VGN Vaio rapidly losing power with Windows 7

[robbie.sony]

Hi all,

I have a VGN-NR38E. I did a clean (custom) install of windows 7. I re-installed most of the original drivers - event service, shared libraries etc. and ignored those I didn't need - like vaio smart network. My Fn keys are working fine.

However, my battery life has reduced drastically! I can't remember what battery life I got when using vista, but with windows 7 I'm only getting 1 hour! I have installed Vaio Power Management. I have tweaked the power settings to try to save as much as possible.

I'm not getting any error messages about bad batteries (like others seem to be getting). When hovering over the battery icon, the time remaining seems correct based on percentage (2 1/2 hours on a full charge) - but it still goes in an hour! My battery is just running out so fast!

When I run the powercfg -energy command, I get the following errors. I'm not worried about the errors with the "plugged-in" state.

Power Policy:Sleep timeout is disabled (Plugged In)

The computer is not configured to automatically sleep after a period of inactivity.

Power Policy:Minimum processor performance state is 100% (Plugged In)

The processor is not configured to automatically reduce power consumption based on activity.

CPU Utilization:Processor utilization is high

The average processor utilization during the trace was high. The system will consume less power when the average processor utilization is very low. Review processor utilization for individual processes to determine which applications and services contribute the most to total processor utilization.

Average Utilization (%)

13.94

Platform Power Management Capabilities:PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) Disabled

PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) has been disabled due to a known incompatibility with the hardware in this computer.

I thought windows 7 was meant to improve battery life??? At this point, i'm thinking of going back to vista! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[Blencogo]

What Power Plans do you have set for 'Plugged in' and for 'On Battery'?

What options are you offered in Start -> Control Panel -> System and Security -> Power Options -> Select a power plan -> Show additional plans?

Are the 3 additional Vaio Power Plans offered?

I also thought Windows 7 was gentler on the battery than Vista.

[robbie.sony]

For the power plans, I have the usual windows 7 ones (Balanced, Power Saver etc.)  and I have the three sony ones Maximum, Optimized and Ultimate.

I use Vaio Optimized the whole time. I've configured 'Optimized' so that when plugged in, I have the screen brightness, processor speed increased and the sleep option turned off. However, when on battery, I've tweaked it so I can save as much power as possible - for example, using power saving option for the wirless adpator, etc.

Still running out of battery in an hour!

Any ideas please??

[robbie.sony]

At the moment, I'm trying to remove the "PCI Express ASPM Disabled" error as it's the only thing I can think that might drain the battery. After web searching, it seems I should be able to turn on 'PCI Express ASPM' via the advanced options in Power Management. However the "PCI Express" item in the menu tree it not there!

This leads me to believe that win 7 is not recognizing the PCI Express correctly. I have installed the intel chip drivers that came with my vaio (Chipset Driver Intel 8.2D_8.2.0.1014A) but the readme file for this does not mention windows 7. I'm hoping that updating these chipset drivers will allow me to see the PCI Express in the Power Management.

Unfortunatley, there are no updated drivers for my VGN-NR38E that would work with windows 7. Does anyone know if there are new chipset drivers for similar models that would work on mine?

If any of this makes sense to someone I would really appreciate some guidance!

[Slinn64]

Hi

In a seperate thread I've had similar problems after a Windows Update  -  you've done a re-install  -  and had to re-install the Sony VAIO Battery Checker software. If you've made any kind of update to your Windows software then you may also need to put back the Sony software.

Try running VAIO Care Recovery and Restore programme (from the start menu), use the Recovery option  - Reinstall Applications and Drivers – and re-installed the Battery Checker (check box option).

Perhaps first see my other reply message to see if there are any similarities

Vaio Battery does not seem to keep its charge?  (this has pasted into here as a link - if the link doesn't work try using the text to search the forum)