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XPS 13 Battery Life
I have seen numerous posts about the life span of the XPS 13 batteries but I haven't found a great answer anywhere, Dell responses seem to mostly just deflect the issue.
I bought the latest XPS 13 recently and it has had several issues already (most related to Dell software updates causing things to stop working, requiring BIOS resets, etc). So part of my pondering is, is maybe some software setting incorrect here.
I don't expect 14 hour battery life of actual usage. What I do expect though is the laptop to still boot and not be at 0 after shutting the lid/going to slip. I guess maybe after noticing it, 6 out of 7 days now, I lock/shut lid overnight. Some nights maybe 30% battery, some 80%, others in-between. Many times the next morning I am unable to start the laptop at all, until its plugged in. Why? Because it shows 0%.
This laptop is 90% just web browsing/email. Almost never watching videos (and if I do, like just few moments, as never watch movies on it, etc).
So what am I missing here? My 5 year old Surface laptop, with all maxed out items, I can leave literally for days and maybe loses 20% at most a day and still boot fine and have some battery left. Nothing in my searching here finds anything just running over night, etc. so best guess is I have a lemon.
This post also just ignores fact while using it I am lucky to go from full charge battery generally about 3.5 hrs or so before screen dims and wants me to get the charger. The settings are at the default balanced because whats the point of a maxed out laptop if you have to turn off all the features to use it even in the normal generic ways?
Thanks for any insight.
Mary G
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January 14th, 2021 13:00
Open Task Manager and look at the Startup tab. Almost everything there can be disabled. Apps listed there are started at every boot and most don't need to be. The only thing that is crucial is security apps. You can always go back and enable anything you want to load at boot up. See this for battery tips--
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000175212/dell-laptop-battery-frequently-asked-questions
pettyr
4 Posts
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January 14th, 2021 15:00
Thanks Mary. Yeah in Windows 10 there are "startup apps" and "background apps". I basically turned everything off. However, didn't seem to make any difference. Per the battery reports, 90% of my time is just Chrome, reading things online.
So here is some sample output from the battery report:5:17:42 Active 1:22:34 40 % 20,413 mWh
22:39:24 Connected standby 0:00:07 - -
22:39:31 Active 0:24:33 7 % 3,648 mWh
23:04:04 Connected standby 1:19:35 1 % 737 mWh
10:21:10 Connected standby 512409557:36:08 - -15 mWh
10:21:13 Active 0:07:30 2 % 1,254 mWh
10:28:44 Connected standby 1:02:37 1 % 296 mWh
11:31:22 Active 0:03:36 1 % 441 mWh
11:34:58 Connected standby 0:00:15 - 15 mWh
Main thing to note, look how at midnight its about 7%, then suddenly 1% 5 minutes later. To be clear that is with laptop screen shut/sleep mode (after 10 minutes I believe).
Anytime under 20%, with the battery saving features, it basically locks down lots of functionality which wouldn't be so bad, but the experience is especially once at 20%, the overall experience is just wonky, and most times ends with laptop just in dead state until charged again. The two issues really are:
- It shouldn't be draining nearly this fast.
- It should not be draining hardly at all when in sleep mode.
I have noticed, if you put the XPS 13 on a truly flat surface you can feel some slight flex in the screen hinge by pressing the screen down. I have come to wonder if its actually turning on, while closed as a reason for the second one. First one I am still at a loss given I am only on the web doing the regular stuff.
pettyr
4 Posts
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January 17th, 2021 15:00
To anyone coming here, as expected, my internal support journey ended with "this is by design and is working fine, you have 4 cells, etc etc etc". Just note when ordered, there were no options to change battery size, nor the screen resolution (else would not have picked 4k). However, as noted earlier, my 5 year old surface book, with a similar screen res (like 3000x2000 or something), lasts much longer then this. Still not sure why. Just noted almost all reviews of the 9310 late 2020 model are of the 1080 screen, which would be ok but was not an option when I ordered. Also, a 75% drop between reported reviews of that, and a 4K version seems pretty awesome but is what it is. Just putting it out there for anyone shopping around. Thanks for the help.