Battery drains quickly

AtomicSnipe · Sep 24, 2017

Hi,
So on my laptop, when I do some tasks like ms. office or facebook, my battery lasts for quite long (maybe 7 hours). But when using youtube and playing back videos at 1080p, the battery can stay for like 3 hours until it completely drains.
I am using chrome.
So is that normal with youtube or is something wrong?
Thank you

ingtar33 · Sep 24, 2017

you have a gaming laptop with a video card?

that's what you pay for with a gaming laptop, the moment the gpu is really being used the battery vanishes.

R_1 · Sep 24, 2017

that is normal. videos take more power to render than an office document or a facebook page. when streaming from youtube the GPU is being taxed along with the network connection and if its wireless the radio will consume a fair amount while streaming.

AtomicSnipe · Sep 24, 2017

ingtar33 :

Yep, a gtx 1050ti.

Is there any way it can be configured the to use the integrated gpu for light stuff like youtube?

Thanks

AtomicSnipe · Sep 24, 2017

R_1 :

Thanks

Makes sense.

But isn't the difference too big in my case?

ingtar33 · Sep 24, 2017

AtomicSnipe :

It is using the igpu, when you're doing word and excel and web browsing

AtomicSnipe · Sep 24, 2017

ingtar33 :

Thanks

So when I watch youtube, it is the 1050ti that's doing the rendering?

Guess that youtube is way to OP for the igpu to handle lol.

Solandri · Sep 24, 2017

Check your GPU settings in Chrome. Make sure hardware acceleration for video decode turned on.

https://www.lifewire.com/hardware-acceleration-in-chrome-4125122

Yes video used to take a lot more power than web browsing. But because video is so common, the programming to decode them has been converted into hardware and placed in every modern GPU. This hardware decode is very low power, and as a result most modern laptops get similar battery life when decoding video as when web browsing. e.g. If you scroll down to the battery rundown test of this review

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ZenBook-Pro-UX550VD-i7-GTX-1050-Full-HD-Laptop-Review.244290.0.html

you'll see it lasts 17h 41m idle, 8h 55m web browsing, 7h 45m playing back video. So your 7h to 3h is very atypical, and possibly indicating that your browser is playing back video without using the GPU's hardware decode. In that case it ends up decoding using the CPU, which uses a lot more power.

The exception is copyrighted streaming services. Hollywood is paranoid that people will simply capture the video stream to create a copy of the movie. So they encrypt the video stream for transmission, and require that decryption has to occur inside an encrypted virtual machine (which is why you need Flash or Silverlight installed). This virtual machine decrypts the stream, decodes the video, and sends it directly to your display. Unfortunately this means it can't use the GPU's hardware decode. All the decryption and decoding has to be done by the CPU. And your battery life will be substantially worse when watching movies via these streaming services.

However, YouTube should be using hardware video decode.

AtomicSnipe :

Only if you've configured the nVidia software to do so. Right-click your desktop and start Nvidia Control Panel. Make sure your browser is set to use the Intel GPU.

The earlier post blaming your short battery life on using a gaming laptop is wrong. The review I linked (8h 55m web browsing, 7h 45m playing videos) is a laptop with a nVidia 1050. It should use the Intel GPU to decode video by default.

AtomicSnipe · Sep 24, 2017

Solandri :

Check your GPU settings in Chrome. Make sure hardware acceleration for video decode turned on.

https://www.lifewire.com/hardware-acceleration-in-chrome-4125122

Yes video used to take a lot more power than web browsing. But because video is so common, the programming to decode them has been converted into hardware and placed in every modern GPU. This hardware decode is very low power, and as a result most modern laptops get similar battery life when decoding video as when web browsing. e.g. If you scroll down to the battery rundown test of this review

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ZenBook-Pro-UX550VD-i7-GTX-1050-Full-HD-Laptop-Review.244290.0.html

you'll see it lasts 17h 41m idle, 8h 55m web browsing, 7h 45m playing back video. So your 7h to 3h is very atypical, and possibly indicating that your browser is playing back video without using the GPU's hardware decode. In that case it ends up decoding using the CPU, which uses a lot more power.

The exception is copyrighted streaming services. Hollywood is paranoid that people will simply capture the video stream to create a copy of the movie. So they encrypt the video stream for transmission, and require that decryption has to occur inside an encrypted virtual machine (which is why you need Flash or Silverlight installed). This virtual machine decrypts the stream, decodes the video, and sends it directly to your display. Unfortunately this means it can't use the GPU's hardware decode. All the decryption and decoding has to be done by the CPU. And your battery life will be substantially worse when watching movies via these streaming services.

However, YouTube should be using hardware video decode.

AtomicSnipe :

Only if you've configured the nVidia software to do so. Right-click your desktop and start Nvidia Control Panel. Make sure your browser is set to use the Intel GPU.

The earlier post blaming your short battery life on using a gaming laptop is wrong. The review I linked (8h 55m web browsing, 7h 45m playing videos) is a laptop with a nVidia 1050.

Thank you

I already had hardware acceleration on.

What really caught my attention is the part where I should assign my igpu to do chrome stuff. I went to the nvidia control center and found it was using the gtx 1050ti so I did the needful and changed it to the integrated gpu.

It should, in theory, be better now.

Thanks!!!!

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