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+--- Thread: New laptop advice. (/showthread.php?tid=29387)
New laptop advice. - Sam - 2010-08-23
To start off I apologize for all of the techy threads lately, I am completely lost.
I have been running this thing:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Gateway+-+Laptop+/+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+X2+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+4GB+Memory+/+320GB+Hard+Drive+-+Velvet+Blue/9972693.p?id=1218202942776&skuId=9972693
in gray, however, the battery life is killin me. I need to be able to use it for simple office things without being plugged in for quite some time at school, and this guy dies after about an hour and a half. That is great since it was advertised at almost 4. It has alright gaming specs, nothing to brag about, but it does it's job well enough.
So really, I just need a machine that can play maple without immense lag, and an extended battery life. I do not care if the battery is 15 minutes while gaming.
Thanks.
New laptop advice. - kirayamato26 - 2010-08-23
Umm... well...
A netbook will probably suffice, I have one and it can play Maple fine, and the battery life is 3 hours (old model, ones these days get like 8hrs+), but they are annoyingly small.
But, really, anything with an Intel Core i3/i5 in it will last you about 4 ~ 5hrs these days, AMDs are just not that great for battery life.
New laptop advice. - Sam - 2010-08-24
Along with ^^ I have also found one that seems to fit my needs perfectly.
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cdetland.to?poid=484151
With the battery upgrade I am looking at a decent 4-5 hours economy. The specs will survive me for quite some time. I wish the graphics card was slightly better, but hey...it's Maple.
Hopefully this thread will be of some use to someone...someday.
New laptop advice. - kirayamato26 - 2010-08-24
Quad core laptops usually don't last very long, around 1.5 ~ 2.5 hours for most. Yes, with the battery upgrade you will be probably looking at 4 ~ 5hrs, but from what I understand, the more cells the battery has, the faster and more likely it degrades since the worst performing cell is the limiter in the battery.
New laptop advice. - Fiel - 2010-08-24
Do you have cool n quiet enabled?
Does the screen dim when on battery power?
Can your BIOS disable a core on the CPU?
Can you reduce voltage to your CPU or memory?
Can you turn off your hard drive(s) after 5 minutes of no use?
Set your screen to turn off after 3 minutes of no use?
New laptop advice. - Sam - 2010-08-24
Fiel Wrote:Do you have cool n quiet enabled?
Does the screen dim when on battery power?
Can your BIOS disable a core on the CPU?
Can you reduce voltage to your CPU or memory?
Can you turn off your hard drive(s) after 5 minutes of no use?
Set your screen to turn off after 3 minutes of no use?
Bolded are the ones I have tried. I have searched for how to do the others lightly and unsuccessfully. It is only on those settings that I am able to squeeze out the 1.5/1.45hours.
kirayamato2 Wrote:Quad core laptops usually don't last very long, around 1.5 ~ 2.5 hours for most. Yes, with the battery upgrade you will be probably looking at 4 ~ 5hrs, but from what I understand, the more cells the battery has, the faster and more likely it degrades since the worst performing cell is the limiter in the battery.
Hmmm. So I'd probably be looking at replacing the battery a few times over the life of a well kept computer?
New laptop advice. - Fiel - 2010-08-24
When you see this screen --> pic
Press F2 (you'll see the shortcuts in the top right of the screen as shown in the picture). You can fiddle around with BIOS in there.
New laptop advice. - kirayamato26 - 2010-08-24
Fiel Wrote:Do you have cool n quiet enabled?
Does the screen dim when on battery power?
Can your BIOS disable a core on the CPU?
Can you reduce voltage to your CPU or memory?
Can you turn off your hard drive(s) after 5 minutes of no use?
Set your screen to turn off after 3 minutes of no use?
I wouldn't try to undervolt the CPU or RAM, stability testing is a pain (I've seen that BSOD far too many times overclocking my desktop), though it could help quite a bit in battery life.
Sam Wrote:Bolded are the ones I have tried. I have searched for how to do the others lightly and unsuccessfully. It is only on those settings that I am able to squeeze out the 1.5/1.45hours.
Hmmm. So I'd probably be looking at replacing the battery a few times over the life of a well kept computer?
Well... depends.
My netbook is almost 8 months old, its battery life is still roughly the same as when I first got it (though it is a 3 cell).
My dad ran threw 2 batteries within the first month of owning his laptop, though admittedly, it was poorly maintained. X_X
Personally I consider the life span of a computer to be no longer than 2 years (and should be replaced by 4 at most), so I don't think the battery will degrade that much over the life span of the laptop if it is very well kept.
New laptop advice. - Erich - 2010-08-24
All I can say is, stay as far away from dell as you can. I have a dell laptop and it's been horribly built and they have horrible service.
New laptop advice. - RADRaze2KX - 2010-08-24
Do NOT go with a netbook. They can't render 3d as effectively as necessary. As for your poor battery life, 4 hour battery life is the advertised battery life when your notebook's screen is dimmed and you're doing basic computer work; gaming is not included. If you're doing basic stuff, the battery should last between 2 and 4 hours under ideal user conditions. This means: No virus scans, no defrag, no DVD watching, no gaming, and light wireless usage for internet.
The circumstances you're putting your laptop under are not IDEAL conditions, your battery is doing the best it can for the situation you've put it in. If you want to extend, do deep cycling of your battery by discharging it as far as it will get (til your laptop shuts off) then charge it completely... Do this 3-4 times and your battery life should improve. Also, don't straight-charge the battery (charge without use) when it's not less than 15% battery life remaining, as this will shorten the overall lifespan of your laptop battery.
Your laptop has a dedicated graphics card in it, there's another reason your battery life is poor. It's also an AMD/ATi, they've been known to hog more power than nVidia. Lastly, you have a 320 GB rotational harddive; want more battery power? Drop $300 on a solid state drive.
New laptop advice. - kirayamato26 - 2010-08-24
RADRaze2KX Wrote:Do NOT go with a netbook. They can't render 3d as effectively as necessary. As for your poor battery life, 4 hour battery life is the advertised battery life when your notebook's screen is dimmed and you're doing basic computer work; gaming is not included. If you're doing basic stuff, the battery should last between 2 and 4 hours under ideal user conditions. This means: No virus scans, no defrag, no DVD watching, no gaming, and light wireless usage for internet.
The circumstances you're putting your laptop under are not IDEAL conditions, your battery is doing the best it can for the situation you've put it in. If you want to extend, do deep cycling of your battery by discharging it as far as it will get (til your laptop shuts off) then charge it completely... Do this 3-4 times and your battery life should improve. Also, don't straight-charge the battery (charge without use) when it's not less than 15% battery life remaining, as this will shorten the overall lifespan of your laptop battery.
Your laptop has a dedicated graphics card in it, there's another reason your battery life is poor. It's also an AMD/ATi, they've been known to hog more power than nVidia. Lastly, you have a 320 GB rotational harddive; want more battery power? Drop $300 on a solid state drive.
There's only a sliver of truth in all this, I'm afraid.
I don't know about the States, but here in Canada, many manufacturers, including: HP/Compaq, Acer/Gateway/E-Machines, MSI, and Lenovo, actually UNDERSTATE their machine's battery life, for Intel Core i3/i5 based computers anyways. I've seen spec pages with as little as 2.5hrs rated, but in reviews, the laptop lasted for 5hrs doing heavy flash based web surfing, straight. My netbook was rated for 2.5hrs, I can easily push 3hrs out of it Youtubing.
Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT do deep discharges/recharges more often than every 30 charge cycles, it actually harms the Li-ion (or Li-polymer) battery more (not to mention they don't suffer from the 'memory' effect). The Li-ion and Li-polymer batteries will last the longest if their charge levels are held around 40%, at 100% the Li-ions will be too excited and bounce all around, and at 0%... it might never charge again. It is recommended to recharge your battery at as high a % as possible, if you are constantly using it. If you want more information on this, just Google 'Laptop battery care' and all of them will state roughly the same thing (but, please, don't put your battery in the fridge, that's just being paranoid).
And by the way, no, he DOES NOT have a dedicated GPU, if you don't believe me, check this out, the 4250 is an onboard GPU.
SSD vs HDD, the argument is pretty redundant, the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 750GB will use at most 5W at startup, 0.95W idle, and 2.5W average under load (look here). The Momentus 5200.6 320GB only uses 1.78W on average under load. A SSD uses 2W under load, and 0.5W idle (claimed by OCZ, SSD maker, here). As you can see, a SSD will not help battery life by much, it consumes maybe 1W less on average while the CPU + Chipset itself may use something as high as 40 ~ 50W. And, really, installing a $200+ component in a $500 laptop is really, redundant, unless you absolutely NEED the performance boost (which, even then, it probably makes more sense to just buy a new laptop).
The bottom line, don't let marketing schemes fool you. Practically any Core i3/i5 based laptop will have a battery life of 4 ~ 5hrs on a 6 cell battery. AMDs are not great for battery life, but with the newer processors, they are improving (still don't recommend you getting one if you are worried about battery life).
Edit:
Regarding the netbook statement...
Effectively? Lolololol.
You are talking about a laptop that is <1.3" thick with hardware technology that was released like 3 ~ 4 years ago, all cramped into an area of no bigger than 10.5" x 5.5", of course it wouldn't be as powerful as, say, a GTX 480.
But come on, this is Maple Story that we are talking about, the client has been barely touched for years. Maple runs fine on my netbook, albeit a little choppy in more crowded maps, but it gets the job done. I'm pretty sure that I can do a Zakum Run on my netbook without many, if any, problems. >_<
New laptop advice. - Sam - 2010-08-24
Yes, I know that AMDs are battery hogs, which is why I'm going for Intel. Admittedly, i7 quad core isn't much better, but with a 12 cell battery, progress is progress. Now I need to see how my student loan money is distributed to see how I can pay for it...
Edit: How are you able to discern the conditions my battery is under based on the information given? There probably are some tweaks I could do to squeeze a few minutes out of it, but those are still a few minutes. I have treated my computer well and the advertised life of the battery was false.
Regarding an hdd change, the computer was only 500 usd. A replacement like that would just be dumb.
And a netbook would be nice, but they are just too small. I have massive hands and a condition that causes muscle tremors, and typing on them is a joke.
New laptop advice. - kirayamato26 - 2010-08-24
Sam Wrote:Yes, I know that AMDs are battery hogs, which is why I'm going for Intel. Admittedly, i7 quad core isn't much better, but with a 12 cell battery, progress is progress. Now I need to see how my student loan money is distributed to see how I can pay for it...
Edit: How are you able to discern the conditions my battery is under based on the information given? There probably are some tweaks I could do to squeeze a few minutes out of it, but those are still a few minutes. I have treated my computer well and the advertised life of the battery was false.
Regarding an hdd change, the computer was only 500 usd. A replacement like that would just be dumb.
And a netbook would be nice, but they are just too small. I have massive hands and a condition that causes muscle tremors, and typing on them is a joke.
Umm... well... the most basic check is to just do a comparison between the current battery life, and the battery life when you first got the laptop.
I believe a Li-ion battery in the best condition degrades like 4 ~ 6%/year (compounded, by the way), and poorly maintained ones degrade somewhere from 20% ~ 100%/year.
Though, manufactuers like HP include programs that supposedly tell you what condition your battery is in (no clue if they are actually accurate, the last time I checked, my battery was still at full health, but this was like 3 months ago).
The main one, besides actually throttling or undervolting your CPU and whatnot, would probably be the programs that run.
Some antiviruses and firewalls access the HDD a lot, and may eat up a lot of background resources, which can lower your battery life by as much as like 5 ~ 15 minutes, check to make sure that your HDD activity light isn't constantly flashing.
Other things include disabling WLAN when you don't need it, removing removable media when uneeded, dimming the screen more (in fluorescent lit displays, the brightness can affect the battery life by quite a bit, even in LED ones it matters), allowing the laptop to disable components when uneeded, and a whole lot of other things. The WLAN is a power drainer, and should be disabled when you don't need it.
Oh, and just a tip about battery maintenance, do NOT leave the battery in when you are using the computer, the extra heat will only speed up the degradation.
Edit:
Yes, netbooks are annoying small, but they got the best battery life, so, what can you do? =P
My netbook's keyboard is actually decently sized as it spans the full chassis length, so it's actually not bad to type on, but I hate how it won't stay on my lap properly unless I close my legs fully (inevitably, "Ow, my balls").
So I wouldn't recommend a netbook to anyone, really, unless their budget absolutely demands one (even then, there ARE alternatives, just won't last as long on a single charge).
New laptop advice. - RADRaze2KX - 2010-08-24
kirayamato26 Wrote:Regarding the netbook statement...
Effectively? Lolololol.
You are talking about a laptop that is <1.3" thick with hardware technology that was released like 3 ~ 4 years ago, all cramped into an area of no bigger than 10.5" x 5.5", of course it wouldn't be as powerful as, say, a GTX 480.
But come on, this is Maple Story that we are talking about, the client has been barely touched for years. Maple runs fine on my netbook, albeit a little choppy in more crowded maps, but it gets the job done. I'm pretty sure that I can do a Zakum Run on my netbook without many, if any, problems. >_<
Just don't forget Maplestory's UI update is coming, which will increase screen resolution to 1024x768. do you want a netbook pushing 1024x768? Just a thought.
New laptop advice. - kirayamato26 - 2010-08-24
RADRaze2KX Wrote:Just don't forget Maplestory's UI update is coming, which will increase screen resolution to 1024x768. do you want a netbook pushing 1024x768? Just a thought.
To counter that, 800x600 mode is also still available to users who want it. As well, by the time Big Bang gets here with the new UI, the new Cedertrail platform should be out (late 2010, early 2011), which will have enhanced graphical abilities over the current Pinetrail platform, and the even older Diamondville (what I have). The new Cedertrail platform boasts the ability to hardware decode 1080p H.264 videos, and play them through HDMI. So, it is probably safe to say that it is at least as powerful as the GMA 4500MHD from Intel, which means that it should handle the new UI with no problems (not to mention that the new client actually runs far more efficiently). And some netbooks have a native resolution of 1366 x 768 instead of the 1024x600 standard.
Heck, even without the new GPU update, the current GMA 3150 or the older GMA 950 should have no problems handling Maple at 1024x768.
New laptop advice. - Sam - 2010-08-25
Battery life: just as horrible as when I purchased it. Thanks for the tips for a new one. Maybe taking it out would help the whole burning a hole in my leg front.