Can YOU get 5 hours out of your PowerBook battery?
Hey. I've had my 12" PowerBook G4 for about 12 days, and it just occured to me today...
I can only get about 3 hours out of it, even when I'm just running Word and don't have a CD in the drive. The black cardboard box the thing came in says "up to 5 hours."
3 hours isn't even close!
Right when I first got it, I did power it all the way up and then ran it all the way down until it put itself to sleep, like the manual suggests. When I did so, I ran it down by playing an audio CD in it. Maybe that was a mistake?
What do you think? Do YOU get 5 hours out of your battery?
BTW, it didn't occur to me to worry about this before, because I am used to my old Wall Street G3, which hasn't had a useable battery for 2 years. With my new G4, I was so happy to not be tethered to a wall, it's only NOW occuring to me to say "Hey wait a minute! What about the 5 hours?"
Too bad it's been more than 10 days. I don't think I could exchange the battery now, if it's defective.
Thanks guys!
I can only get about 3 hours out of it, even when I'm just running Word and don't have a CD in the drive. The black cardboard box the thing came in says "up to 5 hours."
3 hours isn't even close!
Right when I first got it, I did power it all the way up and then ran it all the way down until it put itself to sleep, like the manual suggests. When I did so, I ran it down by playing an audio CD in it. Maybe that was a mistake?
What do you think? Do YOU get 5 hours out of your battery?
BTW, it didn't occur to me to worry about this before, because I am used to my old Wall Street G3, which hasn't had a useable battery for 2 years. With my new G4, I was so happy to not be tethered to a wall, it's only NOW occuring to me to say "Hey wait a minute! What about the 5 hours?"
Too bad it's been more than 10 days. I don't think I could exchange the battery now, if it's defective.
Thanks guys!
Comments
I've never used my battery past say 20%.
I have an 867mhz 15" TiBook (which roXxors, BTW).
I think that's pretty good, though certainly not five hours of normal use. I can get four hours of normal use if I'm careful, more like 3-3.5 if I have the screen fairly bright.
At a low setting, my powerbook's a marathon runner.
BTW, laptop users, open Sys Prefs, and make sure General Prefs is set to use Medium font smoothing... much better. It has decent sub-pixel font rendering, for those in the know.
Four to four and a half is probably a good average, so long as I'm not abusing it.
Unfortunately, when I upgraded to 10.2, my battery life wasn't nearly as good. Whereas I got 5.5-6hrs on average, I now probably only get about 4.5-5hrs.
Usually it's about 4+
my, ahem, PISMO powerbook... with batteries in both bays. i almost get 7 with the screen down, internet off, max conservation, yadda, yadda, yadda.
by the way, i heard that you are SUPPOSED to run the battery down once in a while. otherwise, the battery's max charge will slowly decrease over time. or did i hear that wrong, and you're NOT supposed to... me am confused.
I have also been told that it is a good idea to run your battery way down sometimes and then power it all the way back up. Otherwise the battery 'forgets' how much power capacity it has. Dunno if that's true. That probably applies more to Nickel Cadmium?
Out of habit though, once I plug it in to charge, I almost never unplug it until it has gotten full.
Thanks everyone for your responses!
That probably applies more to Nickel Cadmium?
NiCads have a really bad memory effect: they need to be recharged from empty or the battery "forgets" the unused charge. Nickel metal Hydride and Lithium Ion batteries don't have a memory effect but their performance will still drop over time.
On a 1GHz TiBook, for instance, 10.2.4 and below, I would see ~3.75 to 4 hrs with Airport on, processor low, monitor at 2/3 brightness. Minimum to moderate usage (surfing, email, coding).
Starting with 10.2.5, shave ~45 min off that.
Originally posted by chromos
All these numbers really mean nothing to me unless I also see the hardware, the OS version, and the conditions of use.
On a 1GHz TiBook, for instance, 10.2.4 and below, I would see ~3.75 to 4 hrs with Airport on, processor low, monitor at 2/3 brightness. Minimum to moderate usage (surfing, email, coding).
Starting with 10.2.5, shave ~45 min off that.
ok,
12" pb 867mhz, 640mb RAM, SuperDrive 60gb hd...
Running 10.2.6
With ALL network ports off, brightness on full, doing nothing but editing text (bbedit) i get a max of 3h20m...pretty poor i feel...