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only 4 hours of battery EVEN WHEN I optimize for battery

macmee

Active Member
My capacity is about 35k mWh but the discharge rate is about -7k/hr and I am getting about 4 hours of battery life.

This is all *WITH* me trying to optimize for battery life. I have battery saver on, the screen on low and all I'm doing here is browsing the internet (reddit) so nothing intense like videos or emulators or gaming.

I was wondering what gives here. 4 hours is terrible, right? I swear I used to get 6 hours when I got this thing.

I'm not even using Chrome. The ONLY application I've used is ms edge.

battery report:

https://i.imgur.com/w84BMCf.jpg
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
Even when you got it you should ha e been able to get a good bit more than 6 hours.

I assume you've done a reinstall or vigorous malware/virus scans (a number of bits and pieces these days bitcoin mining in the background. Even utorrent was found to be doing something like that)
 
OP
macmee

macmee

Active Member
Even when you got it you should ha e been able to get a good bit more than 6 hours.

I assume you've done a reinstall or vigorous malware/virus scans (a number of bits and pieces these days bitcoin mining in the background. Even utorrent was found to be doing something like that)

Yeah unfortunately I reinstalled windows in October after I got into a windows update boot loop so it's a pretty clean install right now. I don't see any high CPU processes in task manager either - I have no idea why the battery drain is so big :(
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
My capacity is about 35k mWh but the discharge rate is about -7k/hr and I am getting about 4 hours of battery life.

This is all *WITH* me trying to optimize for battery life. I have battery saver on, the screen on low and all I'm doing here is browsing the internet (reddit) so nothing intense like videos or emulators or gaming.

I was wondering what gives here. 4 hours is terrible, right? I swear I used to get 6 hours when I got this thing.

I'm not even using Chrome. The ONLY application I've used is ms edge.

battery report:

https://i.imgur.com/w84BMCf.jpg
Hi Macmee -

Can you run the energy report? It is a bit more helpful in tracking down what is causing the drain. From an elevated CMD Prompt -

c:\>powercfg -energy

(you can pipe it wherever you want or just copy it from system32)

Thanks,
 
OP
macmee

macmee

Active Member
FYI I wasn't doing anything in edge at the time when I ran this ^. I might have had either 1 tab of reddit up, or 1 tab of this forum up.
 
OP
macmee

macmee

Active Member
ok I'm at 9% so I'm going to head home now and will check this thread tonight. My surface only lasted 3 hours and 20 minutes. Really curious what's going on here since it only has 52 cycles too. Very sad :(
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
Looks like Explorer and Edge where the biggest culprits in draining CPU.

For Edge are you using Flash? What Extensions are installed? Explorer running is typically search or indexing.

The other thing was WiFi - the AP you were connected required continuous connection which also is draining your battery, APs that support WMM-Power Save basically increases the efficiency and flexibility of data transmission. Specifically, the client device can doze between packets to save power, while the access point buffers downlink frames. The application chooses the time to wake up and receive data packets to maximize power conservation without sacrificing Quality of Service.
 
OP
macmee

macmee

Active Member
Looks like Explorer and Edge where the biggest culprits in draining CPU.

For Edge are you using Flash? What Extensions are installed? Explorer running is typically search or indexing.

The other thing was WiFi - the AP you were connected required continuous connection which also is draining your battery, APs that support WMM-Power Save basically increases the efficiency and flexibility of data transmission. Specifically, the client device can doze between packets to save power, while the access point buffers downlink frames. The application chooses the time to wake up and receive data packets to maximize power conservation without sacrificing Quality of Service.

I don't use flash in edge and for extensions the only one I run is ublock origin. Maybe that's the culprit? I was thinking that would save me battery though (by blocking interactive ads).

As for the wireless thing I was at a coffee shop so I guess their wifi must've sucked. Would that've been enough to cut my battery life in half like this though?
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
I don't use flash in edge and for extensions the only one I run is ublock origin. Maybe that's the culprit? I was thinking that would save me battery though (by blocking interactive ads).

As for the wireless thing I was at a coffee shop so I guess their wifi must've sucked. Would that've been enough to cut my battery life in half like this though?
I use Ublock as well - it's been causing issues with the latest Insider Build (but that is more likely the new Fluent UI and Security updates to Edge in this build).

Weak WiFi signals and constant communication to older WiFi APs/Routers can drain battery very quickly, not sure what the impact should be though.
 
OP
macmee

macmee

Active Member
I use Ublock as well - it's been causing issues with the latest Insider Build (but that is more likely the new Fluent UI and Security updates to Edge in this build).

Weak WiFi signals and constant communication to older WiFi APs/Routers can drain battery very quickly, not sure what the impact should be though.

I'm home now so once it's fully charged I'll give it another go and see if I can determine if it was the bad WIFI signal that killed me or if it was ublock. I guess worst case I can re-install windows.
 
OP
macmee

macmee

Active Member
well now I have to reinstall windows.... I tried turning the surface on this morning and it's in a windows boot loop...
 
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