Any way to get better battery life?

[squadz]

You're saying you set the range of your cpu from 0-80%? I never knew you could do that, I only see 2 options, performance and power saver.

In power options, there is three settings (they just have different default values).

Pick one, and edit the advanced settings to your liking.

 

[sillyrabbitt123]

how many hours are you getting currently? I just did a test screen on medium brightness, using outlook and Firefox plus streaming my connection from SP2 to my desktop PC using splashtop. i got 3 hrs not that great. i would love more...

if i change the settings mention above any downside to doing that? or only upside battery?

thanks

 

[BobC]

Try this:


How To: Optimize Microsoft Surface Pro Battery Life

 

[sillyrabbitt123]

Thanks for this battery info.... question i cannot find the setting "dim after 1 minute" where is that setting? that article mentions "Display→Dim Display After: 1 Minute"

thanks

 

[Tgrey]

turn off the refresh for metro app (forgot the actual name) saves a lot battery

 

[Ruffles]

Thanks for this battery info.... question i cannot find the setting "dim after 1 minute" where is that setting? that article mentions "Display→Dim Display After: 1 Minute"

thanks

That option got removed with Win 8.1. What your looking for now is the "Turn the screen off after" option.

 

[BobC]

After you click on "Change Advanced Power Settings" look for "Change Settings That Are Currently Unavailable" and click on that. Then you should be able to find the Dim selection

 

[sillyrabbitt123]

turn off the refresh for metro app (forgot the actual name) saves a lot battery

Where is this one? i cannot find it. What does it do? thanks

After you click on "Change Advanced Power Settings" look for "Change Settings That Are Currently Unavailable" and click on that. Then you should be able to find the Dim selection

the only thing i see is dim display brightness and i have it set at 20%. not sure where that dim setting is if its gone or not? thanks


also i am getting miserable battery life. when i went out of the house it seemed much better but when i stream on splashtop when on battery i think that might hog the battery? you think thats whats eating it up?

EDIT
Splashtop SUCKS the battery life away when on battery of course. i turned it off and now i am getting 6 hours so it says

thanks

 

[terriermike]

Where is this one? i cannot find it. What does it do? thanks






the only thing i see is dim display brightness and i have it set at 20%. not sure where that dim setting is if its gone or not? thanks


also i am getting miserable battery life. when i went out of the house it seemed much better but when i stream on splashtop when on battery i think that might hog the battery? you think thats whats eating it up?

EDIT
Splashtop SUCKS the battery life away when on battery of course. i turned it off and now i am getting 6 hours so it says

thanks

I think this is where many people make mistakes assuming battery life. This device is a full PC, like any other laptop. Things are a little more complicated than an ipad (although, if you're gaming with screen at full brightness on ipad, that's going to suck the battery pretty quickly too). You have to take into account what programs you are running and what uses power. If you treat the stated battery times from Microsoft in the context they're meant to be taken, ie, power saving mode with lower screen brightness and light usage (web/email) then you will see those numbers. As you just found out, splashtop (and anything involving the word "streaming") probably isn't going to fall under light usage. Next time you use it, open the task manager and see what % of the CPU is under load....

I think it all goes back to how MS has marketed this product, and people drawing unfair comparisons between it and actual tablets running mobile OS's and mobile apps w/ mobile hardware. Someone else in this thread mentioned that his lost 5% overnight while in sleep mode........that's actually not bad at all! This is a full power windows PC, sleep mode is the same on this as any other PC, it is just in a low power state for when you want to be able to turn it back on for usage in less than a second. It is NOT for extended storage, and like any laptop the battery will drain relatively quickly this way because the machine is still on! You need to either use hibernate (where it will dump anything in RAM to the actual hard drive and shut down) or just shut the machine down. And luckily the SP has incredible start up times so that's not really too much of a hassle.

For the record, I got the SP1 on day one, and have had a SP2 since day one. I have easily gotten the quoted battery life and more on each machine. Right now my SP2 is sitting idle on my desk, only program open is outlook, brightness at ~25%, power saving mode with max CPU speed set to 75%. I am at 80% battery, and the estimated time left is 8hr 36min. And this is going to go up and down depending on what the machine is doing, but overall, I've had enough laptops to know that this is going to get me right around where Microsoft claimed it would. On my SP1, in this situation it would usually be showing around 4-5 hrs, again in the neighborhood of MS claims. And that's not bad because I treated the SP1's battery like crap, many times leaving it in sleep mode and not using it for days, meaning when I did pick it back up it was completely dead. It was drained to complete 0 multiple times!

The Surface Pro is really a good product and it's frustrating to see unfair comparisons drawn so often concerning these types of things, but again I do believe much of it is Microsoft's fault.

 

[sillyrabbitt123]

WELL....SAID. I know its user error in my case just needed a little help getting better battery life and i did and in the process found that software that i installed was the culprit. i am very happy and this thing was a dream on the road today. i had it in the car pulled over and parked of course it fit so nicely in the car on my lap etc.. much better then my old MBA. VERY HAPPY! and very happy to have this forum.

now the only thing i would like to remove are the cameras. dont need em dont want em

 

[mtalinm]

For the record, I got the SP1 on day one, and have had a SP2 since day one.

So I am not the only one who did this!

 

[oion]

Agreed with the rest of your assessment, but--

You need to either use hibernate (where it will dump anything in RAM to the actual hard drive and shut down) or just shut the machine down. And luckily the SP has incredible start up times so that's not really too much of a hassle.

Jeff (jnjroach) was explaining that hibernate is bad for SSDs, which is what Pro has, so hibernate may not even be an option there. In which case... turn off, I suppose.