Dwindling Battery?

I have a very new Lenovo Thinkpad T510 that I have barely used at all. I opted to get the 9 cell battery for the extra battery life. It started out great with me getting about 6-8 hours of life when I was just browsing the web. Nothing changed except for I have kept up to date with all the lenovo updates as well as all the windows updates. After a full charge, the thing in the taskbar now says I will get around 3 hours of life. Could anything have happened to reduce my battery life so much?

 

Have you installed any programs since then?

First thing would do is check the task manager and see if there anything running that shouldn't be.(Like an antivirus program) Check the CPU % while its open to see if its high as that would be a clue that something is running in the background. What does the Thinkpad power manager say about the battery?

Doubling checking the settings for the power plan you use wouldn't hurt either.

 

It says it' in good condition. What else do you want me to look for? No programs have been installed for quite some time.

 

What does Power Manager say the full charge capacity is?

 

92.17 Wh is the full charge capacity

 

New capacity is 94Wh. Something is causing your power consumption to be high, most likely increasing cpu load in the background. Check task manager like Aboutthreefifty suggested.

 

I don't really see anything out of the ordinary in my Task Manager. I admit I am not too skilled in this area though. I am used to running no more than 50 processes on my desktop and then with this laptop, I am running around 100 normally.

 

What is the CPU % usage in the Task Manager when on battery.

 

Right now with nothing but Google Chrome, MSN Messenger, and iTunes open... 27% usage on my i7 CPU

 

Here is a screenshot of my task manager with only this tab running in Google Chrome. Anybody see anything out of the ordinary?

 

You want to display CPU time....
Renee

 

What do you mean CPU time?

 

CPU time displays the percentage of the CPU a process is taking.

Look under view | Select Columns.

Renee

 

Here is the task manager with CPU time enabled.

 

Hmm, maybe Chrome is acting up. Try using IE for a bit and see if there's a difference.

Also at the bottom left there's a check box that says:

Show processes from all users.

Check that box because if you look at the bottom you'll see it's currently using 24% but none of the current apps in the window is showing that much usage. Checking the above mentioned box shows all other apps and could narrow it down to showing the offending app.

 

I really don't think this has anything to do with processes people. I haven't installed any programs and nothing has change din settings since my battery life went down. One thing I have noticed that is different is that the outline of the battery in the taskbar is green instead of white now.

 

Something is using 24-27% of your CPU. So unless you were actively doing something for a program to be continuously using that much CPU then something is wrong with processes! The CPU is supposed to go back to a idle state as that's where it can save power. If it's continously engaged it can suck down a system from 100% to 10% in 45minutes (depending on battery ofcourse).

If you were watching some movie in the background there which is why it's showing 24% then ok but it's hard for anyone to over look that when we all assume your system is "idle" when you took those screenshots. It doesn't have to be a new application, it could simple be a (currently installed) app that's misbehaving because of a new update or encountered a bug while running.

 

Recondition the battery through power manager. On my T510, the 6 cell battery also dwindled in about two months to less than 95% original capacity. After reconditioning it, it went back up to 100%. I lowered when the battery starts/stops charging and haven't had a problem since (100% health after a few more months). Apparently, Lenovo's default setting sucked.

 

By recondition the battery do you just mean resetting the gauge thing? That's the only option I found.

I agree that 27% CPU usage is really high. Even on startup it is at that. I don't know what to think.

 

Two different things. Reconditioning is for NiMH batteries, while Li-Ion and Li-Polimer use the resetting gauge. (I think ) So yes, that is what you would use.

These type of things can be such a pain to pinpoint and aggravating. I usually do a clean install of the OS if something like this comes up, but thats not for everyone.

 

I am certainly capable of reinstalling the OS, I just am not sure how to get all the Lenovo stuff back in. I have made recovery disks, do I use those? I would really rather not reinstall since this is a really new laptop. This is pretty weird.

 

It's up to you really. The recovery disks would work but it may contain the problem that is causing your bad battery life.

You can make your own W7 disk here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/428068-legal-windows-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html

As for the drivers and programs(Power Manager, etc.) they can all be found on the Lenovo site.

I wouldn't hop on this quite yet as it takes a lot of time and a much easier fix might be hiding from us.

 

Well I just called Lenovo Tech support, and although it said it was in Atlanta Georgia, I got on the phone with someone that I honestly couldn't understand a single word they said. I just hung up. I am very convinced that it is not my battery that is acting up, and it has to do with my CPU being under load constantly. I still have no idea what could be wrong though.

Also, after performing a battery gauge reset, my new full charge capacity is only 83.74 Wh. I assume that is pretty bad for only using it lightly for the past 2 months. My CPU is still idling at about 30% too.

 

It is possible that some Windows updates/hot fixes or Lenovo updates might be causing this.
If you disconnect from the internet and go back to factory installed default state, then you will know what causes this.

P.S. Before doing this, try to use your PC without internet by disabling Wifi and disconnecting from LAN.

 

Well I just got off the phone with Tech Support and the guy wasn't too helpful. He would not listen to me when I told him i thought it was either related to the CPU or else some bug in the OS itself making my CPU idle at 25-30%. He kept telling me I just needed to lower my processes to bring that percent down. He insisted it was battery related. He told me my only two choices were to either get a new battery sent to me or do nothing. I am very upset right now.

 

You still didn't show the page showing all running processes on the system. I'm sure that would tell what's causing the high CPU usage.

 

Here is three screenshots showing the whole list. I hope I got them all. they kept moving and disappearing and stuff so I may not have gotten them all.

 

And right away in the first image you can see PresentationFontCache.exe is sucking up 25% of CPU.

Apparently it's part of the .NET Framework so you can either try reinstalling that or killing the app (end task) but it will restart after some time.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...ationfontcache-exe-pegs-cpu-50-any-ideas.html

PresentationFontCache hogging CPU

Some solutions there which tell of disabling services.

 

Nevermind, I spoke too soon. When I uninstalled my net framework 4 client and restarted, it was fixed. Battery was back up to about 5 hours and CPU idle was at 1%. I then reinstalled Net framework 4 through WIndows update and now it is back down. Simply deleting the file they suggested in that threa dyou linked to didn't do anything for me.

Edit- I am so confused. Now it is back up to full battery life and I didn't change anything since reinstalling. This is so weird.