Crap Battery Life

[darbyjack]

Got a fancy laptop. Pretty high spec, so understadably the battery life isn't going to be great compared to most other laptops out there. But this particular one was advertised to have a big battery with up to 7 hours. With light usage (surfing the web), I'll get less than 2 hours. Maybe a bit more if I'm lucky.

I phoned up PCS and they have arranged to do a swap under warranty. I give back old one, they send new one. I was wondering if there is anything software related that could be causing this? Reason I'm asking is that I'm using Windows 10 rather than Windows 11. Although I can't imagine using Windows 10 would bring 7 hours down to 2. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious here?

HWMonitor shows the designed capacity and current capicty matched. Although I suspect that may not fully rule out a faulty battery.

Laptop is:

Showing Order Reference 2623548
Chassis & Display	Recoil Series: 17" Matte QHD 240Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560x1600)
Processor (CPU)	Intel® Core™ i9 24 Core Processor 13900HX (5.4GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)	64GB Corsair 4800MHz SODIMM DDR5 (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card	NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 4080 - 12.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive	2TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)
2nd M.2 SSD Drive	2TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)
Memory Card Reader	Integrated SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor	1 x 330W AC Adaptor
Power Cable	1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery	Recoil Series Integrated 99WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste	LIQUID METAL PERFORMANCE COOLING
Sound Card	Nahimic by SteelSeries 2 Channel HD Audio
Bluetooth & Wireless	GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6E AX211 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.3
USB/Thunderbolt Options	1 x THUNDERBOLT 4 PORT + 3 x USB 3.2 PORTS
Keyboard Language	RECOIL 17 SERIES RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System	NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language	United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media	NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software	FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus	NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser	Microsoft® Edge
Notebook Mouse	INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam	INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty	3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee	1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery	STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time	Standard Build - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Welcome Book	PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland

 

[Bhuna50]

How have you installed Windows / activated Windows?

Are all the updates complete?

How did you source drivers?

Have you installed the gaming center and set the usage to "Light" within that - or whatever the similar setting is to light usage - basically it will not use the dGPU and minimise power usage on other hardware items.

 

[SpyderTracks]

If you've set the MUX switch to dGPU only, doesn't matter how light you use it, battery will go instantly.

You'd need it set to standard Optimus if you want any kind of battery life whatsoever, but even then you'd have to set it to power saver.

That's just not designed at all for portability, it's just a rebranded desktop processor.

 

[darbyjack]

Windows 10, activated. Drivers mostly automatically installed. Got Geforce Experience updated.

Also downloaded control center from PCS. Screenshots below showing optimus disabled or enabled. Seems to make little to no difference on battery life. Perhaps it late and I'm an idiot, but the way the description is worded. I can't quite figure out which option is supposed to be bettrer for battery life.

2nd screenshot shows slightly higher battery life, but jumped to 2 hours 40min when posting. Seems to struggle guessing how much life is left.

 

[Bhuna50]

When you say activated did you just activate the Windows that came on the machine or did you CLEAN install it?

 

[darbyjack]

Sorry, I meant that I installed a fresh version of Windows 10. I believe it came with Windows 11, but upgraded to 10.

 

[Bhuna50]

Upgraded to an older version

I’m lost. Have you CLEAN installed Windows?

Can you explain how you went about doing it?

 

[darbyjack]

I can't remember exactly. I bought Windows 10, made a boot image and followed the steps.

 

[Bhuna50]

What steps? And why did you revert from 11 to 10?

Suggest a CLEAN install of 11.

 

[TonyCarter]

Can someone check my maths...

The battery is 99Wh, and the specs say 'up to 7 hours'...which I assume is with their lowest level CPU and GPU combo.

The high-level CPU and GPU in the OP's config would consume c.25w...so that's a max of 4 hours of idling...and even the slightest bit of work/gaming on it will reduce that significantly? Combined with the fact that it is supplied with a 330w PSU, you can see that it really isn't intended to be used as a mobile device.

BTW, I've noticed (on my year-old HP ZBook i7-12800H + Nvidia RTX A1000 with an 85Wh battery) that Chrome uses a lot more power than other browsers, so even adding another 15 watts due to SSD power draw, extra resource usage from Chrome and having the brightness at a comfortable 75-100%, I can easily see it destroying battery life...for example, my current estimates are:

• <3 hours on full power-saving mode at the lowest screen brightness (so low it's unusable)
• c.2.5 hours on the 'better battery' mode (50% brightness, and the mode I use)
• c.1.5 hours on the 'better performance' mode
• c1 hour on highest, 'best performance' mode if I'm actually 'doing' anything on the machine

...and in the time it took me to write that, it has gone from 100% to 94% - and a lot of that is driven by the brightness of the screen. Time to plug it back in.

 

[Bhuna50]

The high-level CPU and GPU in the OP's config would consume c.25w...so that's a max of 4 hours of idling...and even the slightest bit of work/gaming on it will reduce that significantly? Combined with the fact that it is supplied with a 330w PSU, you can see that it really isn't intended to be used as a mobile device.

This is why it’s critical that the OS and the GamingCenter software and settings is correct from the outset.

In “Office” mode It reduces the CPU and GPU power usage / settings and turns off/minimises the dGPU etc. thus extending battery usage.

Hence I think we need to get OP to CLEAN install Windows, updates, install drivers etc (via windows update, manufacturers drivers or last resort PCS account) then install the GamingCenter software. Then can test again to see how long battery lasts.

 

[stegor]

Gaming laptops are portable in that you can easily move them around. They aren't meant to be used for any length of time without being plugged in. It's made worse by the fact battery technology hasn't kept up with power hungry hardware, apps and bloatware like MS Windows.. 2-3 hours seems perfectly reasonable to me and I doubt there is anything wrong with the battery.

 

[darbyjack]

Not sure why I need to do a clean install. Gaming center is installed and all drivers are via Windows update and manufacturer website where needed. Laptop is in office mode and battery saver mode.

I think advertising 7 hours could be a case of false advertising.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Not sure why I need to do a clean install. Gaming center is installed and all drivers are via Windows update and manufacturer website where needed. Laptop is in office mode and battery saver mode.

I think advertising 7 hours could be a case of false advertising.

It doesn't sound like you clean installed properly, if the drivers aren't configured properly, then control center won't be able to work.

It's not false advertising, you can order the system with much lower specs in which case it would be more accurate.

Yours is the top most configuration, so of course it's not going to be anywhere near the maximum possible.

 

[darbyjack]

Nothing seems to indicate Control Center isn't working. All the functionality appears to be working. Switching from "Turbo Mode" to "Performance Mode" makes the corrosponding LED button change brightness/ off for example. Navigating through all the menus, I'm not getting any errors.

I'm not sure how the way I installed windows wasn't "proper". Been installing Windows since the 1990s, never knew I was doing it wrong all this time.

To be fair, I accept it's a powerful machine and didn't buy it for the battery life. But advertising 7 hours is misleading.

 

[Bhuna50]

Nothing seems to indicate Control Center isn't working. All the functionality appears to be working. Switching from "Turbo Mode" to "Performance Mode" makes the corrosponding LED button change brightness/ off for example. Navigating through all the menus, I'm not getting any errors.

I'm not sure how the way I installed windows wasn't "proper". Been installing Windows since the 1990s, never knew I was doing it wrong all this time.

To be fair, I accept it's a powerful machine and didn't buy it for the battery life. But advertising 7 hours is misleading.

OK - if you are happy that you have everything installed and set correctly then I suggest you take your accusation of the advert being misleading to PCS directly.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I'm locking this as it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, there's nothing at all misleading about the battery life claim, as already stated it's "Up to 7 hours" for the chassis, not for your configuration, but you're not hearing it.