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Core Duo Power Sapping Bug is Microsoft Issue

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the explore-all-possibilities dept.

illusoryphoenix writes "A few weeks ago, Tom's Hardware noted a significant reduction in battery life of the Core Duo processors it tested when USB devices were inserted. Intel claimed that Microsoft had a bug in their USB drivers, while Tom's Hardware was unable to reproduce the same result for any of the other Pentium M microarchitecures. This issue has finally been publicly confirmed by Microsoft to be a USB driver problem which keeps the processor from entering advanced sleep states."

4 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. anandtech test by Dionysus · · Score: 4, Informative

    According to some testing over at anandtech, problem was in the way Windows XP polls USB2 devices.

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  2. Tom's was wrong by jamesl · · Score: 5, Informative
    AnandTech has an in depth analysis. Like most things, the answer can't be found in a headline.
    http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=269 3/

    We've spent almost the past two weeks performing non-stop battery life testing on five notebooks with up to 4 different USB devices, testing theories, trying to pinpoint exactly what causes this problem and testing Microsoft's fix. What follows is the process that we went through in our labs when faced with this strange bug.

  3. Re:Oh My God! by evilgrug · · Score: 5, Informative

    "There's a driver glitch with brand new hardware!!! "

    Actually it affects Pentium Ms as well, according to Anandtech.

    "It's already been two weeks and they haven't fixed it yet!!"

    Microsoft first identified the issue and published a Knowledgebase article July 12, 2005. That's a little more than 2 weeks.

    In fact, the regedit quickfix they're recommending was also published on that date ... meaning they still haven't resolved it 7 months later.

  4. Re:Oh My God! by tpgp · · Score: 5, Informative
    I know that you're joking, but I have to reply to the serious parts of your post.

    There's a driver glitch with brand new hardware!!!

    From the TFA
    When a peripheral device was connected to a USB (universal serial bus) 2.0 port, the notebook's battery life plunged at a greater rate than would normally be expected from the use of a peripheral such as a mouse or storage key.
    Nope, not new hardware. USB is not new. The core duos just made the problem more obvious.

    It's already been two weeks and they haven't fixed it yet!!
    From the TFA
    Microsoft published a Knowledge Base article on the subject in July 2005, but made that information available only to PC vendors and partners, a company representative said in a statement.
    So, its actually been over six months and they haven't fixed it yet.

    As usual, Microsoft waits for an issue to become public before bothering to fix it.
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