laptop battery life

Have just acquired my first laptop, but am perplexed as to how long the battery should last. I think the bumpf said about 4 hours, but, although I've used it on mains until the battery shows fully charged, when I use it on battery along, within an hour the battery is down to 25%. Does that sound right to you people? Seems a bit of a short life to me.

Additonally, the instructions point to advice on maximum battery life, but there are no hints for this - can any of you intrepid, long in the tooth, laptop users shed some light on this please? [:X]

The battery 'meter' is not wholly accurate. But if the total life of the battery is 4 hours then it seems to me that it is a bit OTT if the capacity drops to about 25% in 1 hour. However, you may find that with a little use the computer 'gets to know' the life of the battery better, and if it is totally new then you may also find the battery needs 3 or 4 charge/discharge cycles before it is fully conditioned. I would suggest you let you PC run down totally then recharge it several times, then see how it is - time how long it takes to discharge.

You can decrease life by not having power saver functions set. These are things like turning off the screen after 5 minutes of non-use, or using a lower level of back lighting (the brightness of the screen). You can change these settings; usually it is an option in control panel - something like 'power option'. I suggest you set the the monitor to turn off after about 5 minutes, the hard disk after about 3, and for the system to stand by after about 10 minutes. Set the back lighting to about 80%. All these would only be relevant in the 'when on battery power' section. You may well find the existing factory settings are fine as they are though - you will need to experiment with what works for you.

My teeth are not long I will have you know. They are just well used.

The max battery life they usually quote is with it running on max power saving, as in lowest screen brightness, no wireless, no bluetooth, no cd/dvd access etc...

As a general rule of thumb most laptops seem to last around 2-3 hours under normal use on battery.

What laptop you got?

[Neil]

Jeremy has given some good advice and as he says, each laptop is different, my very old Packard Bell was fab and when I first got it I got nrly 3 hours of life from it (abt 10mins now) - where as my new Sony is a bit pants to be honest and I usually get at max 2 hours, if its feeling kind - but I always have a fully charged spare on me incase of emergency's.

Neil:)

Originally posted by Attitude23
Jeremy has given some good advice

Very kind of you to say so sir. You see, some of us are surprisingly knowledgeable about this ICT business, even if our age causes us to wear incontinence pads and hernia belts.;)

Originally posted by AndyR
The max battery life they usually quote is with it running on max power saving, as in lowest screen brightness, no wireless, no bluetooth, no cd/dvd access etc...

As a general rule of thumb most laptops seem to last around 2-3 hours under normal use on battery.

What laptop you got?

Oo-er, I replied to this yesterday, but it appears to be lost in cyberspace...

It's a compaq presario (v6000). I emailed compaq yesterday and they replied pretty quickly - usual advice about letting the battery run right out and then re-charging - but it looks like the best I can expect is around 2 hours. I'm not getting that much, though I guess I should time it. It's not really a problem, I'mnot likely to be using it that much away from a power source - it's just that I'm surprised the life is so short!

Thanks guys. And sailor.... to be long in the tooth,, don't you have to still have your own gnashers????[}:)]

[mitchja]

Claire

I have a Compaq Presario lap-top and on it is a software utility called 'Battery Calibration'. This charges and dis-charges your battery several times and from this it works out the battery run time. It does, however, take 4-8hrs to run a full battery calibration but you leave it it plugged in during the calibration so you can just leave it running, although with recent events it might be worth keeping your eye on it.

Doing this might give you a bit more battery run time.

Regards

Originally posted by sailor99
The battery 'meter' is not wholly accurate. But if the total life of the battery is 4 hours then it seems to me that it is a bit OTT if the capacity drops to about 25% in 1 hour. However, you may find that with a little use the computer 'gets to know' the life of the battery better, and if it is totally new then you may also find the battery needs 3 or 4 charge/discharge cycles before it is fully conditioned. I would suggest you let you PC run down totally then recharge it several times, then see how it is - time how long it takes to discharge.

You can decrease life by not having power saver functions set. These are things like turning off the screen after 5 minutes of non-use, or using a lower level of back lighting (the brightness of the screen). You can change these settings; usually it is an option in control panel - something like 'power option'. I suggest you set the the monitor to turn off after about 5 minutes, the hard disk after about 3, and for the system to stand by after about 10 minutes. Set the back lighting to about 80%. All these would only be relevant in the 'when on battery power' section. You may well find the existing factory settings are fine as they are though - you will need to experiment with what works for you.

My teeth are not long I will have you know. They are just well used.

You been inside my laptop then? These are the settings already there!