My SP2 has around 7400mW drain on Battery Bar Pro. Battery life is bad on my SP2

[jnjroach]

KMPlayer/VLC are Win32 apps and are not doing you any favors when it comes to battery life, Modern UI apps are designed for mobile environments. Preventing the screen from turning off when not in use will also impact your battery. Also you refreshed your machine mid-stream in your testing so that all Syncing, indexing and optimization had to run again.

I think your workflow is impacting your battery.

 

[cedric5555]

KMPlayer/VLC are Win32 apps and are not doing you any favors when it comes to battery life, Modern UI apps are designed for mobile environments. Preventing the screen from turning off when not in use will also impact your battery. Also you refreshed your machine mid-stream in your testing so that all Syncing, indexing and optimization had to run again.

I think your workflow is impacting your battery.

Jnjroach,
Thanks for your information. I wil try Modern apps later. It is not free and it doesn't play mkv and some other vidoes format. I saw the review and it has only 3 stars out of 5. I will get it and try.
Yes, I did refresh it cause I wasn't sure which apps or software could run and drain the battery in the background.

As your experience, you had the same problem like I do at the beginning and all of suddent it is improved on its own from 6 hours to 8 hours plus ???
Can you tell from 100% to 90% of battery with power saver, how long does it take? (battery safe mode with wifi on and regular web surfing) Mine took 28 mins.

Thanks

 

[rmblue2]

hey what program/addon can I use just to meter the time that the battery lasted from 100-0% ?

 

[cedric5555]

hey what program/addon can I use just to meter the time that the battery lasted from 100-0% ?

I used Battery Bar Pro. It shows total battery life hours of my SP2 is between 5 to 5 hours:49 minutes. Depend whats you are doing.
Let me know yours if you can.

Thanks,

 

[polbit]

I used the same program. Balanced mode, 30% brightness, surfing web, playing some YouTube, xbox music in the background about half the time, I lasted 7:32 hours to under 10%.

Loving it.

 

[jnjroach]

I used Battery Bar Pro. It shows total battery life hours of my SP2 is between 5 to 5 hours:49 minutes. Depend whats you are doing.
Let me know yours if you can.

Thanks,

cedric - How many Legacy Win32 Apps do you have installed? What are you using for Anti-virus? Are you using a Micro-SDXC for storage? And how many files are you syncing with SkyDrive and/or Dropbox (if using Dropbox are you using the Win32 Client). Known battery killers that I'm aware of:

- iTunes
- Norton Anti-Virus
- MacAfee Anti-Virus
- Dropbox Win32 Client
- Google Sync

Other things to check, have you adjusted the CPU percentages so that the CPU is always 100% or disabled Speed-Step, have you installed the generic Intel Video Driver (not optimized for the Surface Pro and typically will cost you 1+ hours of battery life).

 

[cedric5555]

cedric - How many Legacy Win32 Apps do you have installed? What are you using for Anti-virus? Are you using a Micro-SDXC for storage? And how many files are you syncing with SkyDrive and/or Dropbox (if using Dropbox are you using the Win32 Client). Known battery killers that I'm aware of:

- iTunes
- Norton Anti-Virus
- MacAfee Anti-Virus
- Dropbox Win32 Client
- Google Sync

Other things to check, have you adjusted the CPU percentages so that the CPU is always 100% or disabled Speed-Step, have you installed the generic Intel Video Driver (not optimized for the Surface Pro and typically will cost you 1+ hours of battery life).

Since I am doing the testing, that is the reason why I reset my SP2. I didn't install anything on my SP except, "WinRAR" , KMPlayer, none of anti-virus program (windows Defender is on), stopped the sync notification, no iTunes. I have 64gb Sandisk SDXC in all the time. Is it the reason? Let me pull it out and do the test again.
I did change the CPU maximum to 40%, minimum 5%, 40% brightness. I did try airplane mode. I did install the Intel Video Driver the first time I got SP2. I didn't install that driver after I reset the SP2.

Thanks,

 

[madusmacus]

quick reply cedric5555

on my new SP2 256G I get... (50% brightness 50% volume)

1.5 - 2 hours playing games (asphalt 8 - pro gets pushed and hot)
6 hours playing movies (Xbmc local 720p - quite dark)
7 hours general faffing around if im careful

guess its just the way it is :¬(

p.S. i tried power bar and it had a habit of locking up my pro so its gone now
P.P.S. i bought "MOBILE.HD MEDIA PLAYER" from the store and ran the same films
ran for 6.5 hours and shuts off at 5% as before

 

[Ruffles]

In Battery Bar Pro settings, un check the statistical time estimation. When I had that checked, Battery Bar was reporting much shorter battery life. Also, like others have said, avoid playing video on the desktop. Use the metro video player full screen. Also, do you have tons of live tiles updating? I switched off the live tiles for stuff I didn't care about like games etc.

 

[cedric5555]

I got my replacement of the SP2. For those people who asked me to give up and live with it, I can confirm that now I have 7.5 web surfing hours on my new SP2. If I turn on flight mode, I can have around 8.5 hours. I am satisfy with it now.

 

[kristalsoldier]

I see the same on RT....

I'll second that. Very counter-intuitive, but that's the way it is turning out to be.

 

[Aaron Pepelis]

You get 6hrs!?!?! I have gone through 3 surfaces pro 2. I never get battery life of more than 2hrs after a few months of use.