Did I get a dud

[tornadog]

I bought a HP Pavilion dv2-1030 us Entertainment Notebook PC from the hp online store. After cleaning all the bloatware and updating the drivers, the notebook finally performs ok. But battery still seems to be a concern. It goes from fully charged to 0% in under an hour and this on the power saver power scheme in vista. All the reviews I saw extolled its battery performance so why mine is so bad!!!

 

[Athena]

When did you get this machine? If it's new, open a warranty claim and get a new battery now.

 

[tornadog]

from hp direct, got it 2 days back

 

[IlllI]

did you by any chance test this out before you started removing stuff?

 

[tornadog]

it was slow as sh*t when I started with it, thats why I went ahead and uninstalled all the junk. I was on AC power all the time. It was only yesterday I really sat down to test the notebook.

 

[Athena]

Then call them and tell them you got a bad battery. If the second battery is as bad, and you aren't satisfied, you'll still be within the return period for the system.

What happened to your Dell replacement?

 

[SickBeast]

I think I know the reason for this.

Vista harvests all your files for Search Indexing when it is first installed. I'll bet your hard drive was thrashing constantly and your CPU was probably pretty pegged as well. You need to either disable indexing in Vista, or else leave it plugged in for a few days so that the file harvesting can finish.

That notebook apparently scored 3h41min in MobileMark for the battery. Vista will give you about 20% less battery life than XP (maybe even less than that). You could always boot up a Ubuntu live CD and see how it compares. You'll probably get 4h or so.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Vista harvests all your files for Search Indexing when it is first installed. I'll bet your hard drive was thrashing constantly and your CPU was probably pretty pegged as well. You need to either disable indexing in Vista, or else leave it plugged in for a few days so that the file harvesting can finish.

Agreed. The best thing to do with a new Vista machine is to set it aside for 24-48 hours and let it index everything. That's usually preferrable to disabling indexing because the Windows development team has architected a system that depends more and more on indexing. It's less hassle in the long run to just get the indexing over with.

 

[WackyDan]

Also make sure you install the HP power management driver and utility. Windows power management blows. Vendors drivers and utilities will indeed give you more control and battery life.