From 100% to 0% in 37 minutes

Z

Zeal

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Is anyone else experiencing the drastic drain of battery life under OS X 10.1.3? I'm running a PB 400 Mhz Pismo with 6GB IBM HD, 384MB Ram, stock standard DVD drive. This completely wrecks my chances of watching DVD's while on planes, waiting at airports, travelling in cars etc, things that I just love my PB for.

I get the usual 3 to 5 hours life out of the same battery if I'm running 9.2.2. But under X the life is sucked so quickly that twice now it came up with the warning that power was low, and before I could plug in the power adaptor to recharge the battery it had turned itself off to conserve that last bit of battery juice.

I've set the Energy Saver preferences as follows:
Put System to Sleep: Never
Separate time for Display Sleep: 10 minutes
Separate time for hard disk sleep: 5 minutes (the minimum most setting).

I'm only running things like Office v.X and DVD Player. I did not have my extended keyboard plugged in nor was I using my Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer mouse. Nothing else was connected via USB or FireWire. No PC card. Only the DVD movie in the DVD drive (if all I was doing was watching a DVD). Internet was not connected. No external speakers, headphones. Just the basic setup with no extra software.

Futher to this, AppleTalk is not activated and I am running under a PPP Location setup without Ethernet options or IrDA. I was not running Classic when I experienced this sudden power drain.

Is this just me, or is it a bigger problem? Does anyone have any ideas how I can configure my system to work better? Surely if it works normally under 9.2.2 it can't be a battery fault. Zeal :confused:

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PB 400 Pismo DVD/6GB HD/384 Ram/Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer/Macally iKey extended keyboard
 
You know, this is just a thought...

It really isn't likely to be sucking any more power than it was before, so it is possible that the routines that monitor battery health are mucked up in 10.1.3, and it only thinks it is running out of power. I have not seen any problem on my iBook under 10.1.3, but the Pismo is less widely tested under OS X and it is possible OS 10.1.3 is comparing the battery output to what would be expected from a G4 powerbook or something. It's reading the battery as low, and is shutting down accordingly.

Here's an idea. When 10.1.3 shuts your Pismo down, restart it from an install CD or OS 9 partition or something and see if it really is low on power. If not, then 10.1.3 is reading the battery wrong, if it is, then I am stumped.

BTW - I have seen third party apps that analyse battery output in a more scientific way. Anybody remember what these were called?
 
Thanks for the ideas Symphonix. I'll do what you suggest later on tonight and post my reply. I never thought of that being a possible cause and it makes good sense that it's got something to do with this. Still keen to hear from other Pismo/PowerBook users who may/may not be experiencing the same. Zeal :)
 
I'm a pismo owner running OS X.1.3 and I can't say I've had the same problem...that really sounds strange. I've been getting pretty much the same battery life out of mine, maybe about a half hour less than what I would get in OS9, but nothing as drastic as that. (I'm getting anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours of battery life depending on what i'm doing with it...not the greatest, but enough to watch most movies with only one battery before having to swap.)

Hmm...

How bright is your screen right now? I usually don't put my book all the way up to the highest brightness level when I'm runnin off of battery, cause when I do battery goes down a lot quicker. You can try bringing it down a few notches...

I've tinkered around with it, and from my experience I just leave all of my energy saver settings on "never"...if I'm gonna be away from my computer for any length of time I just close the lid and put her to sleep myself...seems to work fine in terms of my battery life for me. Can't say I've never been able to increase longevity using the settings here...
 
LOL...I think you jinxed me now! I just duplicated your settings and now the same thing is happening to me...:rolleyes:

Even when I switch things back it happens...so I'm currently in the same boat you're in amigo...I'll keep working on it...hopefully someone else has insight on what could be happening.
 
I've got the same here with my G4 TiBook 400mhz
And i'm trying to find a sollution too.
As long as i don't use de dvd player the battery lasts u for 3,5 hour.
But with the dvd inserted the barrery works only for 1,5 hour (for the most)

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

Sebastiaan
Holland

TiBook 400mhz
48Gb
256mb memory
 
My battery won't even hold a charge... So I need to replace the battery..
But before my battery died, I noticed its performance dropped once I added more RAM (1 GB). What lasted for 3 hours, would die in 30 minutes..
I was wondering.. will the amount of RAM you have effect battery performance?
 
Sorry everyone for not getting back about my original post. I'm on holiday and have been having far too much fun away from my PB (I'm sure to go to hell for that one).

I'm going to do some tests tonight as was originally suggested by Symphonix, to see if the charge status is at least roughly the same when I reboot under Classic after running on battery under OS X, just to make sure it's not a software problem with OS X. I'll post in another 8 hours (just gotta pop out and catch up with some friends - I don't know why, they're all Winlosers - but you take the good with the bad with friends, don't you! :p ).

Regards, Zeal ;)
 
Okay, have been delving around with my stopwatch and my PB running on battery power for the last couple of days. Here's what I've learned:
1. Running a DVD with the Viewer set to full screen depletes the battery 45% faster than when it is set to Normal or Half Size viewing sizes.
2. No difference experienced when setting the Energy Saver options (sleep time, spin down time, screen off time) and playing a DVD at full screen size.
3. Battery level (as a percentage) appears correct after restarting under Classic. So it appears the battery drain is for real, and not a miscalculation by OS X software.
4. Am now getting around 100 minutes worth of Full Screen DVD movie time. Not enough to watch a movie (of any significance anyway).
5. Pottering around with Office v.X gets me around 2.5 hours worth of battery time most of the time, but as little as 100 minutes if running Word, Excel and PowerPoint and cutting and pasting between them all and playing PP presentations on full screen.

I've just downloaded Battery Endurance Measurer (freeware) after seeing it on www.macosrumors.com and will play with it to see if I can learn any new caveats/peculiarities. Regards Zeal :)

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PowerBook G3 400mHz Pismo - 384 Ram - 6GB HDD - OS X 10.1.3 - OS 9.2.2
 
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