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Vista draining laptop batteries, patience
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"It's a little scary," said John Wozniak, a distinguished technologist in Hewlett-Packard's notebook engineering department, referring to the work HP needed to do on making Windows Vista more suitable for notebooks.
Vista, while touted as having improved power management capabilities that would make it easier for users to extend battery life, isn't to some living up to that promise. The main culprit appears to be the Aero Glass interface, a spiffy new user interface that makes Vista more pleasing to the eye with transparent windows and animated transitions when moving from one application to another.
When Aero is turned off, battery life is equal to or better than Windows XP systems. But with it turned on, battery life suffers compared with Windows XP.
Microsoft made some important changes in Vista that do improve some aspects of battery life, such as smarter hibernation modes that override applications that want to keep running, and simpler options for choosing a power management setting. But laptop users who spent extra money on powerful laptops to handle the graphics requirements of Vista and the Aero interface are forced to run the aesthetic equivalent of Vista Basic, the low-cost version of Vista, if they care about battery life.
technologist, Hewlett-Packard
HP decided it wasn't going to use the power management settings that shipped with Vista, Wozniak said. The company came up with its own set of power management settings for Vista laptops, allowing users to select different power settings, such as "power saver" or "high performance," that strike a balance between processing power and battery life. Lenovo is likewise using its own power management technologies honed over several years, said Howard Locker, director of new technology at Lenovo.
"They've really made it complex from a power management standpoint," Wozniak said. "The potential is there to do some good things, the bad thing is that it comes with the canned settings...and we didn't like any of them."
Reports that Vista was an energy hog started to surface during beta testing last year. At the time, Microsoft said many of the problems would be cleared up by the time the operating system launched. Of course, this isn't a new issue when it comes to operating system changeovers, said Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC. "When you look at a new operating system, battery life tends to be worse. When Windows XP came out, that was true, and when Windows 98 came out, that was true."
The difference this time around is that notebooks are "the growth engine for industry," Shim said. Notebook PCs now account for more than half of all retail PC sales and are projected to become the majority for the whole market by the end of the decade.
But battery life problems continue to rankle notebook users. As blogger Rob Bushway of Tablet PC site Gottabemobile.com put it, "when a consumer has to buy an extended battery to get what they use(d) to get out of a standard battery, something is really wrong."
More than one company other than HP has acknowledged the demand that Vista and the Aero interface put on a notebook PC running off its battery.
"Vista is consuming more power than Windows XP, but we have been very focused on introducing more power-efficient technologies," said Bahr Mahony, director of product marketing for Advanced Micro Devices' mobile product division.
Most attribute that power use to Aero. "In (Aero) mode, you will drain the battery faster, but you get something in return because it's cool and nice looking," Lenovo's Locker said.
The Aero interface is automatically disabled when users put their Vista notebooks into the "power-saving" profile, one of three new simplified power-management states. While that makes for an arguably duller experience, Microsoft said it commissioned a study (click here for PDF) that found no difference in "responsiveness," or application load time, between a notebook with Aero disabled versus one running the fancy graphics: implying that Aero doesn't put too much of a load on the system.
But the notebook and Tablet PC used in Principled Technologies' test had the power management setting on "high-performance" when testing Aero's performance. At that setting, the notebook won't ever compromise performance to preserve battery life, so responsiveness isn't an issue.
Microsoft isn't deterred by HP's decisions and other criticism. "We actively encourage (PC companies) to customize the default power profiles so that users get the most out of their hardware," Microsoft said in a statement.
A more definitive statement on Windows Vista and battery life should surface soon, with Intel scheduled to release new chips for notebooks next week at the launch event for the next generation of its Centrino technology. Also, Bapco, an industry benchmarking organization, is expected to soon release the MobileMark 2007 benchmark.
Microsoft, for its part, will likely have to improve Vista's battery life performance over time through the release of service packs and other tweaks, Shim said. "The (PC companies) are getting pressure from consumers--who are the notebook adopters--who are saying their number one priority on a notebook is battery life."
See more CNET content tagged:
power management, Richard Shim, battery life, battery, Microsoft Windows Vista
103 comments
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I mean, I dunno... it just seems to be common sense to me. Don't like it? Don't use graphics-heavy rich applications, games, OS'es on your laptop, geez.
going to take the hit.
But just to run your OS? That is inexcusable on Microsoft's part.
And kicking it out the door (late) knowing that was an issue and
knowing the marketplace shows a disregard for the end user.
We all want a cheap laptop but we're getting a checp battery to go along with it.
Apparently this is due to Vista doing lots of indexing and file rearrangement during the first few days after instaleld (especially if you copy your old data to the machine) but when it went back to normal battery life improved, though it was still slightly higher than with XP.
At the corporate level, a different set of dynamics takes place. Vista might work for the average user, keep that in mind.
It was puzzling to hear about the Java based programs needing the second core disabled...
If it's straight-up C++ (without .NET, VB, or any other MSFT-only nonsense in it), then what's the problem?
Also, embedded devices are written for the architecture anyway - ARM for instance.
So unless you're in up to your neck in C#, .NET, VB, or other such MSFT-only proprietary garbage (which real C++ is not), or if your coding staff is that reliant on MSFT's tools to do their jobs for them... there should be no real problems in porting the code. Just re-code the GUI bits and the rest should be a snap.
/P
You are running two processors the GPU especially gets hit hard with the Aero interface so even if you are just letting it idle with the no apps running the GPU is still working. In particular for those large wide screen 1920x1200 displays.
I'll bet you couldn't even watch a two hour movie without having to recharge because then both processors will be eating up the battery.
Ahh progress, ain't it wonderful?
Right now its using 98megs of ram for Aero according to the Intel GPU utility. My power settings are on balance and my Core Duo processor is at 2% while I type this. I have about 10 things open right now.
I have not seen a difference but I only ever use my notebook on battery for an hour or so at a time. I have the 6cell battery it came with so its not going to be that great to begin with. My fan on this 15inch Acer almost never turns on.
Parallels? Anyone have any experience doing that?
Of course, there might be magic I don't know about, but I'm predicting you'll see worse uptime on battery in the case you outline.
On the other hand, the effect on battery life of running any OS in a VM... that I don't know. It certainly should reduce battery life some due to the additional overhead (particularly I/O and CPU), but the amount would be determined by the type and level of workload.
On the other hand, the effect on battery life of running any OS in a VM... that I don't know. It certainly should reduce battery life some due to the additional overhead (particularly I/O and CPU), but the amount would be determined by the type and level of workload.
when running and using both XP and OS X applications. I would
hate to see what Vista would do to this. Vista has slowed down
every other PC I have put it on, so I am going to stick with XP for a
while.
me have found no reason to move to Vista.
After having used Vista, I can actually say (with a straight face), XP
is good enough.
Honestly, if it weren't for forced purchases of Vista (preloads), it'd
have been stillborn.
would be interesting to see a test that:
- Running the same tasks in battery modes on equally spec'd.
laptops ( PC & Mac ) with Vista / Aero & Mac OSX Aqua to see
what the OS/GUI to OS/GUI battery drain ratio is...
- MS Office tasks
- Same game activity
- watching same movie
-surfing the internet
-downloading & ripping music to CDR
-etc., etc.
Vista OS is just Win XP Server OS with a crappy copy of MAC OSX
Aqua GUI, not efficiently engineered at all...
spontaneous combustions? Include two batteries with every
notebook until new battery technology comes out? Who knows...
everyone switches to fluorescent light bulbs and upgrades to Vista,
is your electric bill a wash?
Where's Greenpeace?
Sure, you'll only get about half the amount of work done, but it'll look cool.
Think about it. Aero is so poorly programmed it massively contributes to Global Warming, for no reason other than MS can't find coders to keep the UI looking great, but not at the expensive of "energy".
So sad, so sad.
The graphic makers need to develop chips that can do basic DX9 3d using very low power, this is the only way that power consumption in Vista is going to drop.
They're "empowering" their users (to pick up the pieces)
It requires more memory, more hard drive space, 'bigger' CPUs; all of which burn even more energy.
The usual response is turn this, that, and the other options off or to minimum.
Well gee whiz. What kind of an OS do you have then? How many of you can say Windows 95???
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.greenpeace.org/apple/" target="_newWindow">http://www.greenpeace.org/apple/</a>
Get Linux with not much app can run on it and turn on the computer and waste the power all day long...
Microsoft, did you bother to test this? Or did you, as usual, hire program managers with no common sense again?
Never saw a MacBook get this hot, yet all the nice visual effects (still better than Aero) are turned on.
Microsoft blew it.
My battery lasts twice as long in Linux as it does in XP.
I shudder to think how quickly that bloated monstrosity known as Vista would drain the battery.
similar eye candy ... shadowed windows, translucency, glassy
buttons, window animations, etc. And both OS X and Vista have
many similar features now.
So why does Aero need such a power hungry GPU while Aqua
works well even on old used hardware with relatively slow GPUs?
For example, a friend of mine recently bought his first Mac, a
used $200 G4 Mac tower running the latest OS X. There are tons
of them on ebay. He said it runs Aqua way better than he
expected, and he loves it. His frame of reference is Windows,
since he's only owned Windows machines since about 1990.
Even now, if you look at the required specs, they aren't much different. Vista "requires" 128 MB of VRAM... but that can be shared RAM (as in the case of integrated graphics solutions). At some point, both Aero and Aqua are dealing with the same issue--they need to store windows in memory. At 1920x1200 resolution and 32-bit color depth, that's over 9 MB per full-screen window. Neither OS can perform magic--if those windows are going to be buffered, there are only so many places they can go (first in VRAM, next in system RAM, then--gulp--to disk). In terms of GPU utilization, neither Aero or Aqua is very taxing on a modern GPU.
As with most sets of "required" specs, they aren't so much a hard lower limit as they are a satisfactory performance bar based on what the system is doing. Aero is doing more than Aqua, and thus requires more. Keep in mind that Aero represents a graphics platform/subsystem, not just a look and feel... comparing superficial details such as "shadowed windows, translucency, glassy buttons, window animations, etc." is just that--a superficial comparison. Dig deeper, and you will find that they are definitely not the same. We are only beginning to see what Aero can do--take a look at the coming Vista-specific version of Yahoo Messenger to get an early idea.
I run the Basic version on a notebook (that is NOT Premium-capable) and the only thing I really needed to add was 512 MB more RAM (which nowadays is not so expensive) and the performance is just fine.
At home on the more hardware-endowed (but by no means premium) desktop is the Home Premium version of Windows NT 6. I like the aesthetics of Aeroglass and it does also offer some file viewing advantages, but I have learned by using both versions that Aeroglass is NOT what draws me to the new OS even though Aero, thumbnails and the rest are nice.
And about the notebook, if I had Home Premium on that I would only turn on Aero while on AC power. The Basic interface works just fine for most work tasks.
Most people doing real work on a notebook under battery power are writing or manipulating data. Writing is about content not formatting, which can always be added later. You can even do lots of work in notepad and later on paste it into Word and format it. You dont need much horsepower to run notepad just like it takes less when you turn off Aero. Almost all of the work a processor (CPU or GPU) does nowadays is devoted to the interface and other graphics.
"said Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC. "When you look at a new operating system, battery life tends to be worse. When Windows XP came out, that was true, and when Windows 98 came out, that was true."
Say something negative about the OS and this is said over and over....it was the same way with blah blah blah.
What a headache.