Sony :: VGN-SR190 Battery Life Shorter Under Windows 7
Nov 11, 2009
I used to get 4-5 hours under Windows Vista. Now using Windows 7 Ultimate Edition and I'm lucky if I get 2-3 hours. The Sony site has no Windows 7 drivers for the SR190.
I just ordered a Vaio TZ2500 Premium with the dual drives. It's intended to replace a MacBook Air. While I like the Air a lot, I just can't get used to its big footprint and short battery life. My school's library is pretty old and wasn't really built to accommodate lots of laptops, and often it gets really difficult to find an outlet. I was wondering, what kind of battery life should I expect from the TZ SSD+HD with standard battery?
My usage is very light. Most of the time I'm just looking at PDF's, maybe running some light stuff in Matlab, and Office and Excel 2003.
My other question is, has anyone tried Windows 7, and if so, do all the drivers work correctly?
I know that we really don't need to have a million threads on the subject, but I haven't seen many SR tutorials. If this stays open, maybe it will help other older SR owners when they upgrade to Windows 7.
What you need before you do your upgrade:
Firmware Extension parser
Sony Shared Library
Sony Notebook Utilities
Optional items:
Webcam software
Synaptics Touchpad drivers
Fingerprint Scanner driver
I installed Win7 Pro as a clean install. I have a 320gb drive that I formatted and partitioned into 3 parts, 40gb for the OS, 5gb for the pagefile and the rest for a storage partition.
I use the storage drive to put all of my user-created files. That make it easier for me to locate an item and makes backing up my personal files alot easier. I think it also reduces fragmentation on your OS drive...........
I have a 4 year old vaio vgn-sz110b with windows xp home.
My battery wear indicator according to mobilemeter is 11% wear.
With windows xp I get 2:30 -3 hours of battery life.
I decided to bite the bullet and finnaly get windows 7 pro.
I created a seperate partition for windows 7 so I can dual boot windows xp/7.
After installing a fresh copy of windows 7 and most of the essential sony programs I decided to test out the battery performance and silly me, I really thought windows 7 would improve the battery performance but the results were absolutely disgusting.
With my fully charged laptop, I unplugged it and watched a movie to see how fast the battery would drain. Normally on my XP OS I would get 2:30 hours of watchtime. When the movie started I looked at the clock and it said 1:20 pm and I took a mental note of that. Shortly after the film the battery baloon popped up saying that the battery had reached critical level. I looked at the time and it said 1:40, I laughed thinking it ws just a mistake. Then in less than 3 minutes my laptop went into sleep mode!.............
I own a vgn-SR190. I recently had HD failure, so had to buy new HD and reinstall vista. My original version of Vista was Business 32-bit. I didn't make a recovery disc. So I went out and bought vista ultimate 32-bit. Figured I wouldn't have problems, but I did.
I'm having the driver issues that someone in another thread talked about, when you get the problem with vaio mode switch and the battery issue. I downloaded the drivers for Vista Business, figured it would be the same for Ultimate. But I just read someone's post here that the home premium 32-bit drivers are the same as the ultimate 32-bit drivers. Is that true? if it is, I would just have to download the home premium drivers. I just wanted to know if anybody knows for a fact that the home premium drivers are the same as the ultimate drivers, seeing as the business drivers are obviously different.
After upgrading to Windows 7 Professional the battery life on my 6920 has taken a dive.
I've always thought that the meter was just messed (never used it long enough on battery to test), but today my battery completely drained in a little over 30 minutes.
Under Vista, I was getting around 2.5-3 hours of usage....
I was just wondering if anyone experienced a battery increase after down-grading their Vaio Z from Vista/Win7 to XP? If so, by how much?
I'm currently holding a Z710dd (canadian vaio) with a standard battery with windows 7 installed. I previously had a netbook that lost a good hour and half from Windows XP to Windows 7. Even after disabling a lot of the windows aero mumbo-jumbo and themes
I recently purchased a Vaio VGN-SR390 with the "9 hour" battery. I understand you never get that. But what I think is odd, is that no matter what settings I change, including WiFi on/off, it *always* says 3:55 to 4:00remaining with 100% charge. (I haven't actually timed it on the clock, though.)
Questions:
1) Is this what other SR owners are getting? about 4 hours...no matter what
2) How do I make sure bluetooth is off (haven't been able to figure that one out)
3) Should I see the battery life increase with reduced display brightness, Wifi off, etc?
what the battery life of the new(er) unibody macbook pro 17 was like under windows. I read a review somewhere that says the new macbook pro (the one with advertised 8hours battery life) managed about 1 1/2 hours in windows, is this true? the only reason I'm looking at the 17inch pro is because I program a lot in Windows and Linux, and 17inchs would be fantastic to display more code, but I still need good battery life. portability is no issue, as I'm a big guy and I carry 2 computers with me right now anyway. any other cons to installing windows on this beast?
i saw that there are 3 available processors on sony z series.
1 - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8700 (2.53GHz) 2 - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8800 (2.66GHz) 3 - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P9700 (2.80GHz)
the 3 processors will give me enough power, but i travel a lot, and i care a lot about the batter life, so which one is better for the battery life on z series?
hardware configuration to get the longest possible battery life?
I'm looking for a new notebook at the moment, and it might well be the Z21MN/B. The trouble is that I am pretty suspicious about the battery life specifications. I just want to make sure that the 6 hours battery life in stamina mode are not some developer's wet dreams but a fact.
I ordered a VAIO Z series with i7 620M chip thinking that it was a Quad core Intel chip. I discovered this morning that is a Dual Core chip. At first I was bummed and was thinking of calling SonyStyle this morning to see if I could change my order altogether.
After researching a bit more....this chip apparently has performance close to quad core chips, (and in some tests it is faster), with much less drain on the battery life.
As I placed my order I asked about the battery life with the large capacity battery option. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the life expectancy with this configuration is approximately 8 hours! So, I have ordered the laptop of my dreams...a high end performer with great battery life.
I am trying to decide if the P8400 is worth the money in terms of battery life. The P8400 uses 25w as opposed to the T5800 that uses 35w. So a 10w difference. But as far as voltage range, the P goes up to 1.250v
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I am looking to buy an SR. But anybody who has any data or experience in comparing the two please chip in.
I will also use RMclock and want to be able to under-volt the CPU. which on the two is more compatible with rmclock?
I'm super happy with win 7 x64 on the vostro 1400, except for the terrible battery life. Off power, it's less than 40 mintues even on the 'power saver' mode. I'd get 3 hours plus out of my 9 cell battery on XP...
any suggestion as to how I go about improving this problem? anybody else experiencing this?
I've looked for some answer here, but not found too much except for how to get RM clock to work on x64 so far.
tell me the real world battery life of the Sony Vaio Z such as performance vs stamina mode for the Core i7? or continuous internet surfing or continuous movie watching
I am considering the two following models: SR290 and Z540. My question relates to the overall build quality of these models as well as battery life with the extended battery.
Basically Im deciding between these 2 and a lenovo. The lenovo is heavier than both, is well made, and has ridiculous battery life. Just curious as to how the sony's stand up over time.
I've had eye on Z Series for couple days, but there exists a mystery I couldn't figure it out.
I've searched this forum and the net, still no answers.
On the sony's official USA website (www.sony.com)
Sony claims VGN-Z790 CTO has upto 7.5 hours of standard battery life.
However, other preconfigured Z Series laptop such as VGN-Z790DND, VGN-Z798Y/X, VGN-790DLX, VGN-790DKX, VGN-Z790DMR, and/or VGN-720D/B has upto 6 hours of standard battery life. It's mystery I was unable to figure out.
what's difference between Z790 and Z720? (I mean fundamental differences like circuitry design or expansion limitations such as maximum ram support and so. Couldn't figure this out... probably one of those model number decryption wizard would know it.)
I did a search and read various thread on the older Sony Vaio Z battery life. However, these are all in the year 2008 and pre Windows 7.
Vaio Z battery life tests
Vaio Z reviewers getting 9hr battery life!
I do a fair bit of transatlantic flights. So I'd like to know what battery life I can get with the Sony Z890, Windows 7, with all processes such as WIFI, Bluetooth etc turned off and being used in word processing and reading mode using the integrated graphics, with brightness at 50%. SLOW is fine as word processing is easy.
Anyone has a sense of the battery life I should get?
What if I turn on WIFI and use it as a netbook for surfing at airports?
I can't seem to find a recent discussion on battery life. The 2008 threads has a huge disparity with some people claiming something like 9 hours doing basic stuff! Hard to believe but thought I'd check with you guys.
Was toying with the idea of getting a 15" MacBook Pro, but as OneNote is a major application with me, dual-booting with Windows 7 like I'm running now, or using Parallels, is required.
What kind of battery life are you guys getting with Parallels / Fusion (or running Windows natively via Boot Camp)?
1.I really didn't find much info on the (now not so) new white unibody Macbooks, expect some items for sale. And please, don't tell me that just buy the aluminum model for the extra $200, my question is strictly from an engineering point of view: heat. We all know aluminum Macbooks are quite hot, right? But how does the white unibody compares to the aluminum regarding heat issues?
2.What might be the reason that the whole bottom of the white unibody contcts the table beneath it, compared to the aluminum model, which has four rubber contact points on the four corners?
3.On the other thread I read a dedicated graphics card does not really add to battery consumption. Can you confirm that?
My main usage profile is office, web and seeing (HD, if available) Youtube videos. This one is rather a 15" vs. 13" Pro question, and half hypothetic. Let's say, all things are being equal on two models, the processor none the least, the only differences are one model has the integrated Nvidia, the other the integrated Intel plus discreet Nvidia combo, which one would serve me better, regarding performance and battery life? The discreet graphics would at least turn on when playing the HD videos?
4.Running native Windows (7 or XP) still suck on Macbooks, because of the drivers?
I am looking for real world feedback for the 6 cell battery on the XPS 16. This would be mainly word processing and Internet surfing, with the screen at about 1/2 brightness