New hard drive...much shorter battery life

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I replaced the 20GB hard disk (Hitachi) in my 5 year old HP Pavilion
notebook (the 20GB was a replacement of the original 6 GB) with a 60 GB one
(also Hitchi). The 60 GB drive is 5400 rpm. I was very happy with my battery
life with the 20 GB drive...2-3 hours, which is great for this PIII-500
laptop.

The battery life with the new 60 GB 5400rpm drive is much worse! I sort of
expected _some_ reduction of battery life, but I'm pretty sure it's down to
an hour or so--probably half of what it was.

Sure, the fan in the laptop comes on a bit more frequently, but from what
I'd read, the battery life difference shouldn't be that drastically
different.

Is there a setting somewhere (I'm using Win98SE) other than the standard
Power Settings in the Control Panel that I can tweak?


Fr@nk

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Yes, in the power management function, you can set the hard drive to go
into a standby mode after a period of inactivity. This function can be
set to activate after anywhere from 1 minute to infinity (e.g. the drive
runs all the time no matter how long it's been inactive). About 3
minutes works very well for most applications.


Fr@nk wrote:

> I replaced the 20GB hard disk (Hitachi) in my 5 year old HP Pavilion
> notebook (the 20GB was a replacement of the original 6 GB) with a 60 GB one
> (also Hitchi). The 60 GB drive is 5400 rpm. I was very happy with my battery
> life with the 20 GB drive...2-3 hours, which is great for this PIII-500
> laptop.
>
> The battery life with the new 60 GB 5400rpm drive is much worse! I sort of
> expected _some_ reduction of battery life, but I'm pretty sure it's down to
> an hour or so--probably half of what it was.
>
> Sure, the fan in the laptop comes on a bit more frequently, but from what
> I'd read, the battery life difference shouldn't be that drastically
> different.
>
> Is there a setting somewhere (I'm using Win98SE) other than the standard
> Power Settings in the Control Panel that I can tweak?
>
>
> Fr@nk
>
>

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"bobb" <None@NoWhere.com> wrote in message
news1rca11frcea2ehtat8jp88567j23ljmi3@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 7 Jun 2005 22:51:25 -0400, "Fr@nk" <Fr@nkATwizardDOT.net>
> wrote:
>
> Yup.
>
> There was an IBM acoustic mangement util that I used to have (don't
> know where it is now) that tweak a drive's characteristics. Google,
> go to Hitachi site, u may find something.
>

bobb-

You're right. I found a couple of things on Hitachi's site. One of them, a
small Windows program called "Power Booster", lets you move a slider to
adjust power consumption for the drive. That's easy enough, but I'm
wondering if these settings are used _after_ you quit the program...or, do
they apply only with the program running (i.e., once you close the program,
the drive goes back to its default power consumption)? My initial
observations are that the settings stay put after the program closes, but
that's an uneducated judgement.

The other program I found at Hitachi was a DOS-bootable program called
"Feature Tool". It lets you adjust lots more drive settings, like UDMA,
noise level, heat level, along with power management. Downloaded it but
haven't used it yet. Anyone familiar with it?

Anyway, thanks for the tip.


Fr@nk

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 20:59:09 -0400, "Fr@nk" <Fr@nkATwizardDOT.net>
wrote:

>You're right. I found a couple of things on Hitachi's site.

If there is a setting for quick-start, turn it off. Spin up and doing
it quickly takes more juice.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"bobb" <None@NoWhere.com> wrote in message
news:fd7fa116k1542itso3ui1kigc59je9cbvj@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 20:59:09 -0400, "Fr@nk" <Fr@nkATwizardDOT.net>
> wrote:
>
> >You're right. I found a couple of things on Hitachi's site.
>
> If there is a setting for quick-start, turn it off. Spin up and doing
> it quickly takes more juice.
>
>

OK, after having Hitachi Feature Tool set the drive much closer to "Max
Battery life" than "Max Performance" (i.e., more spin downs), I can report
that battery life is still down to just over an hour. Dang! So, I put my old
hard drive back in (the 20GB Hitachi that I was replacing), ran on battery
power, and...

Battery lasted only about an hour! Previously it had been a couple of hours
at least.

I guess I'm thinking now that the battery simply lost its ability to hold a
charge. The Power Management settings in my BIOS is the same as it's been:
Customized. It's definitely not set to Max Performance. I don't think it's
the BIOS that's draining the battery.

I don't know why installing a new hard drive would push the battery "over
the edge" though. Maybe _some_ increase in power requirements for the new
drive?? Now, this is the third or fourth battery I've bought for this
computer (the laptop is >5 years old), but I only bought this one back in
January. Hard to tell how long it had been sitting on the shelf though.
Perhaps my battery was ready to go....

My wife's laptop uses the same battery; we bought two in January. I've
swapped them now, and am currently testing _this_ battery for life. I'll
post again if I find new info. Thanks for listening.


Fr@nk