[doraemon]

Hi, i notice my mini 9 slows down when battery level goes low. Almost immediately everything slows down when the battery LED starts flashing.

Its like the computer is busy working on something in the background.

My mini 9 goes back to normal immediately I plug in power. Once I remove it, it goes slow again.

I want to check with you guys whether this is normal before calling dell for a warranty claim.

I experience it on macosX leopard and XP PRo on 64G RunCore SSD (dual boot), stock 8G XP Home. Enable/disabling speedsteps in bios settings does not help neither.

[doraemon]

no one face the same problem with mine?

[jxanthony]

Originally Posted by doraemon

no one face the same problem with mine?

I have the same issue. I don't look at it as a problem because it only seems to happen at ~5-7% on the battery. It seems to throttle power to the rest of the machine to elongate time for you to save your work before it dies/sleeps.

[holmes4]

You're not doing your battery any favors by running it down that far.

[doraemon]

Originally Posted by holmes4

You're not doing your battery any favors by running it down that far.

When the battery is still new, low batt alert comes later and it could last for say 15 minutes.

But when its old, low batt comes sooner and it could last for 30 minutes or more.

My other dell doesn't slow down when low batt. And it shouldn't be slow down because of low batt afterall. It would just power off when the battery is fully drained if you ignore the low batt alert or goes to standby or hibernate depends on your settings. But should not slowing down.

[grungysquash]

Originally Posted by doraemon

When the battery is still new, low batt alert comes later and it could last for say 15 minutes.

But when its old, low batt comes sooner and it could last for 30 minutes or more.

My other dell doesn't slow down when low batt. And it shouldn't be slow down because of low batt afterall. It would just power off when the battery is fully drained if you ignore the low batt alert or goes to standby or hibernate depends on your settings. But should not slowing down.

I think what homes is trying to say is Li ion battery's don't like been run down, the fastest way to destroy any Li ion battery is to constantly run it flat - they prefer non stressful ie partial discharges.

How to prolong lithium-based batteries

see the link it explains how best to look after your battery - is far as the computer running slow this may just be the OS trying to lower the clock speed to preserve battery life depending on your settings.

[doraemon]

Originally Posted by grungysquash

see the link it explains how best to look after your battery - is far as the computer running slow this may just be the OS trying to lower the clock speed to preserve battery life depending on your settings.

I experience slow down on leopard as well, so i dun think OS is the culprit that slows down the system. I think its something to do with the BIOS.

[grungysquash]

Originally Posted by doraemon

I experience slow down on leopard as well, so i dun think OS is the culprit that slows down the system. I think its something to do with the BIOS.

There is nothing in the bios (linked to the battery) which I can think of which explains your issue. I am not familiar with OSX - only played with 10.5.6 so am not qualified to comment on this. However I do recommend checking out win 7 and seeing if this issue exists with a different OS.

[doraemon]

OK... I have tried play video in windows 7.

By disabling the speedsteps in bios, battery full or with power plugged in, playing video with KMPlayer will be lagged. However, the very same video played normally when speed steps is enable.

I would believe that during low batt, the system will disable speed steps and cause the system to slow down.

But the slowdown issue does not happen on my Dell Latitude D620 during low batt. Maybe its slowing down unnoticeable.

My BIOS version is A05. Anyone face the same problem with A04?

[grungysquash]

Originally Posted by doraemon

OK... I have tried play video in windows 7.

By disabling the speedsteps in bios, battery full or with power plugged in, playing video with KMPlayer will be lagged. However, the very same video played normally when speed steps is enable.

I would believe that during low batt, the system will disable speed steps and cause the system to slow down.

But the slowdown issue does not happen on my Dell Latitude D620 during low batt. Maybe its slowing down unnoticeable.

My BIOS version is A05. Anyone face the same problem with A04?

Yes by disabling speedstep you lock the CPU to the lowest clock speed which in the case of the mini 9 would kill the unit.

It is possible the OS is trying to max the battery by slowing the CPU - one option is to try and set the operating system to performance rather than balanced and see if this forces the CPU to remain at higher speeds towards the end of it's life. But really you will destroy or battery by constantly deep cycling it.