Is Cortana and Chome draining my battery?

[seb_uk]

Hi guys

I just bought a Surface Pro 3 and so far I'm enjoying it - apart from some rather crappy battery life. At the moment I'm getting around 4 hours. This is with:
- 50% brightness
- "Hey Cortana" off

I don't really want to disable Cortana completely because part of the reason I got the SP3 was because of this feature! I've attached a screenshot of my CPU usage, which indicates Cortana is eating a lot of CPU. I've also attached a screenshot of my battery which indicates Chrome is responsible. If I can't use Cortana or Chrome if I want 8-9 hours battery life, that is pretty sad.

 

[ctitanic]

The answer is Yes. Specially Chrome. Cortana is learning from your habits and indexing your info to make searches faster. Chrome is and has been always a battery sucker.

 

[seb_uk]

Thanks. Maybe I will try not using Chrome for a session and see how that affects things. Is there a simple way to disable Cortana so it doesn't use battery? I don't want to wipe everything it's learned because I want to use it while on power.

 

[ramiss]

Try disabling the service running Cortana?

 

[ctitanic]

Thanks. Maybe I will try not using Chrome for a session and see how that affects things. Is there a simple way to disable Cortana so it doesn't use battery? I don't want to wipe everything it's learned because I want to use it while on power.

After few days (weeks) it will start using less battery .

 

[seb_uk]

I'm not sure how to disable the services running Cortana - I will google it

I'm now trying Edge. So much smoother! But I already miss all my extensions and google passwords

 

[leeshor]

You can get much of the same result you did with Chrome by using Firefox. It has great support for extensions. And it doesn't chew up the battery like Chrome.

 

[seb_uk]

Yep - definitely will give Firefox a shot. I really need extensions for some of the research work I do.

I'm currently using Edge and I'm on battery. I have OneNote, Outlook, and TaskManager open as well. I'm on 50% brightness and I have AVG Live Optimisation running too.

I have 83% battery and it says I have 4 hours left. Is this normal?

The Surface Pro is about a week old.

 

[leeshor]

That sounds pretty normal with those apps running.

 

[seb_uk]

Great! As long as I don't have a bung machine thanks for your help