Battery Life

[Lady Avalon]

Just purchased an HP Pavilion dv7-4197 notebook with a 9 cell lithium battery ion, 93WHr. Sam's is advertising 5 hours and 15 minutes battery life and QVC is advertising over 7 hours. I just tested my latop, doing only email and internet, my battery barely lasts 3 hours. I called HP this week and they did an upgrade on the BIOS and said it should fix my problem of the battery life, that I should be getting at least 4 hours of battery life.

Can someone please help me figure out how many hours is normal for this laptop?

Since I've never owned a laptop before, would it be better to remove the battery when I am doing gaming and juse use the AC?

Thank you.

 

[buwish]

The first place to start are the power settings. If you go down to where the battery is near the time, click on it and then go into the power plans. I believe that the advertised time is on low performance, so if you want long battery life while off AC power, go with that preference and see how long it lasts.

 

[Lady Avalon]

Thank you. I will give it a try. It was on HP Recommended, so I changed it to power saving. Appreciate your response.

 

[buwish]

Let us know how it turns out for you!

 

[Lady Avalon]

Been using the power saver option for a couple days now, instead of HP recommended. It dims the screen, which is really no problem. However, the battery still seems to be draining at the same rate as before. I haven't even tried to play Two Worlds, which I know is major drain. I've just been doing email, facebook, some internet searches, and Zuma, which shouldn't drain like it is doing. At this point, I am not sure if there is anything wrong with the battery; it may be that this is just a powerful machine. I've never had a laptop before, so can't compare to anything else I've experienced.

I think it is hard to believe that Sam's Club is advertising five hours and 15 minutes of battery life and QVC, selling the same laptop but with a 640Gig hard drive, is advertising over 7 hours. I can get about two hours and three, if I leave it sitting without even using it.

When I decide to play Two Worlds, I am thinking I will remove the battery and play off the AC. I am guessing this would be ok.

If you have any other advice or suggestions, I would be happy to hear it.

 

[buwish]

You don't need to remove the battery at all, as it will still charge and stay charged so long as you are on AC Power. After looking at the specs, I am assuming that it has an i7 and an HD5650 GPU, which if it does means that it'll never get anywhere near 5 hours on battery. As you said, it just has too much ooomph hardware wise to give you the battery life of a netbook.

 

[Lady Avalon]

Yes, it does have an i7 and I know it will never get 5 hours. However, I was hoping for at least 4, but that may even be impossible. Here's what I was told by HP. They told me that once the battery is 100% charged, that I should remove the AC because static electromagnetic may build up and ruin the motherboard. Not sure if this is true or not. That's why I mentioned removing the battery. On the other hand, it is an excellent first laptop for me as it does everything I ever wanted my desktop to do. The battery is the only thing I have a problem with. If you could shed any light on this, it would be most appreciated. Thanks again for all your input as it has been most helpful and thank you for being patient with me.

 

[buwish]

I've never heard of doing that, but if that's what HP recommends, you may as well go with it. I personally have never done that and have never had an issue. I did have issues with 3 different HP laptops, i.e. the motherboards fried due to heat damage.

 

[Lady Avalon]

Thank you for all your help. I am going to give this laptop a good testing while it's under warranty and see what happens. Appreciate all your input.

 

[Avro Arrow]

You have to remember one thing, the rated battery life is with the computer sitting there doing nothing because they want the highest numbers possible. You'll never actually get those 5 hours if you're actually using the laptop. I think that three hours is about right for a 9-cell because my 6-cell only gives me two. The only way I could see you getting a full 5 hours of using a computer on a single battery charge is to get an Acer or eMachines netbook and buy a 9-cell battery for it off of eBay. Even the so-called 10 hour battery on a MacBook only lasts for 4 hours when it is actually being used.
http://www.cultofmac.com/macworlds-13-macbook-pro-review-the-10-hour-battery-lasts-four-hours/39634