Re: Laptop batteries... advice required.
- From: "Dennis Pogson" <dennis_nospampogson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2005 08:29:04 GMT
JF wrote:
> X-No-Archive: yes
> In message <WGcHe.69651$Pf3.6808@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ellada
> <ellada@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>> Hi People,
>>
>> I am looking to buy a laptop but I really hate the fact we are in
>> the 21st century and laptop batteries last for about a max of three
>> hours and have a lifespan of 3 years. I would like to know what
>> people think about 'tweaking' your laptop to extend its operating
>> time and its lifespan.
>
> Avoid having to load Windows. It's obscene bloatware. There are many
> excellent DOS-based programs around. In word-crunching, which is my
> main use, my laptop, which is the worse laptop in the world, manages
> about to function for about 30 hours on a charge without Windows
> loaded. About ten times the duration of Windows. The DOS that's
> shipped with Windows 98/2 is remarkably stable.
>
> The amount of power that Windows uses just generating light doesn't
> bear thinking about. With text-based programs under Windows much
> power is expended in illuminating the entire screen. DOS-based
> programs require light energy for the fonts only -- the background is
> black. One can achieve much the same using a Windows colour scheme so
> that the background is black and only the displayed data is consuming
> power. It does make a difference. But battery-draining Windows is
> still there, of course.
>
> For Windows word-crunching, it's a good idea to look out for software
> that's written in assembler and is therefore small and energy
> efficient. For example, Rising Sun Solutions (RSS) 'Atlantis' word
> processor is fully featured and yet is less than three megabytes.
> Campare that with the 15-megabytes that Adobe's Acrobat reader
> demands, and that's just for reading files!
James is right about Windows needing excess power. On one of my old laptops,
the system board memory is knackered, and Windows simply won't load. I have
loaded Word for Dos as it's the only word processor which I still had from
my Dos days. It runs perfectly, and the battery lasts about twice as long as
it did running Windows.
However, in my case very little word-processing is needed, therefore I (and
many others) are forced into using either what we have used on our desktop
PC's or learning something like Linux, which I am told has many adherents.
But is Linux less power-hungry than Win XP?
The rest of the poster's suggestions re battery-saving all contribute to
longer battery life, but not by a significant amount. The Pentium M
processor on my new laptop runs happily for around 4 hours, and I use the
laptop without it's battery for fairly long periods ( a month or more). I
know some people's usage requirements don't allow this, but there are
thousands who simply leave their batteries in the laptop and use it every
day, like a desktop, then wonder why the battery has failed so quickly.
Dennis
.
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