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Zeus86

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 11, 2009
61
0
New York, NY
I have been using Windows 7 on bootcamp and I have noticed that the battery depletes very fast. Is this a common problem?
 

thejadedmonkey

macrumors G3
May 28, 2005
9,183
3,343
Pennsylvania
Does anybody know why?

P.S. I get about 1/3 the normal battery life running XP, 1/2 running Vista, and 2/3 running an unsupported OS - Windows 7 - on my MBP.
 

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
Does anybody know why?

P.S. I get about 1/3 the normal battery life running XP, 1/2 running Vista, and 2/3 running an unsupported OS - Windows 7 - on my MBP.
No idea. I have even encountered anecdotal evidence where a Hackintosh notebook will have better battery life under hacked OS X when compared to Windows.

Though it only applies to certain models and if you can get the power management to work properly.
 

vistadude

macrumors 65816
Jan 3, 2010
1,423
1
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I get tired of these threads where people think windows is the problem. Windows is doing far more when in the background when you are staring at a blank screen than Mac OS. At the same time however, you can run far more apps in windows than Mac OS X before anything starts slowing down or becomes unstable. Finally, it is also an issue of the hardware as netbooks can get better battery life with windows than your MacBook. So to answer your question, nothing is wrong with windows.
 

TheEddiePShow

macrumors newbie
Feb 16, 2011
27
0
^This guy has no idea what he's talking about. I've purchased two new batteries for my hp laptop and everytime I've installed Windows 7, I then get an error saying I need to replace my battery and then when I go back on Vista it gives me only like 30 minutes of battery life. So yes Windows 7 does kill batteries and I've noticed I only get an hour with Windows 7 on my mbp 2011 and that's with brightness lowered and typing on here/sitting there doing nothing. I installed Windows 7 only because I need to use Microsoft 2007 for my class, but other than that I will not be using it.

P.S. It's because Windows 7 uses a lot of power just to run, so it overheats causing your battery to overheat and die.
 

sage2k

macrumors newbie
Mar 6, 2011
4
0
I have even encountered anecdotal evidence where a Hackintosh notebook will have better battery life under hacked OS X when compared to Windows.

I’ve Hackintoshed a Dell 1525 (I think) in 2008, the laptop lasted for less than an hour in Windows Vista, and for around 1 hour 15 mins in Mac OS X 10.5.6. These results were consistent over ~9 months.
For a 5-6 hour lasting battery it would mean that Windows eats up an 1 hour of outlet autonomy more compared to Mac OS X.

As a side note: I’ve seen an Acer Timeline, which battery took a one third battery life plunge after installing Windows 7. Reverting to Vista didn’t help.
 

Bigmacduck

macrumors regular
Feb 15, 2009
228
5
Windows is masturbating

Windows is a typical masturbation operating system that constantly tries to satisfy itself (herself/himself?).

Windows 7 has many background processes that do things, consume CPU cycles and therefore nibble battery capacity.

OS X like most UN*X operating systems is behaving more orderly here.
 

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
Windows is a typical masturbation operating system that constantly tries to satisfy itself (herself/himself?).

Windows 7 has many background processes that do things, consume CPU cycles and therefore nibble battery capacity.

OS X like most UN*X operating systems is behaving more orderly here.
I would avoid looking at Activity Monitor for the rest of your life. :eek:
 

ZipZap

macrumors 603
Dec 14, 2007
6,076
1,448
I have a Dell Inspiron 15 (4 yr old) on Windows 7 Ultimate. I get a little over 3 hours of typical use on battery.

While I have not done so, I would bet that replacing the HD with an SSD would extend that time considerably.

It did on my Alienware m11x.
 
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