Brand new W7 laptop but battery lasts less than hour!

Wondering if you can give me some advice here folks. I have a brand new laptop (since last Thursday) with Home Premium pre-installed and really happy with it. It's an HP Compaq CQ61, and I'm not suggesting it's the most powerful laptop (AMD Athlon Dual Core M320) but I'm happy with it. Just one problem and I'm reluctant to take it back if it is not really a problem if you see what I mean.

If working just from the battery, the battery lasts less than an hour! I am not playing games, simply browsing the web here on wireless. I must declare that I over-rode the power-saving settings when only running from a battery - for example, I wanted full screen brightness etc. But surely that would not drain the batter to such an extent?

The battery is a six cell Lithium Ion battery and the screen is a HD Brightview with ATI Radeon HD 4200 Graphics.

As I say, all I am doing is browsing the web with wireless and full screen brightness at 100%; would that really diminish the battery life so quickly?

I am reluctant to take the laptop back if it is nothing to be worried about. The laptop works fine with the AC adapter plugged in and the battery is fully charged. There is also an HP battery test and that is reporting no problems. Could this a question of longevity, the more I use the laptop the better the battery's performance will get/?

Thanks for all your help as always.

Thanks so much for your immediate replies. Let me just answer:

This is more common than you may think.. try draining your battery then recharge it back to 100% and see if you retain your charge ...

I have done this, yes, this was the second time I decided to test with laptop running purely from the battery and it still is lasting only about an hour. I must admit, when I recharged the battery for the second time, I was still using the laptop at the same time if u see what I mean.

It really depends on what other hardware is in there. If your fan is always running and/or your screen is
always at 100% brightness, then yes, it can be that dramatic.

Thanks also, I'm inclined to agree with you. Yes, I must admit, the screen is running at full 100% brightness, wireless is always on, and I think the fan is running yes; it's very quiet but when I put my hand to it I can feel a little bit of air/heat so I assume it is running.

Thanks again for all your help and would still be open to other suggestions. I have repped u all.

The other thing I have just noticed is this: if I diminish the screen brightness, I hear a slight buzz coming from the machine. This immediately disappears when I increase to maximum brightness Any ideas? Thanks

FZ21Z said:

There has been issues with 7 and battery life, but as mine is always plugged in it's not an issue for me...

Microsoft probes Windows 7 battery problems

Thanks FZ, yes mine is plugged in permanently also, I just wanted to ensure good battery life performance; I will have a read and repped also.

Product FRED said:

Some screens create a buzz but that's a little weird. Is it barely audible or very noticeable?

It's barely audible, yes, disappears and then returns etc. But when brightness is at 100% it's not a problem at all. thanks again for your help