Battery life on M1530 tested (6 Cell battery)

I've had the impression since buying my M1530 that the battery life was very poor in comparison to my old notebook (Asus A6Ja) so I've run a few tests.

Test Conditions
===========
Screen brightness 1 notch from max
Screen saver and dimmer off.
Wifi off, bluetooth off, webcam disabled, ethernet disabled, firewire disabled, finger print reader on.
Several minutes after startup so drive activity low.
Eset Nod 32 antivirus disabled.
Battery fully charged before test started.
Custom power profile allowing CPU scaling between 5-100%, never shuts down the display or HDD.

NOTE: At this time, the 6 cell battery tests were under Vista 32 bit and the 9 cell tests are under Vista 64 bit. I'll repeat one or two 6 cell tests under 64 bit later to rule out any OS influences.

Test 1
=====
Test involved paying music in iTunes + 1 empty browser window open.
6 Cell battery: Total runtime 2 hours 15 minutes before reaching 10% battery left.
9 Cell battery: Total runtime 3 hours 51 minutes before reaching 10% battery left. (4 hours 3 minutes till 5%).


Test 2
=====
Test involved paying music in iTunes + 1 empty browser window open. Antivirus software was enabled and ethernet port enabled (but not plugged into network).
6 Cell battery: Total runtime 2 hours, 10 minutes before reaching 10% battery left.

Test 3
=====
Test involved paying music in iTunes + 1 empty browser window open.
Conditions as per Test 1 except RMClock running. System mildly undervolted (voltage at max speed 1.187v instead of 1.325).
6 Cell battery: Total runtime 2 hours, 8 minutes.

Test 4
=====
Airplane style usage i.e. As per test 1 and screen brightness on minimum, rmclock forcing cpu speed to minimum, transparency disabled.
Playing divx movie in vlc.
6 Cell battery: Total runtime, 2 hours 8 minutes.

As a note of comparison, the Asus A6Ja would return approx 3 hours 15 minutes runtime under the conditions for Test 4. However, the screen on the Dell on minimum brightness seems significiently brighter then the Asus.

Test 5
=====
As per test 4 but with HDD set to spin down after 1 minute, media played off 133x (High speed) SD card.
6 Cell battery: Total runtime 2 hours 30 minutes

If I'm feeling keen, I'll install XP and compare it as I'm rather disappointed with the battery life.

Test 6
=====
Screen brightness 1 notch below max
wifi on, bluetooth off, ethernet disabled, webcam disabled, firewire disabled, fingerprint reader enabled.
Intensive browsing and downloading with Firefox 2.0.0.12

6 Cell battery: Total runtime, 1 hour 50 minutes before reaching 10% battery.

 

Thanks for the tests. I just purchased a 6 cell battery and installed it yesterday. I like the fact that it's much less bulky than the 9 cell battery. I've noticed that the M1530 runs slightly hotter, requiring more fan cycling, probably because the 6 cell battery does not raise the back of the laptop, unlike the 9 cell battery. This could contribute to decreased battery life.

My 9 cell battery has a date of manufacture on it. The 6 cell battery does not. I like to know when a battery is manufactured since the age of a lithium ion battery is a factor in its useful life. But since the M1530 is so new, any battery made for it must have been made in the past few months.

 

i don't know about you but once i got around 3-3.5 hrs of using of word precessoring..wireless and BT were off and screen was %30-40 dimmed..

 

This is with the 6 cell as well?

 

Can we get some more detail on your word processing scenario?

I found soon after buying it that I was making a bee-line for the powercord after using it on the couch for what felt like very little time, hence the investigation into the battery life. I don't remember having to do that with the Asus.

I'm not 100% sure which battery my Asus has off the top of my head. I'll try to remember to check it out tonight.

 

I'll take the 9 cell anytime over the 6 cell. I have both.
It's not that much bigger and it does help the air flow too, plus much longer run times. Goodbye 6 cell.

 

yes i have 6 cell..

 

anyone done some testing with browsing and wifi on?

 

I'll try it at some point... I'm not overly hopeful though

 

Updated test 5 i.e. playing media off an sd card instead of the hdd.

Total runtime, 2 hours, 30 minutes.

I don't know how much time the drive actually spent spun down unfortunately. My office is too noisey to hear the notebook drive

 

^^ good increase in time there, might get a big sd card just to watch movies on the plane!

10-20mins is quite good

 

Yes, it is a nice increase.

Funnily enough, doing that on the Asus didn't improve things at all because the card reader was really inefficient and would tie up lots of CPU time! It seems that the Dell card reader is more efficient

Still, I'm pretty disappointed with the battery life overall.

 

Updated with Test 6 - browsing test over wifi as requested.

 

I noticed that you stop your tests at 10% rather than when the battery actually dies. My experience has been that the battery meter in Vista is horribly inaccurate. For example, I turned on my computer this morning and ti said I had 40% battery life, but when I pressed the button on the battery, 4 out of the 5 LEDs lit up, so the true battery level was closer to 80%. Maybe this is the cause of your disappointing battery life. When I tested my 6-cell shortly after getting it, I got just around 3 hours in battery time browsing the internet over wifi.

 

Hmm, interesting!

Well, the problem is of course, that once the battery gets too low, Vista is going to put the machine to sleep. Therefore, it kinda doesn't matter whether the battery meter in Vista is accurate in reality as the OS believes it is and will act accordingly.

I'll retry the test though and use the meter on the battery afterwards and see what it says.

 

Got my laptop yesterday and its had nothing but testing, so heres my 9 Cell testing:

Test Conditions
===========
Screen saver and dimmer off.
Battery fully charged before test started.
Dell's power profile, comes std with V32
Wifi on Wireless G mode enabled / Blue Tooth off

Test 1
=====

internet radio
browser open - was actually looking for porn for my desktop
IM
email
no usb's plugged in

50% Batty : 2:24 Hrs
17% Batty: 4:00 Hrs
10% Batty: 4:20 Hrs
05% Batty: 4:34 hrs

Total Runtime:

 

thanks for the nice test with the 9 cell battery, lifetime sounds great, hours of porn

This should do better than my 3 year old battery in Toshiba Tecra S2 that lasts about 20 min now vs 2 hours when new (on lowest performance, using office apps)

 

wat were the specs of the laptop? i dont use my 6 cell much, the few times i did, it lasted a bit longer than your tests.

post the system specs

anyway, 9 cell all the way, i dont mind the extra 2 pounds

 

Bump! Updated the initial post with a 9 cell test.

My notebook specs are in my sig for those asking.

NOTE: the 6 to 9 cell comparisons aren't quite apples-to-apples as the 9 cell tests are under 64bit Vista.