VPN client and battery life

[bamaster]

Hello all,

Recently I've noticed that my battery life has gone to hell. hehe I've lost 25% battery in 45 minutes. Brightness at around 80% and just running Outlook and Chrome, which is very normal for me. I used to get about 6 hours battery, now BatteryBar Pro tells me I'll get 3:15 from a full charge.

I'm living in Saudi Arabia. I brought my SP3 over from the States and in order to view things like Netflix I have to use a VPN client. I'm using VyprVPN. The only other things I've added are Avast! free antivirus and KeyScrambler.

Anyone familiar with the impact of this type of software on battery performance?

 

[kristalsoldier]

It is a common perception in these parts that Chrome is a battery-hog. Perhaps the VPN client is also eating up some of the battery. Don't know about that but will soon find out since our workplace has just upgraded its VPN service with a bloody client. Not sure about Avast as I use Windows Defender and I have never used (and did not even know about) KeyScrambler.

 

[bamaster]

Yes, I know that Chrome has been found to be a bit of a resource hog, but I was using it before I moved here and was happy with 6 hours battery life. My VPN client is running OpenVPN and 256 bit encryption. So I was hoping that was the culprit.

KeyScrambler is a key-logger deterrent. It's just a way to make sure no one sees my key strokes... credit cards and banking information often get hacked in the middle east. Every layer of security helps. But I'm pretty sure it is a lightweight utility.

 

[GreyFox7]

I'd think you would see the VPN client as a high CPU user in Task Manager if its the culprit. In any case look at those high CPU tasks as the main battery munchers aside from the 80% screen brightness. Even a few ticks lower on the brightness will help but you may have other processes using abnormally high CPU as has been known to happen from time to time.

 

[ctitanic]

Hello all,

Recently I've noticed that my battery life has gone to hell. hehe I've lost 25% battery in 45 minutes. Brightness at around 80% and just running Outlook and Chrome, which is very normal for me. I used to get about 6 hours battery, now BatteryBar Pro tells me I'll get 3:15 from a full charge.

I'm living in Saudi Arabia. I brought my SP3 over from the States and in order to view things like Netflix I have to use a VPN client. I'm using VyprVPN. The only other things I've added are Avast! free antivirus and KeyScrambler.

Anyone familiar with the impact of this type of software on battery performance?

1. Chrome, stop using it.
2. Brightness, Set it to 40%

 

[kristalsoldier]

Yeah...I forgot..;.your brightness level is blindingly high (at least for me). I have set the brightness at 38% and combined with other things I get about 8 hrs 30 mins of battery life. So, even if you drop your brightness to, say, 50% and stop using Chrome, you would probably see a noticeable hike in battery life.

 

[vancamp]

I suspect that it's primarily your VPN client. The VPN client I run on my work SP3 typically shows 30-40% CPU utilization, which will make it warm and eat into the battery. But you should be able to see it in task manager.

 

[wookiee2cu]

With the VPN, once you are connected to netflix and logged in can't you disable it? I know with IP hiding software you can but not sure, this might help with battery life. Like others said turn the brightness down and look at using another browser. As far as browsers go it seems they are in the following order from least battery hog to worst: IE, FireFox and then Chrome (I used FireFox and I'm getting about 5-6 hours it seems). Also be sure to check your task manager to find out what programs are starting up when the device is booted up. When I know I will not be able to charge my device during the day and I will need to use it for most of the day I will also check to see what applications are running and end any that are not needed.