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Spotlight's Impact on PowerBook Battery Life?

Posted by Cliff on from the hits-the-juice-pretty-hard dept.

Viltvodlian Deoderan asks: "So, Spotlight for Mac OS X Tiger is very cool. I can now let my innate ability to disorganize things shine through. However, when using my PowerBook unplugged, it seems that my battery lasts a noticeably less time. A close reading of Ars Technica's description of how spotlight works suggests that this is due to keeping the index file up-to-date on disk. Has anyone else noticed the same thing? Does someone have a better explanation for why my battery seems to drain out, prematurely? Is there some way real-time indexing can be turned off to conserve power?"

1 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Doctor, it hurts when I poke myself in the eye. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Poster wrote (emphasis mine):
    "... However, when using my PowerBook unplugged, it seems that my battery lasts a noticeably less time. ... Does someone have a better explanation for why my battery seems to drain out, prematurely? ..."

    So you're basically saying that your battery lasts longer when you don't unplug your laptop? 8^] No $h*t, sherlock. That's because you're not using battery when it's plugged in. :P

    Seriously though, kids. Take a lesson from the guy who complains to the doctor that it hurts when he pokes himself in the eye. Stop doing that! If you normally run your computer plugged in (using wall current), don't expect it to run "as long" unplugged (limited by battery).

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