General wear and tear question regarding laptop

[Achusaysblessyou]

Check your task manager, when i got my Z1, I was always bugged by a problem with something that was always taking like 20-30% of my CPU power (Presentation Font Manager) or something. Apparently it's some weird Win 7 thingy that affects only a very few people (no one on here knew what was up, so google was my friend). Either way, I'd also suggest under power management, for "power-saver" i'd set maximum CPU frequency to 99% because your chip only turbo boosts to 3+GHz if it hits 100%, so by setting at 99% it doesnt turboboost (raises my temps about 5-10C depending on ambient)

[laptopn00blet]

Thanks for everyones help so far I really appreciate it. Maybe I was a little off but from general use it is around 2 hours or something, but that's on balanced. I don't use power saving because it makes my taskbar white and I don't like that. :P So I can't really complain, but it's still not much time.

It does get quite hot on the left hand side where all the heat pushes out of it, and can get hot along the top and bottom of the left hand side so what are my options in trying to reduce this heat, ie performance or someone mention a battery percentage? I know about Silent Mode but that's about it, would anyone mind please giving me some step by step options in reducing the power consumption/heat/processing etc?

Here is a screenprint of my task manager, I don't know what half of it is so I generally don't touch it. I know Norton probably is always running things in the background even when I'm not using it but surely the laptop can handle that.

thanks again.

[laptopn00blet]

Hey Achusaysblessyou, thanks! I didn't see your post and I'll check into that stuff now. if you or anyone else has any ideas how to reduce to heat and power consumption that'd be great, thanks!

Edit: So are you referring to changing the Max Processor state to 99%? Cheers.

[Oscar2]

You don't mention whether you have it in 'Stamina' mode. From the amount of heat you describe coming out of the fan port, I'm just curious if you have the switch set to 'Speed'.

Also, I second everybody's suggestion that you leave it plugged in when not travelling around with it. The thing that wears out a Li Ion battery is the heat generated on charging, you only get so many of those cycles.

Li Ion batteries are not like lead acid batteries or NiCad batteries, in that they (LiIon) are not affected by what level of charge you are at. Instead they degrade from heat generated during the charging cycle.

[leslieann]

Li Ion batteries are not like lead acid batteries or NiCad batteries, in that they (LiIon) are not affected by what level of charge you are at. Instead they degrade from heat generated during the charging cycle.

Actually...
Lead Acid (like in a car) prefers being fully charged all the time.
Li-Ion prefers to be charged at 50% all the time. They are shipped at 50% because they can settle into a dormant state at that point, you sometimes have to cycle them a bit to wake them from this state.

In either case, the further you get from their preferred spot, the harder it is on the battery. Heat is a killer, but leaving a Li-Ion at 100% all the time is also very hard on it. Which is exactly the reason for Sony Battery care.

[Oscar2]

Actually...
Lead Acid (like in a car) prefers being fully charged all the time.
Li-Ion prefers to be charged at 50% all the time. They are shipped at 50% because they can settle into a dormant state at that point, you sometimes have to cycle them a bit to wake them from this state.

In either case, the further you get from their preferred spot, the harder it is on the battery. Heat is a killer, but leaving a Li-Ion at 100% all the time is also very hard on it. Which is exactly the reason for Sony Battery care.

actually the purpose of the Sony battery care is to limit the heating. I am not aware of any electo-chemical or mechanical preference for 50% in LiIon. What mechanism are you supposing for this 50% theory?

[laptopn00blet]

If you set Battery care to 50% you can leave it plugged in without harming the battery. That is where these batteries like to stay. Leaving it at 80% and plugged in is probably easier on the battery than all of that up and down you are giving it. My SZ is several years old at 80% plugged in most of the time, with no issues.

This is exactly what battery care was designed for.

Just figured out how to do this, thanks! I've done it. I've also made sure I'll use it from now on in Silent Mode + Power Save (Balanced) or whatever. Anything else you could suggest? Someone also mention setting the CPU to 99% so it doesn't jump into turbo boost (which when it does it sounds like a plane taking off) but I'm unsure exactly where to go to do this, any chance for a step by step?

Then I think I won't have any more problems.

[Achusaysblessyou]

Just figured out how to do this, thanks! I've done it. I've also made sure I'll use it from now on in Silent Mode + Power Save (Balanced) or whatever. Anything else you could suggest? Someone also mention setting the CPU to 99% so it doesn't jump into turbo boost (which when it does it sounds like a plane taking off) but I'm unsure exactly where to go to do this, any chance for a step by step?

Then I think I won't have any more problems.

click on your Battery Icon in the system tray -> More power options -> More plan settings (for which ever plan) -> change advanced power settings -> Processor power management -> Maximum processor state -> 99%.

If you have the Intel Turboboost Monitoring gadget, that'll show you when your Z is turboing, and if you set it to 99% it doesn't turbo.

[lovelaptops]

The best way to find out which processes are draining the battery the most (after lowering screen brightness to the lowest you can stand, turning off Bluetooth and Wifi whenever you're not using them, leave all USB ports unplugged unless you are using the attached peripheral, leaving the DVD drive empty, lowering your max cpu on battery not only below 100%, but even better on 5% - you'll doubtfully notice any performance change for most applications, and see what effect on the wattage each change has using battery bar or an equivalent battery measurement app.

And then save an extra 10% or more from this simple, often overlooked technique: using the "stamina" setting - the Intel integrated gpu, go into the Intel GFX control panel (Control Panel->All Control Panel Items -> Intel Graphics and Media) and change the Color Quality from 32 bit to 16 bit and the refresh rate from 60Hz to 40 Hz.

If you do all of the above while on battery, and maybe a few more that I haven't listed, you should be able to get at least another 1 hr of battery life. Also, if you only have a standard battery, the extended battery for the Z has 50% more capacity. If I am careful, I can get 5-6 hrs on a fully charged extended battery, easily 10 hrs with two and I own two extended batteries and one standard (just to make it lighter when I don't need to run very long on battery). The extended batteries are about 3/4 lb heavier than the standard, but it's not like they are adding all that weight to the laptop at once. You can always find a place to store them where the weight won't be noticed.

Sorry for rambling,but there's some useful stuff in there.

[Achusaysblessyou]

Thanks for everyones help so far I really appreciate it. Maybe I was a little off but from general use it is around 2 hours or something, but that's on balanced. I don't use power saving because it makes my taskbar white and I don't like that. :P So I can't really complain, but it's still not much time.

your taskbar white...

I think that's Intel's power saving tech for their iGPU... I'm not at my Z right now, but when I get the time i'll tell you how to turn it off (goes along the line of go into graphics properties for intel card by right clicking desktop, then go to the power saving or something, select battery and disable the power saving option)