Windows Drains MacBook's Battery; Who's To Blame?

ericatcw writes "Users hoping that Windows 7's arrival will mean less power drain on their MacBook laptops may be disappointed, writes Computerworld's Eric Lai. Running Windows 7 in Boot Camp caused one CNET reviewer's battery life to fall by more than two-thirds. But virtualization software such as VMware Fusion suffer from the same complaints. Some blame Apple's Boot Camp drivers (the last ones were released in April 2008); others lay the blame at Windows' bloated codebase. With Apple and Microsoft both trying to avoid responsibility for improving the experience, Windows 7's reported improvements in power management will be moot for MacBook users for a while."

Comments

Nice title.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Drains MacBook's Battery; Who's to blame?

I blame Microsoft. Much like the title, I was expecting Windows 7 to actually recharge my laptop battery, not drain it.

Now this is special.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a whole new and special kind of whining.
/. has reached a new level.

Waaaaahhhh!!!

Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[Em Emalb]

I have a new MBP and use Fusion. I have an XP image and a Vista image loaded up. I have not noticed any unusual power drain, but that's kind of to be expected, IMO. Also, I have to question the wisdom of using a VM session for more than an hour or so on just the battery.

I can see some instances where this would be an issue for some, but this seems like senseless "hating" to me. No, I'm not trying to troll or anything else, I'm just having a hard time figuring out why someone would spend a long-ish amount of time in Fusion running a guest OS on battery power. It seems obvious to me that there are issues running a non-native OS on a laptop designed for a specific OS...

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[dr.newton]

I agree that there would be issues, but going from 4.5 hours of battery life on OS X on a MBP to 2 hours on any other OS is a little extreme!

I would love to be able to use Linux on my MBP as the primary operating system, but often it is impractical because of the limited battery life.

That being said, 2 hours is about standard for any other laptop I've owned, so maybe I should think of it as OS X being uncannily power-efficient. ;)

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[fullgandoo]

I agree with you. For instance on my previous generation Macbook Pro, there is no way to tap the touch pad for a mouse click under Windows. You are forced to use the touchpad button.

On the face of it, it looks like an innocent little accidental omission by Apple, which they steadfastly refuse to fix. Since all the Windows drivers are provided by Apple, I believe it is deliberate on their part to degrade the user experience on anything but OSX. That is just typical mean-spirited behavior by Apple.

Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Sockatume]

Macbooks are essentially the same hardware as Windows machines, down to battery capacity. It is unlikely that a "bloated codebase" would chew through the battery like nobody's business on one x86 machine and suddenly become perfectly benign on a practically identical x86 machine. Bloat doesn't magically appear when you put an Apple logo on something.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[fatalwall]

[...] Bloat doesn't magically appear when you put an Apple logo on something.

Unless your talking about price!!!

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

You don't understand. Buying an Apple is like buying a Lexus or Acura. It gives you the opportunity to brag about your awesome machine, even though there's no real difference between a Lexus v. Toyota, or Acura v. Honda, except the inflated +33% higher pricetag.

I still remember my friends' reaction when I pointed to his shiny-new Acura and said, "The logo on the glass says Honda. And here inside the glovebox is another Honda logo. And... yep there's a Honda logo on the wheel cover." You would have thought I just insulted his best girl. "No, no that can't be. This is Acura not Honda. That logo's wrong. I only buy the best; the best I tell you."

I stepped back several feet.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[jellomizer]

A computer is more then just the CPU. The case of how does Windows 7 handle the hardware or the Drivers handle the hardware or a combination of both. Can really effect a system. Apple Hardware isn't more expensive then normal PC's because Apple is making so much more per copy. It is more expensive because there is a lot of little things built in that add up. Go to Dell or Lenovo and try to build yourself a Laptop that matches all of Apples features. When I say All I mean ALL, no excuses like I don't need that anyways. You will find that the prices are about the same... +/- $100.00 or so. But all those little features OS X knows about and uses properly. Boot Camp Drivers Cover most of them, Windows handles other ones. I know for an instance Windows Vista with boot camp keeps the lights on the keyboard while OS X is a bit smarter then that.

Now comes to the question. Is the Mac made Drivers for Vista keeping those lights on. Or Vista is telling the driver to keep it on. I am betting it is both.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[ByOhTek]

Bloat doesn't magically appear when you put an Apple logo on something.

Have you ever used Apple produced software (iTunes, Quicktime, etc.) on Windows? Or noticed their memory requirements on their own OS?

Not that MS is necessarily any better, but, yeah, Apple is one of the Triumvirate of Bloat for consumer software, in my not-so-humble opinion. The sit in their little triangular table with MS and Adobe.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The friend is clearly motivated by name value alone and doesn't see the respectability of the Acura brand as coming from the car quality but rather from some undefinable je ne sais quoi that somehow Honda doesn't have.

Clearly, Honda is the Toyota of automobiles. There's nothing wrong with them and a lot right with them. I'd buy one in a heartbeat if they weren't a foreign maker.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[JustASlashDotGuy]

Yes and No. Acura and Honda are made by the same company, but are not the same exact car. Acura is the upper end line, while Honda is not. If you drive a TL and then drive an Accord, there is no way you will confuse the handling, finish, or features of the too. The closest you will come is if you compare the low end Acuras (IE: TSX to the Honda line). Honda makes Acura, Toyota makes Lexus, Nissan makes Infinity, etc. It's nothing new.

I myself drive a Acura TL and refer to it as a Honda all the time. If there was a comparable car in the Honda line when I got this car, I would have gladly purchased it.

As for thinking people just Apples because they want to brag, I don't understand that logic. Apples use a completely different OS and way of doing things; there's now cheaper priced Mac OS they can get. In some cases, Apples are better suited for a given task than MS is. Saying Apple users pay more so they can brag to Windows users, is like saying Windows user pay more so they can brag to Linux users. Each OS has their niche. Personally, I wouldn't say any single OS is better than another in every way. To each their own.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[jimmyfrank]

I bought a macbook because I wanted to run Leopard and XP. Consumer reports also rated Apple laptops #1 in all screen size categories. I'm also not poor so I spent a few xtra bucks.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[PeterChenoweth]

Nope. There is. Keyboard backlighting works just fine on my MBP when bootcamped to XP. It does not, however, automatically adjust the keyboard backlight intensity with ambient lighting conditions as OSX does. One can still manually adjust the intensity with the keyboard buttons, if desired.

Come to think of it, I'm not actually sure the screen brightness adjusts dynamically in bootcamped XP either. It might be the same deal as the keyboard. I can't recall.

It could be little things like that adding up. Screen brightness is a major drain on battery power. It could be that since OSX can and does (by default anyway) aggressively ramp down the brightness whenever it can when on battery power, it's able to save more watts. Where if XP can't/doesn't do that (on an Apple), you'd get more of a battery drain. Just a thought.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[brusk]

Actually a triumvirate of bloat with four members would be quite apt.

Not just Windows

[dr.newton]

I have a MBP 5.1, one with both the on-board and discrete Nvidia cards. OS X switches between them depending on whether it is going for power savings or performance.

The drivers for Windows XP and Linux do not seem to have this ability. When I'm doing nothing but surfing, I get about 4.5 hours of battery life in OS X, but only about 2.1 hours in Linux (Ubuntu Jaunty) and Windows XP.

I always assumed it was the inability of XP and Linux to switch to the on-board graphics card.

Re:Not just Windows

[lukas84]

I have a ThinkPad W500, which has onboard Intel graphics or a Ati Radeon 3650. They too can be switched automatically or at will.

The reason you can't do it on XP is because Apple hasn't bothered to release drivers for it.

Re:Not just Windows

[Ma8thew]

OS X does no switching. Check the 'Energy Saver' System Preferences panel, and you'll see the toggle between the two graphics cards. If you haven't touched it, it'll be in 'Better Battery Life'. Changing between discrete and integrated graphics requires logging out. Windows and Linux cannot switch to the integrated graphics card, explaining some reduced battery life.

Re:Not just Windows

[Ma8thew]

You've posted a link to an article speculating about Apple switching to the nvidia platform. I, on the other hand, actually own a MacBook pro, and can tell you that I have to logout to switch modes. And there's this article too.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter how bloated Windows is, battery life is only a function of ACPI drivers --- bootcamp's fault

Can we question the author's qualifications?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

FTFA: Other than that, Windows 7 has been working great on my MacBook Pro... It looks good, too, even prettier than when it is installed on PC hardware.

This reminds me of the iPod Nano review here at Slashdot that claimed that the Nano sounded great, even in a moving convertible with the top down. (http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/08/1439244)

Yes, it's the Apple magic that makes the software look better.

How can we know that the battery isn't simply returning strange battery level information to the OS that OSX knows how to parse but Windows doesn't? What a strange review.

Boot Camp != Virtualization

[guruevi]

Boot Camp just resizes the hard drive so it can accomodate a Windows install and then you are able to dual-boot your system. It's also possible to install Linux on the other side for example. So it seems like Windows has an issue with the Intel or NVidia chipset, the processor or just plainly consumes more resources than Mac OS.

A good comparison would be to install Linux on the other side and see what it's battery life is then. Mac OS X offloads a lot (all) of the desktop rendering to the GPU while the Windows XP desktop doesn't and although Vista's top-end version does, it is offset by the amount of graphics that need to be rendered and the low-end version still doesn't.

There is a reason that the battery dies quicker and since there is no layer of Mac OS X between Windows and the hardware I doubt it's because Apple did something wrong. It's either Windows or the Intel or NVidia drivers. You can't really compare VMWare or Parallels performance because it's running Windows on top of Mac OS X, it is of course going to consume more resources.

HOW

[FranTaylor]

Can you expect "power savings" when VMware is running? You are basically running two computers at once.

It's Apple's job to find out.

[mxh83]

Apple and it's customers are the only losers if something doesn't work on the Macbook. Microsoft never claimed it would. This situation is very similar to the Palm Pre / Itunes fiasco. If you're a Palm Pre owner, just STFU if Itunes doesn't behave the way it should.

I think I know the reason, disk

[Ilgaz]

On latest gen (nv9300 based) Mac Mini, I have installed Win7 64bit. It installed all the drivers and even clever to figure mainboard driver giving direct link to nvidia driver exe which is absolutely a very serious risk but anyway...

The ATA chipset driver is missing from Win7 since Apple didn't really put nv9300 chipset in exact way. So, it falls down to non DMA generic MS driver. Every single byte transferred to/from disk is guaranteed to use massive CPU along with horrible (down to 15MB/sec from 70MB/sec under OS X) slowness.

So, if Macbooks have similar issue with Windows 7, it could be same issue. As they are battery powered, it would be visible in battery life too.

BTW, there is no point testing Windows 7 until Apple releases boot camp for Windows 7. Apple computers aren't really PCs. If MS was really clever and wanted Windows 7 to be _really_ tested, they should have printed a very clear privacy policy on screen and actually make machine report all kinds of anonymous stats. That way, they could really figure what is going on. For example, a core duo powered 2009 machine shouldn't really max to 15mb/sec with a SATA 2 drive.

I couldn't even find something similar to bugreporter.apple.com when I wanted to report issues. All I saw is a stupid forum which beginner level MS engineers are monkeying with templates. They even made their own wrong answer as 'answer to the issue' while it would create massive compatibility problems in one occasion.

Re:Not specifically MacBook/Windows/BootCamp probl

[zysus]

I write driver level embedded code for a living. Everything from bootstrapping embedded linux to SoC level power management.

Power management is usually the last thing to get done (if at all)... why? Because management usually sees it as icing on the cake. Attitudes are typically just make it work and we'll ship a bigger battery to make it last. Or we'll ship an upgrade in 6 months, if the product starts to take off and we decide to fund further development.

Time to market is everything.

Power management is also really hard to get right 100% of the time. It's really hard to debug code/hardware where stuff is shutting itself off, or worse, a controller uP is shutting you off unexpectedly.

It has NOTHING to do with 'bad code' or 'shitty programmers'. It's just management grinding down on the engineers to do it: better, faster, cheaper, pick two. Usually faster and cheaper win.