Samsung Q35 battery life

Thanks John...I'll have a look in the BIOS......maybe it was enabled before and was wiped out with the update.

That thread looks interesting......I'll have a look through it when I'm off tomorrow

BTW...my processor is a T5200.

 

Just checked the bios, but there's no option. Can I downgrade back to the last bios, or is that not possible?

 

OK. T5200 shouldn't be exceptionally power-hungry.

I'm sure there's a way to downgrade a BIOS. First give it a try and see if it lets you do it. Sensibly you will gt a warning but you can then proceed. Sometimes it is necessary to do it in DOS with a command.

John

 

Sorry John...somehow I completely missed the PS in your other post

 

No go on the downgrade......it just terminates the updater.

Think I may see just how good Radix Reload is over the weekend......I should be able to roll all the way back to a factory fresh state and see what the power consumption was like then, then bring it all the way back to the state it's in now without a backup set in sight......in theory anyway

Obviously it won't help with the BIOS, but it may be worth a try.

 

I rolled the system back to a clean state, and it made no difference. I didn't think it would, but it was worth a try

I'm leaing towards the BIOS update as the source of the probelm, though with no RMClock readings before it, I have no evidence to back that up......all I can say is that my battery would read over 4 hours left in the past, and now it doesn't.

There doesn't seem to be a way to roll the BIOS back, so I'll just have to wait for a new version and give it a try

 

Does RMclock's battery info show any battery wear? Some wear is normal after a few months but more than 25% in less than a year is, in my opinion, excessive.

This should be evident from the design capacity and the fully charged capacity. Or it is possible that when using the battery you get a sudden drop from, say, 25% remaining, to the low battery alarm. You can run the battery calibration in the BIOS. This may reset the calibration.

Also, you can disable the critical battery action and run the computer until there is zero power left. In Vista you need to run this command to disable the critical battery action.

After gathering your facts then I suggest that you send a message to Samsung technical support.

John

 

Battery wear is around 8.5%...48840mWh as opposed to 53280mWh. I don't get any sudden drops. RMClock is showing over 13.5-14W discharge rate though, and I can't find anything causing the drain.

Maybe I'll fire an email off to Samsung tech support and see what they say

 

Before I talk to Samsung, I see that my processor never drops below 798MHz. Should it not go lower than this? In RMClock advanced CPU settings, under enhanced low power states, I have "Enable enhanced stop grant state(C2E)" and "Enable hard enhanced deeper sleep state(C4E)" checked, but the rest are unchecked. Should I check them?

Edit
I should have mentioned that under windows power settings, I have the minimum processor state set to 1% and maximum set to 30% on battery.

Cheers
Neil

 

800MHz minimum reported CPU speed is correct.

C2E and C4E should be enough although there's no harm in enabling the other states. If in doubt, shut down RMClock and see if there is any change to the battery time (compare reduction in battery doing same activity for half an hour with and without RMClock).

John

PS: For impressive battery life see my Sony G11 review. It's currently available here for less than I paid.

 

Just a quick reply in regard to the Intel Graphics battery manager. I can't post an image at the moment (I'm half trying to take notes during a lecture) but the option to edit the GPU for better battery life is disabled on my Q35 even though I think the BIOS is a good few months old. I can happily get around 4 hours of moderate use (half brightness, wireless and bluetooth on, running Firefox with flashblock, Adobe reader, and OneNote) on Power Saver with 25% maximum CPU usage. I'm going to try the Q35 with bluetooth disabled tomorrow to see how it reacts to that battery wise. I generally run the battery to 20% capacity each day and fully recharge it during the afternoon.

 

@John
That's very impressive battery life John......some day all laptops will last that long

@Sub-D
Thanks for letting me know that mate...at least I can rule the BIOS out. I'd be interested to know how you get 4 hours with bluetooth on......I always have it switched off, as it destroys my battery in next to no time.

I have my processor set to 30% max on battery, but it won't go below 800MHz anyway

Cheers
Neil

 

@Sub-D
As you have exactly the same spec as me, down to the processor and 2.5Gb RAM, could you please run RMClock on yours and see what your discharge rate drops to.

I run mine with wireless on, but bluetooth off, and I have 3 bars on the brightness. When left completely idle at the desktop with nothing running but RMClock and NOD32 etc., the lowest the discharge rate reaches in RMClock is 13.4W.

TIA
Neil

 

You'll also need to have Vista's eye candy etc set to the same. I always have the visual settings set to best performance plus smoothing of screen fonts.

John

 

Good call John

I have mine set to best performance, but I have enabled "Show thumbnails instead of icons", "Smooth edges of screen fonts", and "Use drop shadows for icons on the desktop".

Come to think of it...I think I'll switch them all off again and see how that goes

 

My visual settings are set to best performance with font smoothing. Running RMClock showed a discharge of roughly 14 watts although this was with the applications I run normally when the laptop is in my room so I left WMP and AV scans on and my host of USB devices plugged in (lazy I know but this is only a mild distraction from an essay ) although I switched to power saver. I'll report back tomorrow by running RMClock during a lecture to see my average discharge then.

My CPU usage is shown as roughly 50% on power saver running WMP and Mozilla so that 90% idle seems VERY high!
Also, apparently I have no battery wear.

 

Thanks for that...look forward to your results tomorrow

We may have crossed wires somewhere...when idle, my CPU useage stays around 3-8%, spiking every now and again to around 12%. When I'm testing, I have AV and defender running etc., but no applications like word. I also have nothing plugged unto the USB ports.

Thanks again
Neil

 

Yeah, I think I picked you up incorrectly somewhere! My CPU usage is similar when idle and the rough estimate I gave correlates to running my normal application load. Anyway, I did a quick test about an hour or so ago since I was in the common room torn between my essay and watching some mindless drivel on television. I had my laptop with me and the conditions were similar to what I have in lectures (half brightness, wireless on with OneNote, Word and Firefox open). My average discharge according to RMClock was 10.4 W although it dropped as low as 9.5 W and would increase to 13 W (presumably as a result of a background process such as an active AV scanner). I'll still check it out in lecture tomorrows and let you know.

 

Coincidentally, Microsoft have just released more Vista patches. These are potional and not currently part of Windows Update. KB941649 claims, among other things, " It extends the battery life for mobile devices."

Worth a try?

John

 

Just back from my morning lectures. I managed to get a screen shot of RM Clock on my average power draw. Although it doesn't account for much, by the end of my lectures which run for three hours I had 35% battery left. What I found rather strange was that my expected battery life tended to fluctuate between 2 hours 40 minutes up to 5 hours 20 minutes. That aside, I am happy enough with the real world performance my Q35 gives me.

As John says, its probably worth checking out the latest Vista patches.

View attachment 11659

 

Thanks very much for that Sub-D...it seems that my machine is power hungry for some reason. Is there any chance it could be a problem with battery itself?

Thanks for the info on the patches John...I'll have a look at them when I'm off work tomorrow

 

@John
Do you have a tech support number for Samsung please mate......it may be floating around somewhere, but I'm literally just going out to the door to work

Cheers
Neil

 

After the update, I've had the discharge rate as low as 12.8W, but again this is with nothing running......10-11W just isn't in sight

Oddly, the voltage is now showing as 12.3V under battery status as opposed to 11.3V that was showing before the update.

Estimated life has gone up by about 10-15mins.

Going to ring customer care tomorrow, and strongly suggest they send me a new battery to try, or take the machine in......the only thing is, this is my main machine now......not happy about losing it for any length of time.

 

See here for both the support phone number (0870 726 7864) and the electronic messaging system.

John

 

Thanks John, but the link doesn't take me anywhere. I went through Samsung Digital World though, and they have the support options listed there. The phone number should be 0870 726 7864

Cheers
Neil

 

Good luck with getting the battery issue sorted out Neil!

 

Yes, I got the number wrong - trying to skip between two web pages..

Try this link for the email form: The link is down at the bottom below the feedback box.

John

 

Np John, and thanks for the link.

Spoke to Customer Care, and they're sending me a brand new battery out......should be with me in 5-10 working days

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers
Neil

 

I hope the replacement battery fixes the problem, but the power drain still seems a bit high.

John

 

I'm hoping that the battery is somehow causing the hogh power drain. If it doesn't work, then it'll be onto plan b

I didn't actually request a battery. The guy went away to speak to his supervisor, and called me back an hour later telling me this was what they suggested. Fingers crossed

 

I got the new battery yesterday. After a nice long charge, it's up and running, but my power drain is unaffected. It is estimating just under 4 hours, but it has zero wear ATM. I'll see how it goes after I run it in, but the actual drain won't change.

I was definitely getting estimated run times of over 4 hours when idle before, and the only thing I can trace it back to is the BIOS upgrade. I'll just have to keep my eye open for a new BIOS version, and try that.

Cheers
Neil

 

Some of the previous BIOSes are here. Perhaps ask Samsung support for the command you need to force a downgrade when you use the DOS (or CD) version. (Did you try to use the DOS/CD version and see if there are options offered?).

John

 

No, I just tried the normal version. I'll give Samsung a call and see if there is a way to do it.

Cheers
Neil

 

I phoned Samsung, but the guy who'll be able to help isn't in 'til Monday, so they're going to call me back.

The new battery had zero wear when I got it, but already has 1% wear after the 2nd charge. That doesn't seem right.

 

From what I remember the battery has a short 'wearing in period' where the anode and cathode degrade slightly (that 1% wear) before degrading at a slower rate. That's why it's best to follow any instructions given regarding first charging, otherwise the battery may not develop the 'sacrificial layer'.

 

Thanks for that James.

I have a battery charging routine which I always use when I receive a new gadget, and I've not had any problems yet. The main reason I though it was strange to have wear already was that the image Sub-d posted of RMClock showed his battery as having zero wear, and he's certainly charged it more than twice.

 

Yeah, I'd find any battery wear to be suspicious. I've been using my laptop for coming up on 9 months now with regular discharge and recharge cycles and I'm still able to get 4-4.5 hours on battery easily on Power Saver.

However, maybe the wear on the cell becomes patched in an effect once the layer has formed? At times like this I wish I was doing a degree on material chemistry and not organic!

If the wear persists you could try the trick of putting the battery into the fridge at around 40% capacity overnight. At the shop I used to work, my work mate stood by this method regularly to get the best out of his battery.

 

The batteries do suffer from loss of capacity with time. There's probably a battery calibration function in the BIOS but this is not always reliable. Vista's power management seems to have introduced some new problems because the default settings don't let you run the battery until genuinely empty. (You need to run this command:

powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_BATTERY BATACTIONCRIT 0

). Deep discharge can reset the wear down to a lower value.

Anyway, the original cause of this thread is above-expected power consumption, not battery wear: The Q35 should drop below 10W under light usage provided the CPU is spending most of its time in the C3 (or deeper) sleep state.

John

 

Well I'm still geting nowhere near as low as 10W, and I'm currently waiting for Samsung to get back to me about downgrading the BIOS.

I'll keep you all posted

 

Since this thread is still on the top page and I don't see the point on creating a new topic about batteries I feel better to ask here. More recently I've been using my Q35 a lot more on battery life and I'm beginning to find that the 4.5 hours of use I get just isn't enough since I have very little time to charge my battery when on the go. Is there a larger capacity battery than what is standard with the Q35? If so, how do I find out the capacity of my current battery (i.e. is it 4 cell or 6 cell). I get a rating of 53280mWh from RM Clock.
Thanks for any help and advice!

 

53280mWh will be 6 cell.

I don't think Samsung offer a bigger compatible battery in which case a second battery is the alternative. Prices at this place look quite good.

John

 

I now have the command which should allow me to install an older BIOS using the CD version of the installer.

@Sub-D
Please could you tell me what BIOS you are running, as that's the one I'll try rolling back to.

Cheers
Neil

 

Please share the command in case anyone else wants to revert to an earlier BIOS.

Thanks,

John

 

I haven't shared it yet, as I want to try it out first. It worked fine on the Q30 that tech support tried it on, but it is unsupported, and completely at my own risk.

As soon as I find out what BIOS Sub-D is running, I'll give it a go, and let you all know how it goes

Cheers
Neil

 

Will check when I start my laptop for Windows Update.

 

There's no need to reboot.

The mainboard page of CPU-Z should give you the BIOS version.

John

 

Thanks for the advice John. My BIOS version is listed as 22SD.

 

Thanks a lot for that mate......that'll be my starting point.

I'll let you know how it goes, and assuming it doesn't brick my machine, I'll post the command

 

Well...the BIOS downgrade went without a hitch, and I am now running 22SD.

My power useage is now dropping to just over 11W at times, and even as low as 10.2W when the screen auto-dims. I have an estimated useage time of over 4hrs 30mins on a full charge, and sometimes close to 5hrs. I am now a happy man

To downgrade the BIOS, you have to use the CD version of the BIOS updater, and to force the downgrade you have to enter the name of the BIOS file followed by:

/s /x /c /nomodel_partcheck

In my case, I entered:

22sd.exe /s /x /c /nomodel_partcheck

Thanks for your patience on this one guys.
Neil

 

Thanks for the update.

I suggest that you let Samsung support know that the newer BIOS seems to increase power consumption. That bug needs to be fixed.

John