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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > Airport effect on battery life

Airport effect on battery life
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Jun 16, 2003, 01:54 PM
 
I remember reading somewhere that Airport sucks a lot of power when the power adapter isn't connected.
Is this true?
And how much shorter battery life should I expect?

Any input appreciated.
DI
     
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Jun 16, 2003, 02:07 PM
 
Originally posted by dannyillusion:
I remember reading somewhere that Airport sucks a lot of power when the power adapter isn't connected.
Is this true?
And how much shorter battery life should I expect?

Any input appreciated.
I don't notice any decrease in battery life.
iBook 900
640MB RAM
40 GB HD
Airport
     
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Jun 16, 2003, 03:26 PM
 
Me neither, which I kind of found surprising as I had read about the decline in battery life as well. Well, not that I'm complaining
     
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Jun 16, 2003, 03:56 PM
 
Actually, I noticed an increase in battery life!

Anyone who does not notice a decrease in battery life is blind. One reason for developing of Bluetooth is that wifi uses, comparatively, a lot of power (up to 100 mw) and this is true no matter what platform (PC, laptop, PDA, etc).
     
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Jun 16, 2003, 04:31 PM
 
hmm...
now I'm confused...
In theory it should shorten but irl it doesn't?
DI
     
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Jun 16, 2003, 04:38 PM
 
In reality, it does well. No offense, some people choose to ignore reality and report their subjective feelings as fact.
     
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Jun 16, 2003, 05:38 PM
 
i have my airport card on all the time, and get about 4.5 hours on a full charge

i have the brightness set to less than half-way which is fine by me

i disabled the airport card with a full charge and it reported about 5 minutes more than with it enabled
ibook 900 12.1" combo 640mb =)
powerbook 1.33 15" 768mb =P
     
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Jun 17, 2003, 09:46 AM
 
Originally posted by klinux:
In reality, it does well. No offense, some people choose to ignore reality and report their subjective feelings as fact.
You're right. There is most certainly a decrease in battery life. However, I honestly haven't noticed it. My gut feeling is that we're talking about a couple of minutes.

Does anyone have any numbers?
     
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Jun 17, 2003, 12:05 PM
 
i have heard from many people that it is around 20 minuites and tryed it that is tru with it off i get about 15-25 minuites more juice

In reality, it does well. No offense, some people choose to ignore reality and report their subjective feelings as fact
this is tru but we must remember that we all will 99% of the time have our cards on this would mean that it is hard to notice a differance. it also takes a few minuites for the computer to recalculate the real time left so if you turn it off leave it around 5 mins then check the time again

ps.usless meaningless info but hey... im postin from a windoze machine and MY GOD it is soooo slow and the '98 is hard to use i converted bout 1-2 yrs ago and i forgot how bad these things are
its giving me such a longing to have my iBook back!!!!!!!!

MacbookPro dual 2Ghz 1GB Ram 128 Graphics
     
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Jun 17, 2003, 08:37 PM
 
I recently got an AirPort card for my iBook and found that its effect to the battery life seems negligeable.

Can't live without AirPort.

Cheers,

Sander.
Have a nice day!
     
mdc
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Jun 17, 2003, 10:25 PM
 
like jmagic said. if you want a lot more battery life, turn your screen brightness down.
     
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Jun 18, 2003, 02:23 AM
 
I can say you only two things:

1- When I put the airport in my Rev A tibook battery drops to 20 minutes. I don't know if it were at the end of live cycle but that's it.

2- My new 900 Mhz ibook 12" has airport installed from the factory and has a battery life varying from 3 ours and 3 ours and half

Pila
#---------------------------#
# Andrea "Pila" Ghirardini #
#---------------------------#
     
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Jun 18, 2003, 10:42 AM
 
Cool!!
Thanks everyone.
I'm getting a card to slam in there...

/D
DI
     
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Jun 20, 2003, 06:01 PM
 
Yea, get the card. Airport in the iBook rocks, no question whatsoever.
     
   
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