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bgordon · Aug 15, 2002, 09:14 AM

Anyone else seeing increased (as in, dramatic) power drain now that they've switched to 1.2? With 1.1, I could fully juice up my iPod and it would last maybe 3-4 days. Now, I'm down to 1-2 at the MOST! I wonder if it's the clock.

mbperk · Aug 15, 2002, 09:38 AM

Same here. I was getting a little over 5 days with my old 10, but now I am going about 2-3 days.

Diggory Laycock · Aug 15, 2002, 10:25 AM

Yes, me too - I thought I must have been imagining it, or using my iPod a lot. It seems to drain more when asleep.

bgordon · Aug 15, 2002, 10:31 AM

I wonder if we can go back to 1.1? I'm not really using the clock, and while iCal may eventually be nice, I'd rather have long-lasting tunes than more PDA ability. Does anyone think this would be possible?

gorickey · Aug 15, 2002, 11:10 AM

Yeah, same here....Apple needs to throw out a serious update since the claim "little power consumption" should happen with the addition of clock.

It's terrible now.

namikun · Aug 15, 2002, 02:09 PM

I was listening to my fully charged baby for about 3,5h today and the battery status is already down to two blocks... what happened? how can a clock drain so much more energy? or is it related to improved sound quality?

GORDYmac · Aug 15, 2002, 02:27 PM

I come in to work at 8:30 and fire up the iPod. At 5:00 it's still chugging along. No complaints here. 5GB version FYI.

dillerX · Aug 15, 2002, 04:11 PM

I noticed, the last three nights, the iPod turns itself on and off two times at midnight. It was sitting on my desk, and it came on. I thought I was imagining it. Must have something to do with the clock.

I am getting a lot more power drain while it is asleep too. I keep it plugged in constantly now.

mbperk · Aug 15, 2002, 08:41 PM

Originally posted by dillerX:
I noticed, the last three nights, the iPod turns itself on and off two times at midnight. It was sitting on my desk, and it came on. I thought I was imagining it. Must have something to do with the clock.

I am getting a lot more power drain while it is asleep too. I keep it plugged in constantly now.

dillerX Apple posted this on your backlight situation. Here is the link.http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61682

el lindo · Aug 15, 2002, 11:13 PM

Originally posted by bgordon:
I wonder if we can go back to 1.1? I'm not really using the clock, and while iCal may eventually be nice, I'd rather have long-lasting tunes than more PDA ability. Does anyone think this would be possible?

You can do it. What you have to do is reformat your iPod's hard drive, install the 1.1 software, then reload all your music. The trick would be finding the 1.1 software...

zurek106 · Aug 16, 2002, 12:18 AM

I am having the exact same problem with my new 10 G iPod! I thought that I might have hit the play button by accident while it is in its case or for getting to press pause when im not listenning. But now that you mention it, I cant get more than a day without re-charging it. Even when I fully charge the iPod and I unplug it from my computer. I then plug the iPod back in a minute later and it takes atleast 10 min to recharge it self to full, even though I didnt even use the iPod for the minute that I turned it off!
-Dan

daydreamer · Aug 16, 2002, 04:15 AM

I don't have an ipod but i have a friend who had same problem , hes ipod would only play 4 hours... but he RESETTED the hardware.. i dont know how he did it, but you can reset the software and also reset the hardware.. then his problem was fixed

bgordon · Aug 16, 2002, 04:34 PM

Hey, all. Thanks for the replies.

Last night, I recharged my iPod completely, then scoured the settings for possible power drainers. I found that "Alarms" had been set to "Silent," instead of off, so I switched it to off. (What the hell is a silent alarm, anyway?) I also switched "Sound Check" to off, and made sure "Sleep Timer" was off, too. (My backlight was already defaulted to the off setting.)

Anyway, I'm *tentatively* seeing better power retention (used it to work and back, about an hour total) and we're still at 4 bars from last night.

I'll let you know if this really works. In the meantime, see if your alarms are set to "Silent" (!) and change them to off. It can't hurt.

ft2bme · Aug 17, 2002, 12:10 PM

Originally posted by bgordon:
I wonder if we can go back to 1.1? I'm not really using the clock, and while iCal may eventually be nice, I'd rather have long-lasting tunes than more PDA ability. Does anyone think this would be possible?

I just went back to 1.1 after getting 1/2 hour of life from a full charge with 1.2 (I skipped 3 songs; shudder!). Run the 1.1 updater and plug in the iPod, click Restore. When the updater says to unplug your iPod, unplug it, even though the iPod itself says not to. Plug it back in and it'll update its firmware. Copy everything back with iTunes 2 or 3.

I'm about to head out and test the battery life and I'll give the results.

bpsmith · Aug 17, 2002, 12:38 PM

When I shut the iPod off last night (new 20GB model), that battery status indicator had just changed to 3 bars from 4. When I woke it up this morning and skipped one song, the indicator dropped to 1 bar and the iPod went dead less than a half an hour later.

sanford · Aug 17, 2002, 02:50 PM

Well this has been most helpful. I read similar posts on the Apple boards. I thought my 10GB iPod (mechanical scroll wheel), a few months old, was starting to fail in the battery department. But now I doubt it. I was getting the usual 10 hours play time until I updated to 1.2 and now I only get about 5-6 hours on a full charge. And I was all set to take it out to the Apple Store to be inspected. But looks like that would be a waste of time. My playback was not continguous, so I can't tell if its related to when it's off or asleep or when it's playing, but there certainly does seem to be a greater power drain. And this only showed up after I updated to 1.2.

I just tried a soft reset and am recharging to see if the reset makes any difference.

ft2bme · Aug 17, 2002, 03:03 PM

Originally posted by ft2bme:

I just went back to 1.1 after getting 1/2 hour of life from a full charge with 1.2 (I skipped 3 songs; shudder!). Run the 1.1 updater and plug in the iPod, click Restore. When the updater says to unplug your iPod, unplug it, even though the iPod itself says not to. Plug it back in and it'll update its firmware. Copy everything back with iTunes 2 or 3.

I'm about to head out and test the battery life and I'll give the results.

With my iPod downgraded back to 1.1, I played music for about an hour, skipping around a lot more than usual to make the hard drive keep spinning up. I'm still at 4 bars and it's playing fine.

TiG4 · Aug 17, 2002, 06:33 PM

There seems to be some serious battery issues with update 1.2.
I sure hope Apple fixes this soon.

wulf · Aug 18, 2002, 08:47 AM

Not much to add that hasn't been said already... getting the same problems with battery life(original 5GB iPod). Yesterday it jumped from 2 bars to dead when I skipped a track.

Does anyone know if the clock functions before you set it the first time? I mean if you install 1.2 fresh but never set the clock, is it still "ticking" (so to speak)? If so it might be a way of keeping 1.2 and retaining battery life, if indeed it is the clock which is the problem. Just a thought...

bgordon · Aug 18, 2002, 07:28 PM

Just wanted to report back that I used my iPod for an hour or so today and it's still at 4 BARS of power (after a full recharge from Thursday night, I believe.)

I really think switching the alarm feature from "silent" to "off" may have been the trick.

Maybe those of you still having problems can try this and see if it helps.