Member Avatar for russey123

I was wondering if anyone else has had a problem with vista eating batter really fast. I had XP on my laptop when i got it well i got a free copy of vista from my school do i put it on my laptop now i only get about a hour of of battery life and with xp i could push it to 3 hours. I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem. I have a dell inspiron E1505 core 2 duo

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reported a big drop in runtime after moving from XP to Vista. Replies from , and pointed at power plans and visual effects, which help — but they don’t diagnose what’s actually using the power. The checklist below focuses on finding the root cause and fixes that often recover substantial battery life.

  • Run an automated energy audit. From an elevated command prompt run:

    powercfg -energy

    Open the generated HTML report and look for drivers or devices that never enter low-power states, services keeping the CPU busy, or disk activity that prevents idle.

  • Update firmware and drivers. Install Vista-specific chipset/ACPI, graphics and vendor utilities from Dell for the exact E1505 model and apply any BIOS updates. Generic or XP drivers can prevent proper power management.

  • Find runaway processes. Use Task Manager or Resource Monitor to sort by CPU and Disk. Do a clean boot (use msconfig) disabling third-party services/startup items to see if a background app is the culprit.

  • Calibrate and check battery health. Fully charge, then discharge to automatic shutdown, then fully recharge. Calibration fixes reporting errors; it does not restore aged capacity. If measured capacity is much below design, replacement is likely.

  • Reduce hardware draws during testing. Disable Bluetooth/wireless radios, eject optical media, unplug USB devices and test battery life with a minimal profile. Also confirm CPU power-saving features (EIST/C-states) are enabled in BIOS.

These steps go beyond switching power plans or turning off effects (suggested earlier) by identifying whether the problem is drivers, background tasks, firmware, or simply an aged battery. If after all checks Vista still gives only an hour, the battery is probably worn or a hardware incompatibility remains and replacement is the realistic fix.

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Member Avatar for chris5126

Are you running different programs on the vista machine? Do you have power save features enabled to make sure that the battery is being used in the best possible way??

Member Avatar for forumdude123

this is normal. vista hogs everything from ram to battery life. if batt. life is important, get a bigger battery or tweak power options to dim the screen and use less processor and ram when unplugged. also, use hibernate and standby as much as you can.

Member Avatar for scru

Yes. I would also reccomend turning off Aero.

Member Avatar for russey123

oh ya im using the best power saving possiable. I just miss being able to work on the battery for a while. I guess thats what i get for going with vista but i have to use it because thats whats out now and we have to get use to it.

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