Dell Inspiron 7000 (I7559) Battery Life (extend)?

So I have a I7559 (I7-6700HQ, 960M 4GB 1080P)

Whats the average battery life you guys see with these?

I'm seeing about 2 hrs: 29 mins from 100% fully charged and i'm sitting at 35% (IGPU ON)

(light browsing on google chrome 1-2 tabs open)

This is running on my custom "ultra low power" plan which is based off of the base windows power saver plan with a few adjustments which consist of max processor speed limited to 30%, IGPU set to maximum battery life.

Brightness @ 25%

Windows battery saver on

TDP is capped at 35W @ 2.1 Ghz and power level capped at level 1, link power management maximum battery life.

Under- volted with intel XTU (completely stable)

-0.150 CPU core and cache

IGPU

Processor voltage -0.155V

Multiplier is set at 2.5

Anything I can do to extend battery life alitlle more or am I tapped out?

Thanks in advance

 

Based on the low usage power drain for my Precision 5510 (reasonably similar hardware) I would expect your power drain to be no more than 5 to 7W under the usage you have described provided you have nothing connected to the USB ports. Run HWiNFO and check that the CPU is spending most of its time running at minimum speed (800MHz). Also check whether the CPU is getting into the low power C states (ThrottleStop gives this info) - XTU might be blocking this from happening.

John

 

Hey, John thanks for replying

HWM around Min 0.94W- Max 4.31W (this is with 2 chrome tabs open and a mouse connected to a USB port.

I see it hovering around 2.25-3.35W

speed Min 898MHz - Max 950 MHz

its currently at 898 MHz

 

Thanks. The CPU speed is OK.

What does HWiNFO > Sensors show for the CPU package power and what does BatteryInfoView report for the discharge rate and battery capacity? Roughly, battery capacity/discharge rate = run time.

Is the GPU active when it should be powered down? (Is HWiNFO showing any data for the dGPU?)

John

 

Hi John, at idle open with 2 chrome tabs open package power hovers around 1.66-2.50W

Discharge rate hovers around 11,900-13,000 miliwatts

Full charged capacity 73,926 mWh

Designed capacity 73,993 mWh (laptop is around 2-3 weeks old)

In HM the D 960M GPU is showing VIN0 0.931V minimum 0.937V max current is 0.931V.

Graphic clock is at 135 MHz mem is at 405MHz

(shouldn't this be 0, since the IGPU is enabled?)

Is this whats causing the battery drain?

dGPU is disabled in N control panel, why isnt it not powering down when not enabled?

 

I think you've found the problem: The dGPU is running when you don't want it to.

Perhaps try reinstalling the Nvidia driver and also make sure that the Nvidia control panel is working (I have an icon in the notification area which shows the state of the dGPU). Then try adjusting the settings.

You should be able to squeeze 10 hours of light usage out of that battery if you keep the display fairly dim.

John

 

Ok, uninstalled drivers with DDU and reinstalled the latest 376.33 driver. Looks to be still not turning off when not enabled. (Going by what HWM is telling me with the same stats as before)

Anything else I could try?

 

Go into the Nvidia control panel and play with the settings. Start by selecting the iGP as the preferred graphics processor - you need to find out what is causing the dGPU to run.

John