battery usage

[MJS WARLORD]

I have recently purchased a dell inspiron 3585 laptop , it is advertised as 6 hours use on a full charge but I am lucky if i can get 2 and a half hours just doing surfing.
Up to now i have only charged it 3 times , will the batteries performance improve when it has been charged a lot more or could it be faulty.

The reason i ask about the batteries performance improving is because i use to fly radio control planes and their were reports that batteries worked better after quiet a lot of charges but dont know if this applies to laptop batteries as i have only used desktops till i got this laptop.

 

[sdedu77]

What is the current power plan? High performance will drain the battery faster than Balanced or Battery saver.
Also, have you installed the latest chipset driver? The one from AMD's website includes the AMD Ryzen balanced plan, which is better optimized for Ryzen cpus.

 

[velocityg4]

No it won't improve. Manufacturer estimations are usually under ideal conditions. Like display brightness at minimum and writing in notepad. Batteries used in RC devices are different. Even if Lithium. They are probably Lithium Polymer not Lithium Ion.

Professional reviews will often give a better idea. However, individual usage will vary greatly.

Some things you can do.

• Reduce display brightness to the lowest two or three levels or the lowest you can use given ambient light. As brightness can be really low in a dark room vs a well lit one.
• Turn off the keyboard backlight or set it to minimum
• Check your BIOS and see if turbo boost can be disabled. As there can be a huge power difference in draw between base and turbo. You can also do this in advanced power options and disable processor performance boost modes on battery or try one of the other optimized settings.
• Use ublock origins (not plain ublock different maker) and privacy badger in your browser. This will reduce the number of ads thus the number of scripts. You can go even further with a script blocker.
• In advanced power settings reduce maximum processor state on battery. This takes a lot of tweaking to get right. As reducing the state reduces speed and power. Thus increases work time. You'd have to find the optimal balance.
• In advanced power settings set the cooling policy to passive on battery.
• You can also play with maximum processor frequency

 

[MJS WARLORD]

Thanks for replies , the screen and sleep power settings are all set to never as the main use for this laptop will be for viewing photos and videos that I will be taking whilst on holidays or trips out. I just clicked on the battery icon and moved the slider to the far left where it says best battery life , before it was to the far right by default set on best performance. I have used dells built in programs to make sure drivers, updates and firmware if that's the right term to use , are all up to date.

Velocity , I cant find an advanced setting for reducing processor state or the one for cooling policy.

Now that I have dropped the slider to best battery life I will do some surfing tomorrow just to see how long it last. As I say , it will only be for photo storage and a bit of surfing so it will not matter if I have gone from performance to better battery.

Again , thanks for your guidance.

 

[velocityg4]

Thanks for replies , the screen and sleep power settings are all set to never as the main use for this laptop will be for viewing photos and videos that I will be taking whilst on holidays or trips out. I just clicked on the battery icon and moved the slider to the far left where it says best battery life , before it was to the far right by default set on best performance. I have used dells built in programs to make sure drivers, updates and firmware if that's the right term to use , are all up to date.

Velocity , I cant find an advanced setting for reducing processor state or the one for cooling policy.

Now that I have dropped the slider to best battery life I will do some surfing tomorrow just to see how long it last. As I say , it will only be for photo storage and a bit of surfing so it will not matter if I have gone from performance to better battery.

Again , thanks for your guidance.

Linked is how to get to the advanced settings.

How to Customize Power Options Advanced Settings in Windows 10

How to Customize Power Options Advanced Settings in Windows 10 as hard disk, processor, JavaScript Timer Frequency, Graphics moreover, Internet Explorer.

www.howto-connect.com

 

[MJS WARLORD]

POST UPDATE.... velocity as I said previously thanks for help , this morning I took the laptop back and showed the shop staff only 2 hours on full charge , whilst looking for an alternative somebody else started getting in on the conversation , he said look your wrong its showing 6 hours and at that point the first guy said their must be a fault because I just saw it show 2 hours.

It was replaced with a more expensive machine , I got a Lenovo ideapad S340 it was £100 more to pay but it was that or nothing because over hear in united kingdom since the coronavirus laptop sales have gone through the roof due to people wanting to work from home.

 

[hang-the-9]

Were you

POST UPDATE.... velocity as I said previously thanks for help , this morning I took the laptop back and showed the shop staff only 2 hours on full charge , whilst looking for an alternative somebody else started getting in on the conversation , he said look your wrong its showing 6 hours and at that point the first guy said their must be a fault because I just saw it show 2 hours.

It was replaced with a more expensive machine , I got a Lenovo ideapad S340 it was £100 more to pay but it was that or nothing because over hear in united kingdom since the coronavirus laptop sales have gone through the roof due to people wanting to work from home.

Were you going by what the laptop batter power meter was telling you or did you actually time it? If you have the screen to never shut off and have the CPU running at higher settings, along with the brightness set higher, your battery life will be pretty short.

 

[MJS WARLORD]

I ignored the laptop setting and timed it , the replacement Lenovo has 3 levels of settings , I put it on the bottom one called silent and this reduces the cpu usage to minimum , for the screen I have it to turn off after 20 mins , the screen is set to almost full brightness as I need to see the true colours of photos I have taken , on the battery monitor set to better battery.