Sony battery discharge time
 

The battery on my new Sony NR498E seems to run down while the computer is not in use.

I've had a word with the Geek Squad in Worst Buy, and they think about 10% a week. Mine is exceeding that a day. A week would see it useless.

Removing the battery allows it to stay charged much longer.

This machine has been a total disappointment. I'd had a Vaio for over 10 years and it was perfect...except for the battery which died rather quickly, so I'm really on this one's case.

But with the issue of not allowing WP's full save menu to run, and a bendy keyboard which I hate. Not squidgy, bendy...the whole length, I'm not at all please with what I thought was going to be high end product.

If it's "new new", take it back. It may be the battery, but if it's worse "in" than "not in" the machine, summat's not right.

My laptop battery doesn't change noticeably if left for a month. That's an IBM ThinkPad - I've had a long series of those, and they've all been excellent. Friends with Sony and HP and Compaq have problems: I don't.

If the battery in yours is more than about two years old (since manufacture), it's approaching the end of its lifetime. LiIon ones can last longer, but in my experience two years is close to the knee of the curve. How long have you had the machine, and what's the "manufacture date" on it and the battery?

Thank's Keef. The only thing I can see on the Battery, is 08B in front of the bar code. Miles of Eastern hieroglyphics and 3-197-929-03

I'm hoping that 08B is the year and the month. Bat type is VGP-BPS9/B Li-ion


One thing that's come to light is that I can't find the receipts for either lap-top! They'll be somewhere.:hmm: But the date of sale was somewhere around 8 weeks ago. I'll look tonight.

Are you sure that the laptop is actually shutting down totally and not going into some sort of sleep mode? Only if the battery is lasting longer out of the m/c then the m/c must be drawing current.

Hibernate is when the "system state" is written to disk (hiberfil.sys) and the lappie is switched completely off.

Standby or sleep is where the "system state" is in RAM, and the system is not off, but in a lower power consumption state - enough to keep the RAM energised.

So make sure it is hibernating rather than sleeping to conserve the battery.

SD

I switch mine off when not in use. Battery consumption is negligible in that state. Hibernate or standby will eat it a lot quicker.

Dunno how to decipher those battery codes, I'm afraid. I like ones with "Mfr Jun 2007" writ on 'em.

Keef,

I have to correct that - Hibernate will not eat any battery, as the laptop is switched off.

That's the whole point!

As I said before, the system state is written to disk, not stored in RAM.

SD

I'll double check. The 5 day test that I'm doing now is definitely off. Taking the readings about midnight every night. I'm off to Austin after Christmas, everything there makes more sense than down in 'The Valley'. Jasper Carrot had it summed up with Curry's sales bloke. "yeh, it'll make toast." Just what it's like all the time here.

Dunno, SD.

The only time I tried hibernation (years ago), it took so piggin' long to shut down, and even longer to start up again, that I opted for full shutdown and startup. It reminded me of our dear old tortoise (now also hibernating).

The desktop in Essex stays on all the time anyway. It turns off peripherals that aren't in use, but stays awake in case I want to access it from somewhere.

This thread covers two issues: Battery life and hibernation.

These are just items of interest, no need to respond if busy.


After a week's test, the battery was down to about 23% this morning, with only 4 or 5 starts to quickly enter the charge-state into my log. This is much lower than the Geek Squad's estimation of 10% a week, so I phoned Sony and got me'self a case number.

This was with the computer SHUT DOWN at all other times.

A nice young lady in Manila took control of the kit and installed a battery condition monitoring program. Okay, that's on record now.

Last night, at about 03:00, The Rivetess popped up bottom right...I should rephrase that...as having come on line. Again, no sign of her, just her lappy sitting there with all its lights on. Odd. This morning I confirmed that it had been put into hibernate.

If it was the first time, I'd be suspicious, but now it seems that there is a way that the system can be brought to life from Hibernate at the command of some piece of software/firmware/clock-time etc.

I wonder if this is a dedicated circuit that is programed from the OS while everything is awake. I also wonder if this 'readiness' consumes power, though I'm not relating it to my Sony's issues cos that was always OFF.

Sounds like "Wake on LAN".

You can disable it in the BIOS and / or in Windows.

SD

Copied, thanks. Will have a look tonight.