Hello Know it alls! I am having a funny issue Here it is

[G+_Joe Coulter]

Hello Know it alls!  I am having a funny issue.  Here it is.

 

I just bought a new Acer m5-583 laptop.  Its very nice, and super efficient, touchscreen, thin.  Got it for a great price, under $450.   The i5-4200u is super low power while still being capable of going fast when it needs to.

 

Anyway.

 

I am running some battery life tests to see what I can expect out of this thing when I go back to school in September. 

 

 A standard use case for me is something like this:

50% brightness

Wi-Fi on

Bluetooth off

in power saver or balanced power profile.

Windows 8.1, btw (I know...)

 

I'm using the peacekeeper browser test (linked) in battery test mode.  I'm doing it this way not because i'm going to be browsing the web during class, but its a nice way to get a somewhat varied 2-30% processor load,  and since using google docs is going to be almost guaranteed, the browser is where I will probably live.

 

Like anyone with half a brain, I use chrome for all my web needs.  So I fired up chrome, started the test, unplugged the laptop, and started my timer.  the results are as follows.

 

From 100% charge until 3% I got a total of 4:12 in power saver

From 100% charge until 3% I got a total of 3:28 in balanced

 

WHAT??!?!?!

 

The manufacturer claims over 7 hours of battery life, which I know can be inflated a bit.  But review sites were claiming over 8 hours!  This is silly, I said; there is something wrong with my computer!  I knew the open box was too good to be true!  I was thinking my testing methodology was flawed, or that the peacekeeper test was unduly punishing.  So I decided to take a morning I had, and read some articles online I had been neglecting,  stalk around Facebook, and watch some back episodes of "KNOW HOW".

 

So again off to chrome, balanced power profile,  50% brightness, here we go.

 

3:50 later, I'm down to 3%.  ugh.  But I noticed something funny in chrome.  Heavier sites really seemed to stutter on scrolling (such as the verge).  I would get a few stutters in HD video.  High CPU usage at the same time.  These are things that shouldn't happen, even on 15 watt TDP chip.  I reset all chrome settings, reinstalled, no help, still stutter and choppy.

 

Feeling a bit down, and out of options, I saw that blue "E" staring at me from the taskbar.  I haven't touched it in years; I was afraid of what would happen if I did.  I bargained with myself.  "Just for a minute, just one page, just one video", I repeated this until my courage had gathered.  I double-clicked that god-forsaken icon.  It loaded--quickly.  loading up a heavy site (the verge) was also quick.  scrolling was quick and smooth.  I loaded up 4 separate tabs with 4 separate 1080p YouTube videos and ran them all at once.  No stutter at all.  Under 15% CPU utilization. 

 

Ok then.

 

Thoroughly impressed with IE11, I decided to redo the tests. same settings as before.

 

100% to 3% on the power saver profile, peacekeeper test:8:43

100% to 3% on the balanced profile: 6:54

 

DOUBLE!!!

 

Going though a day of web browsing yesterday-starting and stopping my timer when I closed and opened laptop-only using IE11 in power saver mode, I got to 10:35 at 10%.  That is crazy good.

 

Now i'm stuck using IE11!  Its actually very nice now, and uses a lot less memory than chrome, in any matter.  But no adblock, apps, ect. 

 

Is this a known problem with chrome, windows 8.1?  my computer?

 

Lets put our know it all heads together to figure it out.  If you want, run your own tests, of chrome vs IE11, or firefox, safari, ect-that would be awesome.  Thanks for reading!

 

Also, Possibly a good show idea.  Maybe an episode about optimizing battery life for your gadgets; laptops, phones, tablets, ect.

 

Thanks again.

http://peacekeeper.futuremark.com/

[G+_Travis Hershberger]

With laptops running on battery your big power use is normally the display.  Sounds like you already realize this with setting it to 50% brightness.  WiFi also tends to be a big power use, but turning it of just isn't an option.  The factory probably ran their tests with 0% brightness, all of the wireless things turned off, and as little drive access as possible.

 

What your seeing for run time seems about right to me.  If you need more you might want to think about a larger battery or an external battery.

[G+_Lee Roche]

Keep in mind Joe Coulter that IE will be running naked - no plug ins, web apps, etc.  If you have Chrome tricked out the way you like, it will take up more memory, cpu, and battery. I'm not saying that is the case (nor that I'd care to use IE on 8.1 to find out), but it might be something to examine.