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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > Installed Panther? Post Your Battery Life Times Here...

Installed Panther? Post Your Battery Life Times Here...
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shabbasuraj
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Oct 24, 2003, 09:25 PM
 
In regards to that lengthy discussion centered on wether or not Panther has the ability to increase battery performance...

I do not have a copy of Panther yet, so I have no idea if this is true...

lates...
     
Drakino
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Oct 25, 2003, 04:10 AM
 
Minimum brightness (ie 1 bar), Bluetooth off, AE off, no ethernet cable, processor set to reduced, hard drive allowed to spin down, and almost no usage.

A hair under 4 hours.

Not too pleased with that. Then again, I did just have my Powerbook drop from 22% to 0 in an instant for the second time, so I think my battery is bad.
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shabbasuraj  (op)
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Oct 25, 2003, 04:47 AM
 
so is it far greater than what you were getting before??? (i.e. an increase of 1-2 hours)...?

as this is what many have suggested (and argued over) would happen a few weeks ago, the very instant Panther was installed, ?

lates...
     
Drakino
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Oct 25, 2003, 04:55 AM
 
I never did a full battery drain on 10.2.8 where I never used the laptop. But no, I'm not seeing a battery life jump like some people say they saw. With normal use, it seems about the same.
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shabbasuraj  (op)
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Oct 25, 2003, 04:56 AM
 
so I guess the laws of physics and chemistry are in fact staying true, in regards to heat, battery discharge...etc...
     
cSurfr
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Oct 25, 2003, 09:51 PM
 
sitting in class with my 15" Tibook taking notes, granted me almost 5 hours of battery life with the screen @ 1/2 brightness.
-How pumped would you be driving home from work, knowing someplace in your house there's a monkey you're gonna battle?
     
beefstu01
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Oct 26, 2003, 02:53 AM
 
The new 15's use a smaller battery, but with a good conditioned battery, and just doing simple stuff, you should be able to eek out about 4 hours of good use on the sucker. My laptop's being repaired right now, but before on 10.2.8 I took notes for three classes, and then some at like 1/4 brightness, for a whopping total of around 3.5 hours, and there was still some charge left.
     
docholiday
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Oct 26, 2003, 03:38 AM
 
Mine is decreasing on a daily basis. Was getting just 2:00 w/ Jag (AE, no Bluetoooth, Brightness set to middle), now I am getting 2:20.

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seishindo
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Oct 27, 2003, 12:01 AM
 
This is THE issue that I would still like to know about.

What is with battery life??

TIA,
charlie
     
CyberPet
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Oct 27, 2003, 03:18 AM
 
PowerBook G4, 15" (TiBook) 1GHz with Superdrive and 1GB RAM.

Battery lenght with 10.3: 2 hrs 59 min

This was with the monitor set at full blast!!!! (I forgot to reset it after the install, so I asume I could squeeze out some more minutes if I set it as my normal with 4 notches left to full).

It's an increase with about 10 minutes from 10.2.8 after I did a few "tricks" recommended on the Discussion forums at Apple (this including a tour in Open Firmware and resetting the CMOS battery). Before the tricks the 10.2.8 update had my battery down to 2 hrs 22 min.
/Petra
     
MacFreak
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Oct 27, 2003, 03:35 PM
 
I'm getting a little better that 3.5 hours on my 15"Al 1.25 GHz, w/5400rpm HD, 512 MB RAM, SD

I have LCD at half, Bluetooth off, and am surfing 802.11g. Some other apps, but mostly Safari, Mail, and some Final Cut Express...

Settings are set to Automatic...

With 10.2.7 bat life would show 2.5 hours, but I still think I got well over 3...I think the time is just more accurate...
     
legionare
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Oct 27, 2003, 04:54 PM
 
3h:51m of juice left on two batteries that are 74% full combined... on a Pismo 500 with AirPort on and brightness 5 clicks from the right...
     
TAZ
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Oct 27, 2003, 07:29 PM
 
Did a clean install, reconditioned the battery and reset the powermanager. Settings on a 15" 1.25 Stock unit with aftermarket 1 gig Ram are Automatic, BT off, Airport on, brightness on 4 bars. Best I have gotten was 3:11 on the meter. I havent actually timed it to shut down yet.
     
h00ligan
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Oct 27, 2003, 11:13 PM
 
Originally posted by cSurfr:
sitting in class with my 15" Tibook taking notes, granted me almost 5 hours of battery life with the screen @ 1/2 brightness.
what model and what settings, i get about 3.5-4 if i drain it.. maybe if i turned off the airport and a bunc of other stuff off and just had word open.
     
Avenir
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Oct 28, 2003, 03:37 PM
 
15" Ti 500, I was getting about 2.5-3 hours on full blast, working photoshop annd all yesterday.

Now, today, after panther, this thing will barely make it 2 hours (under the same conditions)... This sucks right now.

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Macpilot
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Oct 29, 2003, 02:17 AM
 
My battery has shown some wierd behavior since 10.2.6.

At around 15 to 20%, the screen will go black, the sleep light pulses, and the Powerbook goes into its deep sleep mode.

I plug it in, and about 5 minutes later I can bring back the desktop.

I have done the Power Manager Reset procedure. It has done nothing.

I am getting around 2 to 2.5 hours with this battery. I don't think Panther is any better.
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Macpilot
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Oct 29, 2003, 02:19 AM
 
On yeah, what the hell happened to the warning message that OS X used to give where it said something like "you are now running low on battery please plug your powerbook in"?

That would be nice to have, since the battery indicator in the Menu Bar does not work properly.
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shabbasuraj  (op)
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Oct 29, 2003, 02:36 AM
 
so battery performance has not changed after Panther...

I still wanna hear from the clowns that reported (before Panther's release) that the Panther beta was yielding them an extra 1-2 hours, 'by the more efficient use of the hard drive and a better power managment...

(they said it not me)...
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bigben1024
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Oct 29, 2003, 06:32 PM
 
I am a new pb user, but I get just about 3 hrs with full bright and airport on. No bluetooth. I also have my desktop wallpaper changing every 5 seconds.

I mainly use internet, terminal, textEdit/word, ppt.
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bigben1024
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Oct 30, 2003, 12:18 AM
 
also...
there is a warning on mine telling me to plug it in.
perhaps you missed it, pilot.

cya
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CyberPet
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Oct 30, 2003, 08:58 AM
 
I get a warning. Did get it in 10.2.8 too.

Maybe you should try to "reset" your CMOS battery? Turn off the computer, unhook every cable to it and remove the battery. Let the computer sit for at least 15 minutes to drain the CMOS battery.
/Petra
     
Macpilot
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Oct 30, 2003, 09:30 AM
 
Originally posted by CyberPet:
I get a warning. Did get it in 10.2.8 too.

Maybe you should try to "reset" your CMOS battery? Turn off the computer, unhook every cable to it and remove the battery. Let the computer sit for at least 15 minutes to drain the CMOS battery.
Thanks for the tip. I will try that.
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riverfreak
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Oct 30, 2003, 10:52 AM
 
Originally posted by shabbasuraj:
so battery performance has not changed after Panther...

I still wanna hear from the clowns that reported (before Panther's release) that the Panther beta was yielding them an extra 1-2 hours, 'by the more efficient use of the hard drive and a better power managment...

(they said it not me)...
Well, I never used the betas, but my battery life has increased substantially on a one year old Ti book, 1 GHz. I might add that this battery has been used and abused in that year. I was getting around two hours under 10.2.6. Now I'm getting well over 3 hours under panther.
     
-Q-
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Oct 30, 2003, 11:14 AM
 
Under Panther, on an 867 TiBook I'm getting 3:22 with the screen at half-brightness and the Airport card on (no Bluetooth). If I turn the Airport card off, it jumps up to 4:06.

Before Panther I was getting around 2:40 with Airport on and the LCD at the same brightness (3:12 with Airport off).

So I'm not seeing a massive increase in battery power, but I am seeing an increase.
     
threestain
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Oct 30, 2003, 05:55 PM
 
I get around 3 1/2 hours with airport on, screen at half brightness. I used to get about 3 hours before.
     
Blackstealth
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Oct 31, 2003, 12:45 PM
 
Installed Panther this morning. Battery life seems to have settled at about 3hrs 10. Slightly better than 10.2.8. I used to see about 3hrs 5.

That's running with Airport off, bluetooth off, processor reduced, brightness on 1 block, keyboard lights on 4 blocks and 'net connection via ethernet.
It's arrived - 15" PB 1.25Ghz - Damn is this a fine machine!
     
benb
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Oct 31, 2003, 01:02 PM
 
I got about 4:45 the other day on my Rev. B 12". Processor performance on reduced, AirPort on, BlueTooth off brightness at half.

If I play EV Nova I get about 2 hours with the same settings. And the fan comes on, quite loudly.
     
pamelah
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Oct 31, 2003, 01:13 PM
 
17" rev B Powerbook

Panther with Processor performance on automatic, AirPort on, BlueTooth off brightness at 5 notches. Mail and proteus open surfing the web. Acting as laptop (no external devices)

4:15....and yes...that's real *timed* time.

With Jaguar I was only getting about 2.5 hours...so i'm much happier.
Architecture:Design | 17" alPB | 23" cinema display etc...
     
mspalacios
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Oct 31, 2003, 05:57 PM
 
How do you recondition the batteries in the Powerbook?

Does draining the CMOS battery have any negative effects?
     
Macpilot
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Nov 2, 2003, 09:13 PM
 
I got it to run down to 10% indicated. Then, no warning and display went black. Pluggin in, and when the display finally came back, it showed 4%! Wierd. I am definitely not getting better battery life from Panther.

Maybe it is my battery.
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Badwisdom
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Nov 3, 2003, 05:49 AM
 
17' PB 1.33 Ghz stock configuration. With screen at half brightness, Airport On, Bluetooth off, surfing, using Email and playing Itunes i get between 3,5 and 4 hours before i get the warning message.
     
aktive
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Nov 3, 2003, 07:43 AM
 
On my 15" Tibook, if I put the brightness down to around 50%, then i can get around 4hrs 30mins. Thats with airport enabled and browsing the internet mainly.

Well, i was quite impressed anyway....
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urrl78
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Nov 3, 2003, 07:58 AM
 
Jaguar on my 17" took 1:20 to boot. Panther takes 50 seconds. Oops sorry don't have battery time.
     
javabeans
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Nov 3, 2003, 08:25 AM
 
On my 17" Rev. A, I'm getting about 45min to 1hour better. Also, a bit off topic, my screen does seem to be a lot brighter after installing Panther...did anybody feel the same way?
PB.17.1Ghz - iPod.10G
     
Palafo
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Nov 4, 2003, 01:01 AM
 
10.2.8 trashed my system and my battery. I was getting less than 2 hours on that battery.
Applecare supervisor gave me a song and dance that batteries are consumables (this battery and computer are a year old and I do not use the battery heavily). I bought an essentially new battery on ebay with Panther it gets 4:45 hrs with fairly high processing settings. The other battery has gained about 30 minutes, it's at around 2:30 hrs. I think part of the problem was that 10.2.8 simply could not read the battery (yeah, I did everything, rest pmu, fsck, reset pram, recalibrated, etc, in
multiple combinations.) And something about 10.2.8 damaged the power meter. But but but. I erased my ENTIRE DRIVE. I reloaded 10.2.6. I reloaded the new 10.2.8. It did something to my battery. I don't know what it did -- I think all the monkeying around, resetting this, crashing, etc damaged the battery permanently. So the old battery is my backup, my emergency. When I upgraded to Panther, I removed the new one and put in the old one. I will do this for every OS X upgrade. Apple knows it trashed all these batteries and it is engaged in cost control re replacement batteries.

The supervisor told me to take the powerbook to a service center and have them put a known good battery in there. I can tell her now, it's not a software issue. But trying a new battery in the powerbook won't tell you what's wrong with the old battery. It's illogical! It comes back to this: batteries are consumables and a battery with half its normal life after a year is "normal." Deal with it!

Dammit.
     
   
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