work (like writing this & light browsing) and I also note an increased heat-output from the fans. With Win7 Beta (XP and Vista), my laptop never even got warm at light duty, not anything I noted anyway, when running on the integrated Intel-graphics.

Also, when installing the switchable graphics driver my battery life get even worse and it seemed to consume even more when running on the integrated Intel graphics, than when using the dedicated Ati-graphics. Fans spinning all the time like a cheap gamer oriented Acer...

This is totally unacceptable, someone (Microsoft, Intel or Lenovo)  needs to fix what is broken. I'm getting reports that other notebook owners with other brands experience the same problem since uppgrading to Win7. 

My Thinkpad is a T400 2765-D4G with LED and switchable graphics and a Intel 80Gb G2 SSD (the latter should lower power consumption even more).

As of now, the best battery life I manage to get is with the included Intel chipset drivers that comes with the Win7 installation and then I'm getting almost 4h (12-14 Watt at idle). This really s*** and is not what I expected when I bought this premium notebook and upgraded it with the latest Microsoft OS that boasted better batterylife.

Just fix it already.

[djshack]

I also notice the fan spinning just about all the time in Win7.  What I used to notice, in Vista, was that the fan was virtually never on when running on battery power.  I miss this, as now my T400 reminds me of my roommate's broken old 4-year-old Gateway laptop that runs the fan while asleep.

[Sayuuk]

I noticed the prolem with the fan, too.

You can temporarily switch it off by re-enabling the current power plan, but that doesn't stick.

I'm thinking it may have something to do with bot graphics chips being used. The TP uses more power and produces probably some more heat, although the additional heat of the X4500MHD should be neglectible...

I'm pretty pis... right now. This has been a problem from day one and they don't seem to care.

At least some comment on why this takes so long would be appropriate by now...!

[Faceless_Rebel]

I had this problem as well. I ended up also disabling Switchable Graphics in the BIOS and setting it to Integrated Graphics. I don't use the Discrete Graphics all that much, but having to reboot to get it back is less convenient than Switchable Graphics. At least Win7 boots ten times faster than Vista. However I still use about ~1 W more at idle than I did in Vista with completely identical settings in the Power Manager. I lost about 1/2 to 1 hour from my battery life. I thought Win7 was supposed to be more energy efficient than Vista, at least MS was hyping it that way. This really needs to be fixed.

[djshack]

This is exactly how I've been running my laptop since upgrading to Windows 7.  I very rarely would switch to the discrete graphics, so I just switched the BIOS to integrated.  I also don't use Power Manager.

[johnb8s]

Hi there I have a new T400 with windows 7 x64 installed. So far the battery life isnt good.(actually battery life halves approx compared to XP)

Are there any fixes for this or is this?

As a comparison ive installed Windows XP 32 Bit and on my 6 cell battery im back to battery life I was expecting.

Oh and does anyone have a way of retro fitting a t400 with an LED panel and backlight (my booboo) as I just assumed and didnt order one.

Regards John Ba

[Sayuuk]

I don't see how this is a permanent solution for anyone with this problem!

We bought very, very, very expensive notebooks, supposedly with one of the best support systems provided by the manufacturer.

I myself paid more than 2300$ for my T500.

Included is an option, that distinguishes the T500 from most of the other notebooks - and was at least for me - the main reason to buy this exact model/notebook: HYBRID-graphics.

This problem with the switchable graphics driver has been there from day ONE of the Windows 7 release.

It is unbelievable, that there has been no official replay whatsoever about whether this is being addresses in current driver development, has been noticed at all or why it is taking so long to release a version with a fix to this problem.

I know that this is a community forum, but don't tell me that lenovo-employed people aren't looking at the posts and trying to address the issues we mention in here.

[rfreschner]

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Sayuuk wrote:

don't tell me that lenovo-employed people aren't looking at the posts and trying to address the issues we mention in here.

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Based on the fact that the post prior to yours that asked everyone to do something that would cause negative publicity for Lenovo was deleted soon after it was posted, I would say they're reading them.  Doing something about the problem - maybe, maybe not, but reading the posts - definitely! 

[Sayuuk]

I know, I noticed that one, too!^^