My SP2 has around 7400mW drain on Battery Bar Pro. Battery life is bad on my SP2

[cedric5555]

I installed Battery Bar Pro. It tells that my SP2 has 7400 mW drain of battery. In this case, I only get 6 hours battery life. I have already picked Power save mode, brightness 40%, Off blutooth, max cpu speed is 40%. I stop the auto sync apps and auto dimming for display. I don't know why I still have so high mW. I see some people saying they only getting 3800mW so they can get 8 hours + battery life. Can anyone suggest which backgroup apps should be closed and how to optimize the SP2 to get better battery life?

Thanks,

PS I did another test today. I have been surfing on the web for non stop testing. My SP2 dead in 6 hours 10 mins usage which is no good compare to other ppl whom saying they got 8-10 hours.

Please advise.:nerd:

 

[jnjroach]

How many Win32 Applications have you installed? Especially any older Applications. Have you installed any legacy hardware or updated you Intel Video Drivers? How old is your router? Older routers tend to cause the Marvell WLAN card to reconnect more often. Turning off Bluetooth could be actually be impacting your battery life as all if the Radios are on the same silicon.

 

[D1vad]

I believe that battery bar pro may will be playing a large roll in your issues with power.

I tried it, and it significantly reduced my reported time. I'd suggest that you try removing it, rebooting and check widows battery status then...

 

[cedric5555]

How many Win32 Applications have you installed? Especially any older Applications. Have you installed any legacy hardware or updated you Intel Video Drivers? How old is your router? Older routers tend to cause the Marvell WLAN card to reconnect more often. Turning off Bluetooth could be actually be impacting your battery life as all if the Radios are on the same silicon.

I just did the factory reset. Now, it's on original factory setting without any update. I have power save mode with brightness 40% on with 90% battery and it shows 4 hours 19 mins left.
In other word, I only got 5 hours with 100% before the update.

I will do the update and check out again. I believe it's gonna extend one more hour which is 6 hours for regular web browsing. In this case still pretty low compare to the other people saying they have 8-10 hours regular all day usage.
Guess my SP2 must be back to Microsoft. T_T

 

[hksrb25s14]

Noooo Microsoft has done it again, this is why they made the power cover for. For us to buy it.

 

[cedric5555]

Noooo Microsoft has done it again, this is why they made the power cover for. For us to buy it.

Spent an hour to update. Now,

battery life % current time
6.35 100 1:36am
5.42 100 1:38am
6.12 97 1:41am
7.02 96 1:46am
6.55 95 1:51am

6.35 hours T_T

 

[cedric5555]

I really don't know how these people can get so much battery life.

Surface Pro 2 - Light Use Battery Test
Movie Battery Test - Flight Mode

AnandTech | Microsoft Surface Pro 2 Firmware Update Improves Battery Life
before update 6.6 after update 8.3 @_@

 

[oion]

Did you ever do a full discharge to calibrate? Counting off the mouseover minutes at the high percentages isn't useful. The real-world hour count is always at FULL discharge.

 

[cedric5555]

Did you ever do a full discharge to calibrate? Counting off the mouseover minutes at the high percentages isn't useful. The real-world hour count is always at FULL discharge.

Oion,
Thanks for your advise.
I did let the battery drain but I just waited for 2 hours then fully charge it back to 100%.
Tonight I will fully drain the battery again over night and will charge up tomorrow. I will report tomorrow sometime later.

How's your battery life on you SP2? Let say if you continue web surfing with non video playback. How long does it take for the battery drain from 100% to 90% ?

 

[jnjroach]

Cedric - you're becoming your own worse enemy, by doing a full Factory Reset the machine is new again which means it goes through the whole process of indexing and optimizing which negatively impacts your battery life. I honest opinion with no malice intended, stop worrying about it and enjoy your new Surface Pro 2 and let it finish doing its thing and in a few days you'll see battery life that others are seeing.

You done some much to try to get the battery life that it is giving you the opposite effect you're trying to achieve. Those of us who are getting the 6.5-8 hours are just using it, I haven't tweaked a thing, I'm using balanced power scheme with the Adaptive Brightness enabled. I just use it, when it gets down around 10-20% battery life I plug it in... no stress

 

[bluegrass]

Yep. An old addage that I learned over 40 years ago when I got into this business is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". To a lot of degree this adage has paid off thru the years. Now I don't worry so much about the stuff like battery life unless it is really detrimental to what I'm trying to accomplish.

 

[macmee]

I really don't know how these people can get so much battery life.

Surface Pro 2 - Light Use Battery Test
Movie Battery Test - Flight Mode

AnandTech | Microsoft Surface Pro 2 Firmware Update Improves Battery Life
before update 6.6 after update 8.3 @_@

This is complete crap. NOBODY and I repeat, *NOBODY* is getting 10 hours of battery out of this thing, especially not with bluetooth on.

6 hours is perfectly within the ballpark of what you should be getting. I have my CPU down to 30% and brightness even lower than yours and I get about 6 hours.

You either need to stop worrying about your normal battery life, or return your SP2 and buy this tablet instead, because it's the only way you're going to get 10+ hours of battery life out of a tablet.