Laptop performance problem

Hi, we have several laptops with the same problem:
ProE runs fine while connected to AC outlet, but slows down by factor
20 when running on batteries.
It's a HP Compaq nw8000, 2GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI Mobility Fire GL T2 with
ATI driver 6.14.10.6404, WinXP SP2, ProE WF2 M120.
I went into the BIOS & turned off Intel SpeedStep. I also disabled all
power saving features in XP Power Options.
PC runs fine on batteries with only other (performance hungry) apps
running. As soon as ProE is up though, whole PC slows down (including
every other app that's running). This is definitely a ProE related
problem.
Our IT dept had it for a week & couldn't figure it out. Sorry, it won't
help me to hear "batteries just don't provide enough power for ProE
work".
This is our department's CAD laptop when we're traveling but it's
pretty useless on the road bc of the slowdown...
Any ideas?
THANKS!

 

I was wondering what you had observed about this problem and if you'd come up with
any testable hypotheses. In general, I know that laptop battery life is severly
compromised by graphics-, harddrive- and CD-intensive operations. Also, if you
hear the fan turning on full blast and a frequently, your CPU is cooking. Any
motors that go on, like fan, HD or CD, draw the most current. So, anything which
causes this activity will drain the battery pretty quickly. Sound is a big drain,
too. (A DVD movie will kill a battery in about 10 minutes or less, depending on
the make.)

Pro/e, expecially for assemblies, is pretty disk-intensive; spinning assemblies
can be pretty graphics-intensive, especially when grpahics resolution is set
pretty high. So, if you tweaked config.pro for quality, you'll have to untweak for
longevity. You can do things like turn on LODS and set it to a low level, let it
compose your assembly slowly out of an amorphous mass and use that unregenerated,
undetailed mass to spin your assembly; you can use a lot more simplified reps; you
can use low quality shading or none, just use wirefram except you really need a
shaded model. And you can keep the number of open windows to a minimums. And, if
you are supporting network traffic during all this, an even bigger drain because,
in addition to graphics, CPU, fan and HD going, you've got the NIC to support as
well, PLUS whatever demands it puts on the system.

However, the right, exact answer to your question depends heavily on HOW you use
the computer while on battery power.

 

David,
Thanks for your detailed answer. Seems like I didn't make myself clear
enough on what the actual problem is... it is not how long the PC will
run while on batteries but rather the SPEED at which it runs while on
batteries.
Measured example: have assembly open, right-click any part in it open
the part, while on AC will take abt 1sec. Same thing while on batteries
takes abt 20sec!
I'd definitely sacrifice battery life for performance - I'd rather have
20mins of decent work than 2hrs worth of useless computing power...
Greetings,
Sepp

 

What's SpeedStep supposed to do. You say enable it; Sepp says he DISabled it.
Doesn't sound like it made any difference. Anyway, my Toshiba will do the same
thing for power saving, but it's not XP doing it. It's some special Toshiba power
app. However, I know it's in charge because it disabled the XP power menu. And it
does something which XP has no facility to do: it reduces power to everything, for
example, the screen dims to significantly less brightness and contrast and I'm
sure it's also reduced power to CPU, HD, fans which means that everything slows
down.

Did your IT depat try replacing the battery? Swap out the CD ofr a second battery?
I could speculate on this stuff for quite a while, but someone with an nw8000
needs to pipe up here, say if this is normal and whether there's a way around. I'd
be interested in what Compaq support has to say about it, too, on the assumption
it isn't normal.

 

This is not a normal behavior of the nw8000. We had lots of them before
migrating to nw8240, and if you don't mind loosing battery time it can run
as fast on batteries as it does on AC.

Some way you can resolve your problem:

First, check that you have the latest BIOS:
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqnk/us/download/23234.html

Second, enable SpeedStep in the BIOS. SpeedStep allows the operating system
to clock down the cpu when there is not much load. IIRC some BIOS revisions
also had settings for how the machine behaves on battery, if they are
apparent then set them to performance preferences.

Third, check that Windows has the latest updates and service packs
installed.

Fourth, install the latest gfx drivers. You can either get the drivers from
HP
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqnk/us/download/22858.html which
are version 8.133.1.1-05062 from June 8th 2005, or get the drivers from IBM
for their T41p Thinkpads which use the same GPU and which should work fine
with the nw8000, too. The drivers IBM offers are also newer:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-41918

Fifth, after installing the gfx drivers, go into the display properties and
then the ATI control panel, and set PowerPlay (which is similar to what
SpeedStep is for the CPU but PowerPlay is for the GPU) to "full performance"
for AC and also for battery operation.

Sixth, install a tool that lets you control Windows power management setting
much better than it's possible with what comes standard with the operating
system. There are two programs that can provide that. One is called
"SpeedSwitchXP", it' older and doesn't work with newer notebooks with PCIe
hardware (but it works with the nw8000 sind this is AGP based). The newer
and IMHO also better tool is "Notebook Hardware Control" which requires the
..NET Framework 2.0 to be installed (downloadable from MS):
http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm#anchor_download
With these tools you can alter the behavior of your notebook as you like,
and the nw8000 can run in full speed even when on battery.

Benjamin

 

So, now that you've taken all of these measures to obviate saving battery life,
how long will the battery last with average Pro/e use?

 

It depends on what you do and also how much memory you have, but our nw8000
with 2GB memory managed to run ~100-120min at full performance...

BTW: the reason for all these measures is _not_ to obviate saving battery
life, but for giving the user much more control over the system performance
and thus also over the power consumption. Not every user profile requires to
get the longest running time possible out of the battery, often enough
requirement is that the notebook runs at full performance on battery for a
certain time.
The energy control panel that comes with Windows is a joke, and like most
notebook manufacturers HP doesn't provide a better utility for their
notebooks. That's where freeware utilities like "SpeedswitchXP" and
"Notebook Hardware Control" come into play. And having the latest BIOS and
system updates ensures that the system contains fixes for several
speedswitch-related errors that have been corrected.

Benjamin

 

Sepp escribió:

The AC vs Batteries is the only parameter changed ??.

I've seen the same performance loss if you disconect the laptop from the
net. I think that is communicating with ¿Anybody? in the web, and if
it can not make the connection then is waiting for it and then the
performance goes down.

 

Benjamin pointed me in the right direction: (Benjamin's hint #5 did the
trick)
Display properties> settings>advanced>ATI PowerPlay> PowerPlay
Settings: changed from Optimal battery life to Optimal Performance.
Doesn't matter if I'm connected to network or AC or not, always
same great performance now.
Great job Benjamin! You're the man!
Sepp