HP software update = better power management?

[TheEmrys]

So, I'm not sure exactly how this happened. So, I generally check on updates for my laptop, but I got a neat little update request for my HP dv7 a week ago or so. I figured I'd see how it goes, installed it and everything worked well. So, battery life went from ~3 hours, to ~5.5 hours. Sure makes a difference for portability. Any other HP users notice an improvement?

[bthylafh]

Did it change your Win7 power mgt settings from "performance" to "power saving"?

Some of the newer Latitudes (and my Acer 1410, ftm) have some kind of special sauce that's only unlocked by installing a specific "driver", gets you a little extra savings by dimming the screen more aggressively & maybe something else.

[TheEmrys]

Nope. It was always on HP Recommended (their version of normal). I went through it but I didn't see an changes. However, I do notice that my 650m is now clocking down properly to 135mhz. Might be that they worked out some special stuff with nvidia. I did switch to the new drivers, as well. Either way, when I bought my dv7, I was expecting ~3 hours of batterly life. Pretty happy with the bump.

[codedivine]

Perhaps there was a problem with Optimus that is now fixed?