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funkboy · Apr 18, 2003, 11:21 AM

I'm using Mac OS X 10.2.5 and I recently purchased a brand new battery for my iBook 500 Dual USB. My battery timer is saying I have 3 hours on a full charge, and about 2 hours are left with 66% left. So, I imagine it's reading it accurately.

How good of battery life is that? I know Apple advertised up to five hours with a battery under OS 9, and those are always optimistic - but I really did get around 4 hours when I first got my iBook a year and a half ago with its brand new battery.

I got about 1 hour 10 minutes with my old battery under 10.2.4. I'm wondering how I could improve battery life under OS X - is there any processes I could kill possibly? Here's a top listing: (disregard iTunes, etc.... also, classic is running here)

Processes: 49 total, 4 running, 45 sleeping... 157 threads 11:21:58
Load Avg: 3.80, 3.28, 3.05 CPU usage: 78.3% user, 18.9% sys, 2.8% idle
Networks: 1 ipkts/0K 0 opkts /0K
Disks: 0 reads/0K 0 writes/0K
VM: 0 pageins 0 pageouts

PID COMMAND %CPU TIME FAULTS PGINS/COWS MSENT/MRCVD BSD/MACH CSW
833 top 0.9% 0:01.01 110 0/2 628/626 87/725 14
830 tcsh 0.0% 0:00.07 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
829 login 0.0% 0:01.69 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
828 Terminal 23.5% 0:06.25 9 0/0 59/44 11/105 250
809 RealOne Pl 2.8% 1:06.69 1 0/1 20/5 0/584 331
808 iTunes 1.8% 1:19.72 0 0/0 6/5 6/46 27
795 iChat 0.0% 0:05.86 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
742 lookupd 0.0% 0:01.57 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
670 GraphicCon 0.0% 0:40.88 1 0/1 3/2 0/8 4
669 Finder 0.0% 1:47.80 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
659 TruBlueEnv 16.9% 44:09.14 0 0/0 3/3 0/1895 1448
650 AppleSpell 0.0% 0:00.28 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
649 TextEdit 0.0% 0:07.28 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
648 SecurityAg 0.0% 0:02.02 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
647 Mail 0.0% 3:25.08 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
557 Safari 28.3% 13:27.65 0 0/0 111/109 2/815 777
554 check_afp 0.0% 0:00.23 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
428 iChatAgent 0.0% 0:01.61 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
426 DMRMapperA 0.0% 0:04.13 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
421 SystemUISe 0.0% 0:23.41 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
420 Dock 0.0% 0:17.71 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
413 pbs 0.0% 0:03.96 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
405 DirectoryS 0.0% 0:04.11 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
386 loginwindo 0.0% 0:13.48 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
383 automount 0.0% 0:00.10 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
379 cupsd 0.0% 0:04.08 0 0/0 0/0 5/0 1
377 inetd 0.0% 0:00.01 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
376 cron 0.0% 0:00.13 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
362 ntpd 0.0% 0:03.07 0 0/0 0/0 6/0 3
358 coreservic 0.0% 0:04.22 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
347 nfsiod 0.0% 0:00.01 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
346 nfsiod 0.0% 0:00.00 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
345 nfsiod 0.0% 0:00.00 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
344 nfsiod 0.0% 0:00.00 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
311 netinfod 0.0% 0:01.42 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
309 Window Man 19.8% 7:44.23 5 0/0 315/278 0/390 504
253 autodiskmo 0.0% 0:00.50 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
246 crashrepor 0.0% 0:00.01 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0
238 mDNSRespon 0.0% 0:00.82 0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0

Peter · Apr 18, 2003, 12:06 PM

I get between 3 hours and 3 and a half hours. Idont find programs use battery life but stuff like -
* Screen Brightness
* Airport
* Burning CD's
all use the battery up, also try setting the processor power to low rather than high.

funkboy · Apr 18, 2003, 02:31 PM

Originally posted by PeterClark2002:
I get between 3 hours and 3 and a half hours. Idont find programs use battery life but stuff like -
* Screen Brightness
* Airport
* Burning CD's
all use the battery up, also try setting the processor power to low rather than high.

Airport... impossible to live without

It's the reason I got the iBook in the first place!
But that is true, it does use a bit more juice than having it off.

I'd like to know a good compendium for UNIX processes, so I could learn which are essential and which are not, to get a little more juice.