Vista draining laptop batteries, patience

Some of Microsoft's most important customers aren't happy with the battery life offered by notebooks running Windows Vista.

"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.

"The potential is there to do some good things, the bad thing is that it comes with the canned settings."

--John Wozniak,
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."

[DraconumPB]

This makes sense...

...considering that, using Aero, your processor is working harder even when you're not using any programs, and working especially hard if you are. Harder working processor means it gets hotter, meaning the fan has to blow (on Vista typically my laptop's CPU fan is running all the time, well, RC1 anyway) which uses power. Not to mention that the harder working processor (AND the GPU) itself uses more power doing what it's doing.

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.

[boyd087]

With and Without Aero

Back during the RTM phase of Vista, I installed a copy on my laptop. Even without Aero turned on I saw battery life drop significantly compared to XP. Where I used to easily get 3.5 hours, I would be lucky to get 2 hours of time from a full charge. I decided to switch back to XP. Not surprisingly, my battery life went back to normal.

[Ted Miller]

Vista is losing ground...Fast!

Just a side note. We use laptops and embedded computers for all the machines we build for the biomedical research industry, and lately we have been using windows XP as the operating system of choice. I just got through testing all of our equipment with windows Vista Business Edition. The results where both positive and scary. Although we had to change a couple of installers all the programs seemed to run fine. I did run into some problems with the Edgeport serial boxes, but Qualtech and Digiport worked fine. The scary part is how on earth are we going to fit Vista on our embedded computers? We also use laptops with our equipment which needs the Ethernet Port and even with the XP units we need to keep that port enabled along with the graphics drivers (these get disabled in battery mode on Dell units which we use) We also noticed with our JAVA based programs we had to disable the second core in a dual core machine. This all may sound like gibberish to some, but the point I am making is that in todays market and with a mutimillion dollar company like ours, we are really getting nervous. Are You??? Is linux going to be a God send? It would be a long process to change our C++ coding in all our programs to accommodate Linux and thats something really scary!

[fred dunn]

It Essentially Runs Two Processors (Aero)...

The CPU and the GPU. MS recommends a high end video GPU for running Aero in Vista. Whether that is an integrated chip sucking power from having to read from System Memory constantly or an embedded Chip with it's own high speed memory.
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?

[J_Satch]

Battery Drain?

Just wait until you have to buy it, it's also a great wallet drain!

[ppgreat]

Running Vista in Parallels on a Mac

Does this same battery drain occur on a Mac running Vista in
Parallels? Anyone have any experience doing that?

[PCCRomeo]

And with notebook batteries already unstable...

What to do? Make batteries more powerful and have more
spontaneous combustions? Include two batteries with every
notebook until new battery technology comes out? Who knows...

[egarc--2008]

Fluorescent Light Bulbs

Assuming the household has one desktop and one laptop, if
everyone switches to fluorescent light bulbs and upgrades to Vista,
is your electric bill a wash?

Where's Greenpeace?

[gadgetjunkie1]

20+ Hour Per Charge External Laptop Battery

True it's somewhat of a power hog however Vista has some really cool features that I really like. I just recently installed Vista and I also noticed that it drained my already short lived internal laptop battery even more. My solution to the problem was to pickup a Portable Power Station from batterygeek.net which is now giving my laptop an additional 20+ hours of runtime per charge. For me it's an ideal solution because I can also recharge and power my cell phone, PSP and iPod Video with it.

[lim3light]

Nice

I love the comment, "In (Aero) mode, you will drain the battery faster, but you get something in return because it's cool and nice looking".

Sure, you'll only get about half the amount of work done, but it'll look cool.

[OS11]

Aero Contributes To Global Warming ! ! !

If Aero causes battery drain on a Laptop, just think what it does on a Desktop!

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.

[Gasaraki]

No really...

The Aero interface uses the graphics processor to render the gui instead of just the cpu. In XP, the graphic processor goes in to low power mode when it's 3d processing power is not needed. In Vista they can't do that because the graphics processor is always being used while Aero is on. Of course it's going to use more energy.
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.

[john.ford1]

Vista Draining Batteries

I recently purchased a new HP laptop running Vista Premium and I am highly satisfied with my battery life. One must be smart when extending your power when power can become scarce. I try to run as few bells and whistles as possible while on battery only power, HP has done a marvelous job with their settings that a user can select. I think we should stop complaining and do something about it like change settings to what we need and not make blanket statements.

[TechNewsJunky]

Microsoft: It's a "feature"

Yeah right.
They're "empowering" their users (to pick up the pieces)

[WJeansonne]

Turn-off Aero Interface!

Who needs it on a notebook anyway. It's largely a gimmick anyhow. It's perfect for desktops though!!

[WJeansonne]

Turn-off Aero Interface!

Who needs it on a notebook anyway. It's largely a gimmick anyhow. It's perfect for desktops though!!

[Dr_Zinj]

VISTA IS NOT GREEN!

Vista is not an environmentally friendly OS.

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???

[bobbydi]

Not Only Aero

Microsoft also uses much power in other areas that it formerly stayed out of. Anti-virus is one- I turn off Security Center in XP and use my other antivirus that is much more power efficient. The graphics programs I use are more power efficient than Microsoft's graphics, not including Aero. Windows Media Player can still be great without trying to sell every song or video it plays. The pc user can find many places to buy the music/video- better than what Microsoft offers.

[caywen123]

Aero is the hotness - literally

I have an HP DV9000T with GeForce Go 7600. When I turn on Aero, my fan runs incessantly and the laptop begins to get uncomfortably hot.

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.

[jjayguy23]

Vista, WHAT'S THE POINT??

I've used vista frequently on my Aunt and Uncles HP Pavillion laptop and it sucks. I can't believe how annoying it is. It's features seems so poorly implimented, from the Aero to search. I can't stand it. I will not be using it mainly instead of XP for a long time.