Battery life sucks

I've got my 1520 on October and I've been using it very little since then because I use the desktop. But today I wanted to watch a quick movie off the internet, the battery was fully charged with 99% remaining with the screen on 4/5 bright and headphones on, i watched the movie and a hour later the ****ing battery warning comes on and then 5min the laptop goes into hibernation. After that I did the fully charge then kill it and then recharge battery steps, and still I get no increase in life. I remember when I first got it, I was able to squeeze about 1hour and 45min out of this 6 cell. what the **** is wrong with it?

the movie was a flash movie, and had about 5% on the cpu and nothing else in full screen with headphones and 4/5 screen brightness.

PS: the video card was NOT overclocked at this time.

 

Do you normally just leave your laptop on when your done using it? You should also note that using the wireless does use battery life as well.

Also, you should try undervolting and changing your settings to battery saver to get more life out of it. When you got that 105mins was it on high performance or battery saver?

 

I really don't remember what it was on, probably the medium one since it was the original install from dell. the wifi shouldn't have to use much power at all, I mean once the movie has been downloaded into cache its done no more downloading, no use for wifi.

argh its annoying. should I call dell? and give them something to work on?

 

Even if you wireless card isnt in use, its still communicating and while it doesnt draw much, it does does draw power. Your power settings will have a great effect on your battery life. In my experience, high performance gives me under an hour while battery saver gives me slightly above 2hrs. And again, do you normally leave your laptop on when your not using it?

I dont think calling dell will do much for you, I may be wrong but it would simply be a waste of your time and anger you even more.

 

Call Dell and get a new battery. It has a one year warranty on it. Let them know the battery life is significantly shorter than it used to be when it was new.

 

The reason why you have bad battery life is because you have a "budget" Inspiron. Dell purposely loads it up with more power consuming parts to ensure that your battery life drains faster than say, an XPS M1530. It is only natural that the Inspiron line is now bulkier and heavier and inferior now unlike the previous Inspiron line.

I'm jk. You will want to check your screen brightness, disabling wifi also helps. A major thing is in the Power Management settings, make sure your profile is not set to High Performance, and is on a different mode such as Balanced or Power saver. You will notice major differences.

 

I doubt Dell will give him a new battery that easily; i think they would test it themselves first and if they determined that the lost of its ability to hold a charge is caused be a defect, then they would replace it, but if caused by normal wear, well then the OP is SOL.