Possible faulty battery?

Im just wondering,
Specs are i7-2630
500GB HDD
900p screen
Bigfoot Killer Wireless
8GB RAM

On lowest brightness and power saver mode with alienFX on, is it normal to only get 2+ hours of battery or did I receive a faulty battery?
* Just normal web browsing, watching some youtube

 

Are you sure things aren't running on the 555?

 

I had 2hours 20mins with 100% :s same here, tell me please if u find a fix

 

Well I get less than 3 hours with all power saving techniques applied, including turning off the fx lighting system, and only wifi on with web browsing. I thought I had a faulty battery too, but others I read had about the same battery life. I really don't know how dell achieved the 6 hours 45 minute battery life, I'd like to see how. But if you really need a battery improvement, try installing an ssd, could probably get around 4 or more hours of battery life.

 

Something is forcing the graphics card to run. Check your active processes and eliminate them one by one until it shuts off.

Even something like Flash or Photoshop loading at boot up could cause the graphics card to "turn on". My mother's MBP had a similar issue. Once I figured out what it was, her battery life tripled.

 

Hello, Im not sure if it helps but with a ssd i get about five hours just surfing and not using the nivia card. when i use the nivia card on wow i get only 2 hours. its not a graffic intense game but it uses the nivia all the time.
mind you i installed windows and updated all my drivers except the video card....waiting for Dell to officially release a better one.

 

I've been getting about 2 hours without any energy saving, have an ssd on the way.............. I presume you have the lighting off and backlight dim for five hours ?

 

under NVIDIA Control Panel i enabled the GPU activity icon and it shows that there is nothing running the GT555

 

Is the computer hot to the touch? If you just boot into Windows and walk away without opening any programs, browsers, etc and come back 10 minutes later, what's your estimated battery life? What is your processor doing (idling?)

On my mother's MBP, nothing was using the graphics card per say, but in her case, iPhoto was running in the background which caused the computer to switch over to the card.

Run > msconfig and turn off everything that isn't necessary for your system to boot up with and see if that helps if you haven't already.

 

Also, in IE9 and FF, you can disable GPU rendering, which will make sure the GPU is not used (just in case, you should already have profiles set by nVidia in the NCP, just set those for your web browser of choice to "Integrated."). I don't have my m11xR2 anymore, otherwise, I'd show you a few screenshots of how it's done.

 

laptop is cool to the touch, even after rebooting with only basic programs such as skype and windows messenger open, browsers and everything else closed, battery life is only 2 hours 40 mins at max. with alienFX off it only reaches about 3 hours. everything unnecessary has been turned off from msconfig and i also checked the processes running

 

Yes, i keep it dim or sometimes one notch up as the screen is bright enough. i used it for the five hours without the led but having it on in dim setting i get about 4 1/2 hours. keep in mind that my cpu usage is at extremely low as i don't have any unwanted services running and my ram usually floats around 40% usage as i usually have a ton of ie window running.

 

What is happening in those Internet Explorer Windows (and side bar, get off of Internet Explorer! )?

RAM is a non-moving part, so I wouldn't worry about that. However, every website that has any kind of flash, from flash based ads to youtube, netflix, hulu, etc will eat up CPU. Example, heavy Youtube use even with low volume or headphones will cut my Acer's battery in half. But your right, with nothing going on you should have more battery than 3 hours.

An SSD is nice, but it's not going to do much for battery life, especially if you're just browsing. Was this a new purchase or one from the Outlet?

 

My config with Balanced power plan and AlienFX on gets 4-5 hours on just browsing and minimal Flash content.

 

SSD would be kind of out of my budget, this is a new purchase from dell website. been using it for about 3 weeks

 

An SSD might help, but it definitely doesn't solve your problem. As an example, my Acer 5740 has a tired battery that is about a year and half old and has been through a TON of discharge cycles. In a 5 day work week, it gets almost fully discharged at least once a day. I was getting about 2 hours from a charge on the lowest brightness setting + power saving mode (this is still with Aero on). Granted, I messed with my power settings which I think screwed some things up along with axing Acer ePower Management but it's still degraded with time.

Earlier today I redid my system with a Samsung 470 Series SSD, fresh install from Acer Recovery disks, etc. With the same use, (screen fully dimmed, lowest brightness setting, power saving mode, and just browsing the net) my estimated battery life is around 3 hours. I have yet to fully test it.

While a similar result for you would be totally wicked, it still doesn't solve your problem IMO. If you're POSITIVE nothing is using the graphics card, then I agree, it's a battery issue. Here's a thought, and someone correct me if I'm wrong or if this won't work. But what about going in under "Device Manager" and disabling the card and rebooting? It seems like that's a surefire way to know, beyond a doubt, if it's the battery or something making the card run.

 

I'm sure this dude is fed up with everyone telling him it's his card. But remember, your battery life is suggesting very close to what you would get running that card, which is why they think that. I for one would say it's the battery. Although, there is an off change it is the GPU.

 

No doubt, but it's more frustrating if he sends his computer back to Dell, they replace the battery, he gets it back and the problem isn't solved. Personally, I think the max time that Alienware advertises is with an SSD. At the same time, it should be lasting 4 - 4.5 hours realistically. If he can disable the video card and test it that way, he'll know for sure IMO.

 

Install BatteryBar, pull the AC cord and tell us what average discharge rate you're seeing while on battery. You should be getting something in the range of 11-13 mW on power saving mode and lowest brightness. If it's much higher than that, then you might need to kill processes until you find the culprit.

If you are in the 11-13mW range but are still only getting 3 hours or less, it's likely that it's a problem with the battery, in which case you should take a look at your current level of battery wear (also with BatteryBar).

Of course, USB devices will increase the discharge rate, so be sure to unplug them all before testing.

 

I get about 3 1/3 to 4 hours with medium power saving options. Odd that you'd only get 2 unless something was using the nvidia chip.