9-cell battery in the i9300

I just received my i9300: No dead pixels! Minimal sparkle! Great! Haven't loaded up a game into it though. Thing is, you say that i can get up to 5 hours battery life with the 9-cell, but my battery indicator says i have around 3 hours and 40 minutes at full charge... I turned the brightness all the way down, turned off wireless, used the QuickSet setting change... Anything else i need to do?

 

I'm in the same boat.. I don't know where they get 5 hours runtime.. I've even started into the world of underclocking/volting and I'm not able to break the 4 hour mark, although I do keep wireless enabled.

 

Disabling wireless gives you a TON of battery life.

 

turn down your brightness and disable your wireless will be the biggest help. I know dell states you are suppose to get around 5 hours, but i usually get about 4 hours with wireless on/brightness down all the way.

If you have quickset, you might try using the "maximize battery" option and see if you get better results.

Right now, I have 77% of my battery left with 4 hours and 12 minutes remaining. This is using Dell quickset--set to maximize battery, wireless off, and brightness around 75% of full.

SG

 

Really?
I get 3 hours flat with wireless off, brightness all the way down at 86%... But mine is new, is there something i should do with the battery before it can show its true potential? Or are you using an undervolting program?

Is there a way to check if they gave me the correct battery?

 

I think the program "powerstrip" (google it) will give you some info on your battery.

 

LOL, no i'm not undervolting. The only thing I can think of is because i had quickset set to maximize battery. Right now, i have a full battery and have it set to maximized battery with wireless enable, and I'm getting a estimated time of 5 hours and 27 minutes left.

SG

 

Yupz... still 2 hours. I did the maximize battery setting... Still gets 3 hours +... Anyway to check whether or not i got the correct battery? It says 80 WhR... So i assume it is correct...

 

That's just weird. I've been using my battery for the last hour at least, and I still have 72% left with 3 hours remaining. I can't remember exactly when i went to battery.

Might be a difference since the remaining time is only estimated.
Tomorrow, i'll run it on battery and see the what is the exact amount of time I get.
SG

 

Could it be related to the programs used or the WUXGA screen?

 

I think from what I learned from my problem with my computer in another thread, is that one big factor is the graphic card. SG is using the ATI X300 64 MB with setting probably to maximize battery life while Ardor is using the GeForce 256 MB with setting probably set to maximize performance.

I am not talking about the battery setting in the QuickSet, it is the battery option on the graphic card itself.

 

I think my WUXGA screen played a role too... How much battery life do you get?

 

You could be right about the WUXGA vs WXGA+, since the WUXGA is brighter screen.

I have not measured my actual battery life, but if the battery option on the my grahpic card set to maximize battery life and the WiFi is on and brightness at level 5, the battery indicator shows 3:15 hrs (I have the 6-cell Lithium).

For the same settings except that that I change the setting to maximize perfomance on the graphic card setting the indicator shows 2:30 hrs.

I am not sure if you have the option of changing the battery settings on GeForce card like I do on the ATI X300 64MB.

Edit: edited the times above.

 

yeah, that will explain the difference. I didn't look at anyone's specs to see what all was different. I didn't think the 6800 took that much power since i don't use it

that really does suck that you can't get better battery life.

 

Another factor is your fan settings. If you use a program such as 9ikfangui, were your fan is set to operate on slow or fast, your battery will suffer compared to fan is set on off.

The battery indicator is by no means accurate and it changes frequently within seconds sometimes, so you have to actually measure it.

Also, I noticed that every brightness level you go up you will lose about 8-10 minutes.

 

I brought down the 6800 for max battery
I know processes running actually relates to battery life. I haven't formatted the hard disk from Dell's bloatware yet, so that may have played a part. But i think the combination of the GPU and the monitor brings a difference...

 

Thanks for the tip.. I think that may have been part of my problem as well... I've changed the settings on my 6800 to battery conservation when running on DC..

I'll soon find out how much of a difference that makes.

 

ISnt their a 12cell battery availible for the i9300 could anyone confirm this and the increase in battery life that this provides

 

no there isn't a 12 cell for the 9300.

 

Darn lol... I havn't heard of the 12 cell myself, but I was hoping lmfao.

 

I have had the following vid cards in my laptop with a 9 cell battery and here is how long I could run them

ATIx300 128 meg = 5+hours
6800Ultra = 2 hour 15 min
7800GTX = 2 hours 30 minutes

this is with wireless on, and a 7200 RPM HD and a 2.26 ghz processor in it, also bluetooth module

 

Hmm wow. Thats very interesting.

I never would of thought those GPUs would use so much power. I guess the dynamic clock scaling isn't as good as it sounds D:

I wonder if this is why Dell underclocked the 7800 go so much...