laptop Battery help :confused:

[Slobber]

I have a lenovo t61. I switched to Mandriva about two months ago. One of the things I have no managed to get right is battery life. The battery life I got in Windows was 3hours+. In linux I barely get 45 minutes. I have tried tweaking kpower, but still no luck.

Any suggestions/updates/drivers?

Slobber

 

[.Froot.]

Have you tried using it in Windows again maybe? Maybe it is an issue with the battery itself (I get about 10% better battery usage in Linux compared to Windows). It is possible that your battery could be screwed- I have a 6 month old HP battery that only gives me 30 minutes now... and I've barely used it.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

In the bios you (might) can do a battery maintenance (Start Battery Configuration). Just did it 2 nights ago (on my works Lenova) as LINUX was not reporting the correct battery status - so I guessed. Turns out it was the BIOS and I had run this.

Also flashing your bios helps alot - did it for Acer Aspire One and now Ubuntu is reading my battery spot on.

 

[Slobber]

Have you tried using it in Windows again maybe? Maybe it is an issue with the battery itself (I get about 10% better battery usage in Linux compared to Windows). It is possible that your battery could be screwed- I have a 6 month old HP battery that only gives me 30 minutes now... and I've barely used it.

Seriously, someone should jam a fork in your eye for suggesting putting Vista back on!

@cbrunsdonza: Will try the bios thing thanks.

 

[.Froot.]

Seriously, someone should jam a fork in your eye for suggesting putting Vista back on!

@cbrunsdonza: Will try the bios thing thanks.

Oi!
Wasn't suggesting reinstalling Windows by any means. Maybe if you were dual booting....

When I had the issue with my battery, HP said I should also do the BIOS battery config.... there was non available in my BIOS (firstly) and secondly, no flash update available with one...

 

[Slobber]

Tried the Bios option and the Rescue and Recovery option, nothing on the battery maintenance front.

Might give the good ol' bios flash a shot or give it a spin through google again.

@Froot Master: /me hands froot Master a tissue for the blood. Sorry. Nah didn't dual boot with Vista it was just too crap. Maybe it had awesome battery life because it never did anything. I didn't dualboot with XP either, otherwise I figured I would use XP more as I know it better than Linux, and wanted to force myself to use the Mandriva. Tx anyway

 

[nihilist]

I have a lenovo t61. I switched to Mandriva about two months ago. One of the things I have no managed to get right is battery life. The battery life I got in Windows was 3hours+. In linux I barely get 45 minutes. I have tried tweaking kpower, but still no luck.

Any suggestions/updates/drivers?

Slobber

I have a T61 as well, I get slightly less batt life in Linux than I do in Windows, but there are a few things you can check out.

Firstly, if you're using Compiz, that will degrade your batt life, as it's using the GPU constantly for your desktop.

The main thing you can also look at is Power Management, make sure it's on Adaptive, or force it to run on a lower setting.

have a look for 'powertop', it's a lil utility for Linux that will show what services are using the most juice, a good way to check out your batt consumption and to determine what you need to change.

Also, have a look through http://www.thinkwiki.org - there should be some articles there related to your problem.