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When I first got my machine, imy battery life was at 7-8 hrs. I configured everything, taking off unnecessary programs and the only thing I added was ms office. However, now my battery says that it’s 100% with only six hours (after I charged it). Now it says that it has 7:09 hrs at 97%. In fact, the battery manager often changes the amount of time I have left on the battery (although same %). IThis happens when I just mouse over the battery icon, then I’ll be writing something, then I’ll mouse over it again and it shows me something different. ‘m not opening up any additional programs or doing anything extra. Anybody else have this weird problem? Is there something wrong with the battery manager that it keeps fluctuating the amt of battery life I have? Thanks for any answers.
The short, non-technical answer is that the program is calculating the remaining time based upon your use of the computer – that’s why it can fluctuate so much. Use the CPU and HD heavily while looking at the guage and the calculation will be lower. Look at it while the machine is idling and it will read higher. In short, its a bit annoying, but not really a problem.
–Ken
sorry to bring this up again, but your answer was what I originally thought, that it was due to what I was doing and the type/number of programs I was using. However, just to make sure, I charged it up to 100%, disconnect the adapter. Then I moused over the battery. At 100%, the battery life was 6.27 hrs. I moused over the desktop and immediately moused back over the battery. I had not opened any programs or done anything else other than move the mouse. It then said 5.17hrs at 100%. I tried it one more time and then it said 5.52hrs. This all happened within a minute. I’m concerned because I don’t know if I have 2 hrs or 1 hr left when I get to the 10 % mark.
Unfortunately you will never really know. When 10% left you most likely have 30mins. If you aren’t a “turn everything off freak” you won’t get more than 6h of batterylife. Which is damn good if you ask me.
You are going to find some variation as the CPU, for example, may be preforming a task in the background that you are not aware of. Rather than test it over a period of a minute, try using the machine as you normally would for a longer period of time, perhaps an hour or two. Check the battery level every ten or fifteen minutes. You may see more consistent numbers. Alternately, you could find antother battery meter program and see if you like it better.
–Ken
I certainly get more than 6 hours battery life, although I usually keep my screen at somewhere between 1-4 bars of brightness (1 bar of brightness is brighter than 5 bars on my IBM/Lenovo laptop).
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