[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I saw this on MacInTouch today and I am wondering if this is something that all powerbook users can look forward to:

"Also something I discovered which may not have been mentioned is the Energy saver OS X preference panel has a setting for slowing down the processor. This has a definite impact on heat (just gets a little warm on the bottom middle), and seems to increase battery life (not sure how much). When doing things like email and browsing, the machine still seems very responsive at the slower speed. I'm not sure what the equivalent clock speed is, but it must be at least 400 mhz or so. I do know that at the slower speed I can still watch a DVD without any problem, and dock animation seems fine. This may be quite useful for me, since sometimes I'm doing fairly simple things, other times I've got 5 programs running including things like Photoshop."

Does the TiBook have 10.1.4 or something else?

[Eug]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
<STRONG>I saw this on MacInTouch today and I am wondering if this is something that all powerbook users can look forward to:

"Also something I discovered which may not have been mentioned is the Energy saver OS X preference panel has a setting for slowing down the processor. This has a definite impact on heat (just gets a little warm on the bottom middle), and seems to increase battery life (not sure how much). When doing things like email and browsing, the machine still seems very responsive at the slower speed. I'm not sure what the equivalent clock speed is, but it must be at least 400 mhz or so. I do know that at the slower speed I can still watch a DVD without any problem, and dock animation seems fine. This may be quite useful for me, since sometimes I'm doing fairly simple things, other times I've got 5 programs running including things like Photoshop."

Does the TiBook have 10.1.4 or something else?</STRONG>

This sounds like it might be CPU dependent. Perhaps the pref panel option shows up only if an appropriate CPU is present. (This is similar to the SpeedStep function in Intel chips. Use the slower speed for standard business apps and DVD on battery power, but use max speed when plugged in or doing serious number crunching like MPEG-2 encoding.)

[pat++]

It looks like Apple is finally thinking about us, poor laptop users... Hope this thing will find its way to 10.1.5 or something so that my iBook gets decent battery life under X.

(I read somewhere that the new TiBook has 10.1.4, but the build number is newer than 5Q125....)

[ 05-08-2002: Message edited by: pat++ ]

[malvolio]

The new TiBooks are running build 5R60 or something like that. It's the most recent stable 10.1.4 build, and apparently incorporates improvements that the rest of us won't see until 10.1.5.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by Eug:
<STRONG>

This sounds like it might be CPU dependent. Perhaps the pref panel option shows up only if an appropriate CPU is present. (This is similar to the SpeedStep function in Intel chips. Use the slower speed for standard business apps and DVD on battery power, but use max speed when plugged in or doing serious number crunching like MPEG-2 encoding.)</STRONG>

No, all Apple laptops have had this feature since the Powerbook 500 series in 1993 I think. It is also avalible when you boot into OS9.

Intel just "invented" this feature 2 years ago.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
<STRONG>I saw this on MacInTouch today and I am wondering if this is something that all powerbook users can look forward to:

"Also something I discovered which may not have been mentioned is the Energy saver OS X preference panel has a setting for slowing down the processor. "

Does the TiBook have 10.1.4 or something else?</STRONG>

I don't have it on my TiBook 400mhz with 10.1.4

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
<STRONG>

I don't have it on my TiBook 400mhz with 10.1.4</STRONG>

Right, we are saying the new TiBooks that just shipped a week ago have a new OSX installed then the downloadable 10.1.4.

[Macrat]

I have it on my new 667, but it doesn't give any clear indication if it only happens on battery power, or all the time even when plugged in.

[Norm1985]

I don't think the 550s and 667s can even downclock in OS 9.... (Gigabit Ethernet PowerBook G4s, ones before the current DVI/667/800 PowerBooks)

[sjk]

There's some info about PowerStep on Apple's developer pages. Funny, I'm sure I read something specifically about it for the new 800MHz TiBook a few days ago, but now I can't find it anywhere on Apple's site.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by Norm1985:
<STRONG>I don't think the 550s and 667s can even downclock in OS 9.... (Gigabit Ethernet PowerBook G4s, ones before the current DVI/667/800 PowerBooks)</STRONG>

Anyone want to reboot into OS9 and find out?

[Cellery]

Rev. B Ti667, only the "Enable Processor Cycling" box is available in the control panel in 9.2.2. No "Reduce Processor Speed" box. Funny because the new machines use the same 7450 chip.

[KellyHogan]

The new Ti-Books have a slightly newer build of 10.1.4 to support the Radeon 7500 Mobility and to recognise the new hardware configuration such as the CPU number, audio in, DVI, etc.

[asxless]

This is great news! Much more important to me than everything I've read about Jaguar (except the revised Finder and CUPS) because, if the full set of PowerBook(iBook) specific ES features from OS 9 are incorporated into OS X, it will transform my Tibook back into a true laptop instead of a portable desktop.

BTW the full set of OS 9 PowerBook specific ES features include settings for...
* Power Adaptor - system sleep, display sleep, & hard disk sleep;
* Battery - system sleep, display sleep, & hard disk sleep
* Reduced Processor Speed and
* Allow Processor Cycling

In addition you can swap batteries when a TiBook is asleep (i.e. without being plugged in or shut down).

ALL of these settings/features are available in OS 9.2.1 on my TiBook 500. In combination, they dramatically extend battery life (almost double) while providing plenty of performance when using my Tibook for simple things like taking notes in a conference/meeting, or reading/answering Email on a long haul flight, etc..

asxless in iLand

[ 05-09-2002: Message edited by: asxless ]

10.2 gives you those options on all apple notebooks you know...

[asxless]

Originally posted by SteveJobs:
10.2 gives you those options on all apple notebooks you know...

Thanks. I hadn't read anything about Jaguar/10.2 incorporating PowerBook / iBook specific Energy Saver functionality prior to your post. Could you provide a link to more info/details/screen dumps?

asxless in iLand