Getting around 2 hours from new 6-cell battery

Charging wattage has to be higher than the discharge wattage due to thermodynamics effect. Basically when discharging there is a little resistance to flow of electricity from the battery to the external circuit. Just like it is easier to walk downhill then it is uphill, as you have to work against gravity when walk up. When you recharge you have to provide more energy so that current have energy to overcome the resistances.

 

Well, I requested a new battery from Lenovo under warranty. Doesn't seem like this should be such a major issue. Tech support insisted that the most I should expect out of a 6-cell is two hours, "two and a half hours max," but based on what I've read here on the board, that's not right. I had to insist a little, but the new battery's en route and I'll see whether that does anything to address the matter. In addition, I plan on upgrading to Windows 7.

 

I just bought a new 6-cell for my T60, FRU 42t4621.
I left it plugged in with the laptop off to charge yesterday, but today I see it at 30% and it's not moving up.

 

Where are you getting this information?

14-18 watts is not high consumption for a T400, based upon my 7 months using this machine. Are you basing this on your X200 and its power consumption?

Where are you getting standard T400 power consumption numbers from? Mine is anywhere from 10 when running an external monitor, wireless off, not really doing much, to over 24 when listening to music, screen brightness up, wireless and bluetooth on, and CPU working on something. It has probably gone higher, but I haven't noticed that. I would hate to tell you what my T61 with discreet graphics draws...

What kind of consumption do you think he should be seeing from a T400? 13 watts? 10?

My charge rate varies depending on all kinds of things, but it is definately not always higher than the discharge rate. Right now its 9.8W, and it is never that low when discharging, but a few minutes ago it was 16W.

 

My T400, review's T400, and honestly the majority run between 8-14w (14 being the high side) unless heavy wifi and discrete graphics on. x200 draws a similar amount of power because it is a similar platforms. Same processors, x4500mhd graphics etc. With my 6 cell I get anywhere from 4 hours to 6 hours depending on wifi use. With my 9 cell I get 7 to 9 hours. Even with a CCFL screen he should be getting more than 2 hours of battery life.

 

I see now the review says 8.5W, which I cannot fathom because mine draws 10 when idling with all wireless off and the screen off (using external monitor). Checking a few other T400s around the office they are all the same. We must have a bad batch of 100 T400's here that draw way too much power. They are not LED lit screens, so that must be the difference. I don't know if the OP has an LED or CCFL, so that might be the difference there also.

Man 8.5W is low. My S10e uses more power than that. To get my S10e down that low, I have to set the brightness to 1, and turn off everything, including bluetooth, wireless, webcam, card reader, ethernet, and sound card. Then I can get 7.64W. I really wish I had a LED backlit T400! That's a ton of computing power for 8.5W.

I agree he should get 3-4 hours. If 8.5 watt is the actual average draw, your 6 cell battery should last 6.5 hours. At 14 watts, it should last 4. Mine is going around 3 right now with a well worn (34% according to mobmeter) battery.