Hey all, I just received my Framework 13 DIY Edition a couple of days ago. Would have loved to get an AMD mainboard but needed one kind of urgently, so I went with the 13th Gen Intel. I had heard that the battery life was not great, but my first day of using it made me realize just how bad it was without any tweaks - under 4 hours, which for me, is unacceptable with just light work. I usually have a few browser tabs open, VSCode, and Obsidian. In power saver mode, my battery was draining at about 15W at idle; I had nothing open other than the BatteryInfoView tool. After about half a day of mucking around with it, I have managed to bring it up to at least 8 hours with a discharge rate well under 6W and often under 5W under light load.
Here’s the guide. I had found it on Reddit and used it successfully for my previous laptop as well. Edit: Couldn’t undervolt the CPU (maybe disabled in the BIOS?), but still saw some big gains.
For those wondering, I ran Novabench 5 benchmark tests before and after I made all the tweaks on Performance mode and got the same scores. Of course, on Performance mode, the battery would only last around 2-4 hours, but that’s to be expected. However, when I’m not doing anything compute intensive, I’d rather enjoy the luxury of not having to worry about the battery dying.
Let me know how it goes for you and I’ll happily answer questions if you have any.
P.S.: Here are the screenshots of my current discharge rate and battery estimates on Power Saver mode taken from a few different tools (with Edge and Obsidian open and WiFi on while I write this post):
Pretty good!
There’s probably room for more optimization with programs like Throttlestop
Undervolting is sadly disabled on Intel laptop lines since 10th gen, due to plundervolt (and COUGH PRICE SEGMENTATION COUGH).
If you want to dive deeper into the rabbit hole, Linux is always here to welcome you
Ha! Yeah, I have another laptop running Kubuntu, but I need to keep this one a windows machine for a few months at least. I did see that there was a Linux battery optimization thread; how much do people manage with everyday use? 6-8 hours?
That’s disappointing for a fresh install OOTB experience.
That’s high. Was Windows doing any self maintenance? (e.g. Windows Update, Indexing…etc?)
I’m asking because I did a fresh install of Windows 10 on an FL13 11th gen. Completed Windows Updates, latest drivers, Wifi connected on 5GHz, in battery saver mode, brightness at 20%, no ‘tweaks’. And the battery drain rate is averaging under 3W (at 2.7W to be precise) over 30 minutes of just sitting there (logged and reported by only running HWiNFO64 v7.62).
Oh thanks for sharing. I’m guessing it’s because I had a few browser tabs open and was actively browsing and writing when I reported those numbers. If I just let it set idly without doing anything but with just HwInfo on, the discharge rate is about -3.7W when the screen is lit. It goes down to -2.4W only if the screen goes off, and when it enters sleep mode, I think it goes under -0.5W (but I only have one data point for this). Can post screenshots later if you’d like to see them.
To answer your first question, I’m not 100% certain that there were no Windows updates or other processes running in the background when I first saw the 4h of battery life. I do remember checking the CPU utilization and there weren’t any processes running heavy loads (overall was under 5% IIRC). But the 4h was in line with what I saw all over Reddit for real-life usage.
In any case, the reason why I made this thread is because I now have 8-12h of real-world battery life for all my use cases except when I’m actively running code. Was just hoping that the guide helps some others who may be struggling with the battery life. But if it is good without any tweaks whatsoever with just power saver mode, that’s amazing! Would love to hear what other users, esp. 13th gen Intel and 7840u AMD, get in terms of real-world battery life!
I, too, see 3-4 hours of use on my 12th-gen and am finally getting frustrated enough to want to do something about it.
Since you benchmarked after each step, do you remember which steps in particular had an impact? There’s a lot in the guide and I’m a bit nervous about making BIOS/registry tweaks, particularly in areas I know little about (E.g. CPU/power.)
Thanks.
I totally understand this frustration. I hate Apple so much, but when they came out with the new M chips with insane battery life, I did seriously consider switching. I’m so glad I didn’t and found framework instead.
I didn’t. I just benchmarked performance before and after to ensure that I didn’t mess something up. Because of course, I still want the laptop to perform at its peak when I need it; I just don’t need out when I’m on the go. What I did monitor throughout was the live battery discharge rate (with BatteryInfoView as mentioned in the guide, but you could use HwInfo or one of the “Battery Percent” apps from the Microsoft store).
I know that it looks intimidating, and admittedly, a lot of the steps there (especially modifying values of random regedit keys) feel like magic. But I think the guide is pretty idiot-proof. I would highly encourage you to start at the beginning and follow the steps in order.
That being said, there were two steps I couldn’t figure out. First, I couldn’t get throttlestop to work to undervolt the CPU (apparently Intel disabled it for no good reason), not could I figure out the C-states thing, both of which are listed as the most important steps in the guide lol. Most other steps did help. I think I had the biggest impact with some or all of the following: the HIDP stuff, the regedit keys, removing useless services and startup apps, esp. live wallpapers and stuff like that, and toggling the Intel graphics settings to not be on the highest performance settings.
Hope this helps and good luck! Even if you don’t know anything, it’ll just take an afternoon if that. Also, I’m curious to hear if and how much this helps you.
For anyone who stumbles on this thread in the future, here’s a much more detailed thread by another user as opposed to me re-posting a guide from reddit. There’s an added benefit to their post which is that they explain some of the hkey regedits which otherwise feel like voodoo:
