New laptop battery life queries

Lady_K

Is it normal for a new laptop?

This is a new sony vaio nw20fs, it is advertised as having up to 4 hours battery life. I know batteries don't usually give the maximum time depending what the laptop is being used for so I wasnt expecting the full 4 hours but before doing anything, just turning the computer on it says 1 hour 50 mins remaining 80%. I rang sony and they said its normal and its just a guide.

Sony sent me a battery test by email, I did this and the battery did in fact last over the 4 hours to be honest but this was by doing absolutely nothing, not even touching the mouse and no one uses a laptop like that. I had to change my settings to no hibernation, no screensaver, brightness to 1, power saver for battery and all start up programs disabled with wireless switched off. I had to fully discharge the battery, charge it for 8 hours, boot up on mains then remove the mains when fully loaded and start timing down.

Before the battery test the laptop was just as it was from the factory apart from me adding the wireless password I charged uit up to 100% rebooted and it was reading 1hour 50 minutes remaining 80% the instant it loaded.

Then I took off macafee security suite, replaced it with zone alarm free and avast free, I also removed norton back up, added ccleaner and quick start up and disabled some start up items that were not needed, it then read 2 hours 0 minutes remaining on start up 100% charged.

Is this acceptable? there are 13 start up programs in start up 11 of them to do with vaio and the other 2 avast and zone alarm. I want to improve the battery life more if I can

After the battery test vaio said nothing is wrong with the battery and if I'm not happy it would be between myself and the place I bought it as the laptop isnt at fault. I didnt even say I wanted to return it but they just wanted to get accross to me that they had no obligation to me I guess but I thought they were a bit abrupt

davester

yep the more processor power and wifi on , usbs used etc lower the max battery life. 4 hrs is what you get from booting it up and doing nothing, might even be with the lid down so the backlite for the monitor is off.
Its a bit of taking the perverbials but well if they said the battery will last 30 mins of playing the farm in facebook in McD you might have thought nah I wont buy it,

Lady_K

Its not going to be used for games just microsoft office stuff and general surfing, I did expect less than the 4 hours but not as low as 2 and thats with booting up on the mains at first as well.

Not sure what is really needed in the start up misconfig, there is more there than the quick start up. Its useful to know not to have the wifi switched on while its not needed too.

When hibernation is set can work be lost in microsoft word and office? as I've noticed that once hibernation sets in moving the mouse pad or clicking it wont start it back up, the start up button has to be pressed again to get it to resume windows. I just don't want to risk my daughter losing work. Is there any way of getting it to resume windows with just touching the mouse instead of pressing the start button again? its windows 7 home premium

Donnie

You have to fiddle with the Power Options in the Control Panel.

Marty_J

Lady_K wrote: »

Sony sent me a battery test by email, I did this and the battery did in fact last over the 4 hours to be honest but this was by doing absolutely nothing, not even touching the mouse and no one uses a laptop like that.

Bingo. This is how many manufacturers come up with their battery life figures.

davester

Good power saving tips are, Lower the screen brightness, if you have advanced power settings then turning off a dedicated card and also most chips have a step voltage system which can be forced to the lower voltage. makes the computer slower but if your surfing or letter writing its not really needing the nitro boost anyway.

Donnie

Makes a mockery on spending extra for the Sony, in expectation of superior performance. In reality, you get the same performance, wrapped up in a nice looking package.

Millionaire

Marty_J wrote: »

Bingo. This is how many manufacturers come up with their battery life figures.

Yep, Your battery is working fine.

Buy any Laptop from any manufacturer and you won't get the quoted battery life in use.

Also did you calibrate the battery correctly?

Sometimes on new batterys there is a calibration process required to get maximum performance out of the battery. Normally requiring to fully charge it the first time, then letting it drain till almost empty and repeating this procedure a few times. Have a look in the manual.

Saving_spree

The problem should be with your battery. Get it checked.

aliEnRIK

Millionaire wrote: »

Sometimes on new batterys there is a calibration process required to get maximum performance out of the battery. Normally requiring to fully charge it the first time, then letting it drain till almost empty and repeating this procedure a few times. Have a look in the manual.

Thats standard with ALL rechargeable batteries really

Lady_K

It did not say in the instructions to fully charge then discharge when using it for the first time but I did this anyway so its been done correctly plus its been done more times because of the battery test.

As long as I know its normal then I will work around it and just try and set it to get the most out of it, boot it up on mains at first where possible and not use wifi unless its really needed. There are options for power saving for both mains and battery separatley so I will check those out as she wont want the same for both. I will have to find out what is really neeeded in the start up msconfig too.

I'm glad I didnt get a 17 inch laptop I can see now the battery would have taken up more for that.

I did not actually expect superior performance from the sony at all, not after getting info from mse before buying, I knew I was paying a bit more for perhaps a more attractive laptop but the main reason was the comfortable keyboard setting which I couldnt find in any other, she does like it so I'm pleased with that.

Only thing I would say is after using a hp business laptop for so long the first thing I noticed was the casing on it, you can feel a slight flex with the sony when you pick it up but the hp is much more robust. If I were to buy a laptop again I would most likely go for a business level one in any make

This laptop is just about silent when running though, I'm quite amazed with that