Powerbooks and Variable Timing

[MacRumors]

PowerPage.org claims (http://www.powerpage.org/story.lasso?newsID=10087) that upcoming Powerbook revisions may employ new motherboard technology involving variable timing to extend battery life:


Prototypes have been seen sporting a new "variable timing bus and processor" in which the processor and the bus speed are governed by processing demand, a sort of high/low mode which effectively doubles battery life for such mundane tasks as watching DVDs or listening to music CDs.


This is presumably distinct from the processor cycling advantages that current laptops already perform to increase battery life.

Powerpage continues to maintain a January release of new Powerbooks.

[shadowfax]

HUMBUG! I NEED ONE IN NOVEMBER!

[joed]

If anyone cares, next Monday (29 Oct) will mark 6 months since the Powerbooks where last updated (ie product cycle).

I have set up a time line on my web site that lists when Apple products where updated last.

You can go to: http://homepage.mac.com/jbadcock/mac.html

My apologies if that seems like shamless self promotion.

James.

[OneTraveler]

Now this is a great thing! I know that I have seen huge drops in powerusage with my TiBook since swithing to OS X....it would be nice to get that life back.

[benski]

What about MIDI and Audio timing? From my experimentations with CoreAudio/CoreMIDI, it seems they use number-of-clock-cycles to determine timing. I wonder how timing would be done on variable bus and cpu speed systems ...

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by OneTraveler
Now this is a great thing! I know that I have seen huge drops in powerusage with my TiBook since swithing to OS X....it would be nice to get that life back.

Don't you mean huge increases in power usage? Meaning it draws more battery power shotening battery time?

This is different from the current processor cycling because it includes BUS speeds. At least that is what I get from the article.

[Falleron]

Anything to increase the battery life is great. However, I think waiting until January is tooooo long.

[yamadataro]

I was a really happy cow with the Powerbook G4 (400). But ever since I've moved to the current model with OS X, the battery drain is pretty bad. Is Mac OS X a real bad boy when it comes to battery life? I know it was with previous OS X versions since it didn't have energy saving control. But even with 10.2, I still feel that it's behaving badly.

Well, I guess I can't expect the same battery life between 400 and 800 either...

I may be the real bad boy here, huh?

Anyhow, I would be very much interested in this battery saver technology! But I won't buy the third TiBook just because of the battery life.

WHAT ELSE, I wonder???

[Telomar]

Unfortunately OS X's propensity for being hyperactive and shuffling data around causes a higher power drain than OS 9 used to. Its one of those things Apple is still working on and it really isn't easy to fix because it basically means redesigning and altering things within the kernel.

[Rajj]

When I got Jaguar....my battery life has taken a significant nose dive also.....so I had to buy another battery:mad:

So now I have two batteries:p :D

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by Macrumors
PowerPage.org claims (http://www.powerpage.org/story.lasso?newsID=10087) that upcoming Powerbook revisions may employ new motherboard technology involving variable timing to extend battery life:



This is presumably distinct from the processor cycling advantages that current laptops already perform to increase battery life.

Powerpage continues to maintain a January release of new Powerbooks.

Not sure about PowerBooks (I only have a Wintel laptop), but Intel/AMD "mobile" chips have employed "speed step" technology for quite some time. "Speed Step" reduces the operating speed of the CPU (by reducing its clock multiplier, leaving the bus speeds constant) to a fixed low-power setting whenever the BIOS notes that the computer is running on battery power. This happens regardless of CPU activity, and has been known to cause "hiccups" in early implementations of the BIOS (ie, you'd unplug the laptop and it would freeze up for a few seconds or indefinitely, or plugging/unplugging within a certain time interval would cause a BIOS panic and it would shut down).

It's hard to judge from such a brief rumor, but it sounds like the upcoming PB technology is more akin to what Intel is aiming to do with its Banias processor, although the addition of reducing bus speeds is, I think, beyond Intel's current plans. The "variable" nature, if accurate, is also an advantage over Intel, which is "fixed" in speeds (ie, Intel SpeedStep is like a three-way lamp except the "medium" setting doesn't exist: it's either on "high" or it's on "low" or it's "off"; "variable" timings would be more akin to a wall dimmer switch with a relatively "infinite" number of settings between "high" and "low".) This would allow the laptop to more appropriately use power in the middling situations where "low" speed isn't enough processing power for the app, but "high" speed isn't necessary. Banias technology does retain the advantage, however, of being able to purportedly switch off sections of the CPU that are not in use, which would be like taking power from the AltiVec unit when not in use or the FPU, and only restoring it when an instruction that uses that unit shows up in the pipeline.

CPU load-based power cycling is a neat trick, but also relies on the fact that software has to be able to tell the OS and hence the BIOS if it is "really" using all those CPU cycles for a user-dictated reason (ie, rendering a frame of a movie) or if it is just "taking advantage of" free cycles to do its processing and has no user mandate to get its work done quickly (ie, a scheduled disk indexing operation or automatic virus scan, etc). This could be done on first approximation basis according to the app's threading priority, but that's really not quite the same thing.

Imagine working in your favorite word processor: 99% of the time, "low power" mode gives more cycles than your fingers can keep up with, but when you go to write the thing to disk or do a full-text search on your 700-page novel, you'll want all the cycles the CPU can give you. This is something that Intel/AMD technologies can't do right now, and that the rumor would appear to indicate PowerBooks would handle properly.

So, if January is really the date for such tech to be in PowerBooks, the PB camp will have a HUGE advantage over Wintel notebooks (not that PowerBooks were lagging ...)

Also, regarding OS X and power usage: OS X tries to keep all subsystems active and doing "work" at all times. This allows a whole heck of a lot more "eye candy" and behind-the-scenes niceties to occur than would have been possible in OS 9 or below. By "behind the scenes niceties" I mean not only automated tasks, but also things like prioritizing memory and disk space usage and intelligently managing the preemptive multitasker and keeping memory accesses in check, etc. These are not things that can just be "turned off" easily, as the entire system relies upon these things being done and done properly.

And, yes, you will find that most Unixes are not really the best OS's for mobile machines. Unix just provides too many services to thrive on a battery-powered device. On the other hand, you can fashion Unixes which do well in such situations (like the Linux base of Zaurus handhelds), but that means giving up many underlying services and sometimes some of the overall stability for which Unix is famous.

Note that on my Wintel (HP) laptop, Win Me (just a half step up from OS 9 in terms of complexity) would run (doing "nothing") for about two hours, Win XP runs for an hour and a half, and Linux runs for about an hour and fifteen. Granted, neither XP nor Linux are "tuned" highly to get rid of "sometimes needed" services/daemons, but that's how the battery usages pan out.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by jettredmont


Not sure about PowerBooks (I only have a Wintel laptop), but Intel/AMD "mobile" chips have employed "speed step" technology for quite some time. "Speed Step" reduces the operating speed of the CPU (by reducing its clock multiplier, leaving the bus speeds constant) to a fixed low-power setting whenever the BIOS notes that the computer is running on battery power. This happens regardless of CPU activity, and has been known to cause "hiccups" in early implementations of the BIOS (ie, you'd unplug the laptop and it would freeze up for a few seconds or indefinitely, or plugging/unplugging within a certain time interval would cause a BIOS panic and it would shut down).

rd processor: 99% of the time, "low power" mode gives more cycles than your fingers can keep up with, but when you go to write the thing to disk or do a full-text search on your 700-page novel, you'll want all the cycles the CPU can give you. This is something that Intel/AMD technologies can't do right now, and that the rumor would appear to indicate PowerBooks would handle properly.

So, if January is really the date for such tech to be in PowerBooks, the PB camp will have a HUGE advantage over Wintel notebooks (not that PowerBooks were lagging ...)

Speed stepping is and has been implemented by Apple Powerbooks for a long time now. I'm not sure when it started but I know that they have been using one form or another of it since they Powerbooks were using pre PPC chips. So we're talking over 10 years now.

Also to answer your other question Apples OS and the chips do speed step very well and from what I know it's a very rare case that the end user even knows it's happening.

Speed stepping at the System Bus will be a huge advantage and should be very beneficial to all users.

[OneTraveler]

MacBandit

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by OneTraveler
Now this is a great thing! I know that I have seen huge drops in powerusage with my TiBook since swithing to OS X....it would be nice to get that life back.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Don't you mean huge increases in power usage? Meaning it draws more battery power shotening battery time?

This is different from the current processor cycling because it includes BUS speeds. At least that is what I get from the article."



Uhhh, That's exactly what I meant....sorry, late night in Alaska. Sorry.

[NatronB]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
HUMBUG! I NEED ONE IN NOVEMBER!


You will get your new Powerbook in two weeks.... let's say, November 5th.


Call it a hunch.....

[scem0]

I have learned that hunches don't mean much when predicting future products ;).

[rice_web]

I've got a hunch !

(sound of drums) buh dum psssh

One of the best lines from Young Frankenstein.

[shadowfax]

"darn this powerbook situation!"
"could be worse!"
"how could it possibly be worse?"
"well, could be raining!"
*crack**boom!*

[robguz]

Well they need something. Once OS9 is gone, there is no way they can still advertise 5 hour battery life. I get 3.5 max in 10.2.1 on a Ti550. About 2 when playing a DVD with brightness set extremely low. When I use it how I'd like to, with brightness set at max (still too dim) and doing whatever I want without worrying about conserving, it lasts 2 hours also.

I imagine it will only get more difficult to maintain battery life with faster CPUs, video, HDs, etc.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by robguz
Well they need something. Once OS9 is gone, there is no way they can still advertise 5 hour battery life. I get 3.5 max in 10.2.1 on a Ti550. About 2 when playing a DVD with brightness set extremely low. When I use it how I'd like to, with brightness set at max (still too dim) and doing whatever I want without worrying about conserving, it lasts 2 hours also.

I imagine it will only get more difficult to maintain battery life with faster CPUs, video, HDs, etc.

Don't forget that battery technology is also progressing. The AFA has recently aprooved the new micro-fuel cell technology for use on commercial airlines. This means we will be seeing cell phones, computers, and many other devices with them soon. Micro-fuel cells promise nearly 3-5times the power output for the same size battery also they take basically no recharge time. They will be revolutionary.

[shadowfax]

macbandit: you may want to search the forums for fuel cells. we had an extensive debate on them at some point. they do require a refill, though not a recharge. i am all for it, granted, but don't forget to mention the "downside."

[Dr. Distortion]

All G3 processors can do instruction throttling, where the processor's instruction cache gets slowed down. I think this technology has existed even since the earliest G3s. I'm curious though about variable bus speeds... would all pcmcia cards still be compatible?

-Dr. D.

[Santiago]

I have a Titanium 800 Mhz, and if I throttle it down to 667 (which also turns off the L3 cache) and reduce the screen brightness, I can get about 4:30 of typing time on it--enough for cross-country flight.

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by robguz
Well they need something. Once OS9 is gone, there is no way they can still advertise 5 hour battery life. I get 3.5 max in 10.2.1 on a Ti550. About 2 when playing a DVD with brightness set extremely low. When I use it how I'd like to, with brightness set at max (still too dim) and doing whatever I want without worrying about conserving, it lasts 2 hours also.

I imagine it will only get more difficult to maintain battery life with faster CPUs, video, HDs, etc.

Well, HP advertised 4 hours of battery life for the notebook I have, and I've never gotten more than 2 out of it, sitting idle. If I actually do anything with it (just typing, no CD activity), I could get 1:30 out of it in Win ME and about an hour in XP. Start up the CD/DVD and life falls to about the length of a single CD (45-60 minutes max).

So, Apple calling their PB battery supply 5 hours when it's really only 2 in real-world usage isn't too far afield from what the Wintel world is used to now. I'd love to have 2 hours of real-world battery life on my HP POS.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
macbandit: you may want to search the forums for fuel cells. we had an extensive debate on them at some point. they do require a refill, though not a recharge. i am all for it, granted, but don't forget to mention the "downside."


I get a few science magazines and have read quite a bit about the fuel cells. Also I do realize it is a refill and not a recharge but in the interest of simplicity I simply said recharge as to not cause a rush of questions and explanations. They do generate more heat then normal batteries also. This is a downside that I did not mention. I don't consider refilling a downside since it still takes less time then recharging most batteries.

[shadowfax]

true, true

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by MacBandit



I get a few science magazines and have read quite a bit about the fuel cells. Also I do realize it is a refill and not a recharge but in the interest of simplicity I simply said recharge as to not cause a rush of questions and explanations. They do generate more heat then normal batteries also. This is a downside that I did not mention. I don't consider refilling a downside since it still takes less time then recharging most batteries.


Refill vs recharge ... it really depends on how available the methanol is to refill the fuel cells (and you KNOW airport lounges will sell you about an hours' worth of fuel for $50!) Granted recharging takes time, but unless/until fuel cells are popular enough to have refills available ubiquitoutsly, refilling might be very expensive!

[shadowfax]

methanol, i think, is dirt cheap. it sounds about as sophisticated as gasoline or cigarette lighter fluid. it's a natural gas derivative; at least, that's one way to make it. i think they have other ways, but the gas-based one is the most effective method of making that. they are not going to charge you 50$ for a refill. not even at the airport. of course, like everything else, you will pay an airport premium, but i bet you will be able to stock several refills in your brief case without noticeably adding to it's weight, and since about 3-4 of these should sustain you for well over a trip or two around the world by plane, i don't see why anyone would be dumb enough to buy at the airport... but yeah

[MacBandit]

Methanol is currently available in most states at a lot of gas stations. They may not be the gas station you frequent regularly but it's around. I think the stuff is currently going for around $1.10/gallon. I imagine they will package it in the little lighter fluid refill cans and there will be a cost for packaging and the because we can addition so maybe around $3/can at the normal pint can size. I imagine one can of what I described will probably get you around 30 hours of use.

[shadowfax]

lol, so you could fill your car with methanol for < 50$... i guess i was right...

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
lol, so you could fill your car with methanol for < 50$... i guess i was right...

Yeah all methanol is a fuel derived from distilling rotting corn.

[shadowfax]

really? i thought i read it could be gotten from a bunch of places, chemically, and that natural gas is one of them.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
really? i thought i read it could be gotten from a bunch of places, chemically, and that natural gas is one of them.


Methanol comes form corn. The fuel cells on the other hand can run on all sorts of fuel. Though the most popular most abundant and cheapest right now is Methanol.

I'm sorry I have been thinking of ethanol. You are correct methanol(wood alcohol) can be derived from many sources. Including wood, coal, and natural gas. It is the simplest form of alcohol with one carbon atom.

[Rajj]

Originally posted by jettredmont


Well, HP advertised 4 hours of battery life for the notebook I have, and I've never gotten more than 2 out of it, sitting idle. If I actually do anything with it (just typing, no CD activity), I could get 1:30 out of it in Win ME and about an hour in XP. Start up the CD/DVD and life falls to about the length of a single CD (45-60 minutes max).

So, Apple calling their PB battery supply 5 hours when it's really only 2 in real-world usage isn't too far afield from what the Wintel world is used to now. I'd love to have 2 hours of real-world battery life on my HP POS.

How long have you had your Notebook?

I am assuming is six months or so??? If my assumption is correct, then you have to calibrate your battery….to do this you have to reboot your computer and before it comes back on…hold down F6, and follow the directions!!!!

It takes about six hours so do it over night with the AC plugged in!!

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by MacBandit
I'm sorry I have been thinking of ethanol. You are correct methanol(wood alcohol) can be derived from many sources. Including wood, coal, and natural gas. It is the simplest form of alcohol with one carbon atom.

gosh i hate when that happens... you go on about something, and then you find out you were ranting about something different altogether. that m can make a lot of difference huh? well you almost had me convinced; i don't much care either way, except i remembered going to some official methanol page and reading up on it for that big fuel cell thread.

i wonder if they will retrofit modules for like the powerbooks so that you can get fuel cell tech on them. that'd be cool, because i don't want to wait for these to come out to get a laptop.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Shadowfax


gosh i hate when that happens... you go on about something, and then you find out you were ranting about something different altogether. that m can make a lot of difference huh? well you almost had me convinced; i don't much care either way, except i remembered going to some official methanol page and reading up on it for that big fuel cell thread.

i wonder if they will retrofit modules for like the powerbooks so that you can get fuel cell tech on them. that'd be cool, because i don't want to wait for these to come out to get a laptop. [/B]

I don't see why the aftermarket won't take this up and do it. I have already heard of them coming up with cell phone replacements some due out as early as January. We'll see though.

I do believe that the fuel cells will probably be able to run on ethanol also.

Oh and to go back to an earlier post. Methanol is cheap also.

[Dr. Distortion]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
methanol, i think, is dirt cheap. it sounds about as sophisticated as gasoline or cigarette lighter fluid. it's a natural gas derivative; at least, that's one way to make it. i think they have other ways, but the gas-based one is the most effective method of making that. they are not going to charge you 50$ for a refill. not even at the airport. of course, like everything else, you will pay an airport premium, but i bet you will be able to stock several refills in your brief case without noticeably adding to it's weight, and since about 3-4 of these should sustain you for well over a trip or two around the world by plane, i don't see why anyone would be dumb enough to buy at the airport... but yeah

I don't think the aviation companies will be glad if everyone in their plane is carrying canisters with highly explosive fuel in their briefcases... think about it... if an accident with one of those happens disaster is inevitable!
I think the good ol' lithium-polymer batteries will be used for quite some time...

-Dr. D.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Dr. Distortion


I don't think the aviation companies will be glad if everyone in their plane is carrying canisters with highly explosive fuel in their briefcases... think about it... if an accident with one of those happens disaster is inevitable!
I think the good ol' lithium-polymer batteries will be used for quite some time...

-Dr. D.

The point is the stuff is so cheap and plentiful that you don't need to carry a refill bottle on board with you. Simply refill before you leave and get a new bottle when you get there. The FAA has already approved the use of these fuel cells on commercial flights.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by Dr. Distortion
I don't think the aviation companies will be glad if everyone in their plane is carrying canisters with highly explosive fuel in their briefcases... think about it... if an accident with one of those happens disaster is inevitable!

...right. and you can't carry a cigarette lighter in your bag on an airplane? i don't know. it's gay if you can't, because it's so harmless. we are talking about <8 fluid ounces of this stuff per person, and methanol really isn't that exploosive. and unlike a lighter, these things have no method of lighting on fire. what are passengers going to do, crack their methanol refills and light them on fire with a match? even if you spilled it on your laptop circuitry, the likelihood of that setting on fire is so small. and even if that set on fire, what's the big deal? it's not like you can do any serious damage to a plane, and you certainly can't hijack a plane with a can of methanol.

seriously. we are talking ~150 gallons tops of mildly flammable liquid individually cartridged and spread across about 100 yards of plane space. and this is assuming every passenger has fuel cell refills. now, to really do any damage to the plane, you have to take a good number of people's cartridges, break them all (probably very inconvenient), and then light them on fire. i mean, come on. if one person could damage a plane with his own stash of methanol, than it would inevitably mean that he could damage himself pretty darn severely in a normal situation. i can just see that. you're sitting at home on your laptop when all of a sudden the fuel cell leaks and blows you to pieces when it shorts your circuitboard, and 18 volts jumps a wire, causing a fire. boom. you're dead. yeah, right. that's like assuming they could never sell a 20 lb computer because if you picked it up and dropped it on your head, you would have a high chance of getting a serious neck injury. i am sorry, we have been through the FAA bull already on these forums.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
[i]

...right. and you can't carry a cigarette lighter in your bag on an airplane? i don't know. it's gay if you can't, because it's so harmless. we are talking about <8 fluid ounces of this stuff per person, and methanol really isn't that exploosive. and unlike a lighter, these things have no method of lighting on fire. what are passengers going to do, crack their methanol refills and light them on fire with a match? even if you spilled it on your laptop circuitry, the likelihood of that setting on fire is so small. and even if that set on fire, what's the big deal? it's not like you can do any serious damage to a plane, and you certainly can't hijack a plane with a can of methanol.

seriously. we are talking ~150 gallons tops of mildly flammable liquid individually cartridged and spread across about 100 yards of plane space. and this is assuming every passenger has fuel cell refills. now, to really do any damage to the plane, you have to take a good number of people's cartridges, break them all (probably very inconvenient), and then light them on fire. i mean, come on. if one person could damage a plane with his own stash of methanol, than it would inevitably mean that he could damage himself pretty darn severely in a normal situation. i can just see that. you're sitting at home on your laptop when all of a sudden the fuel cell leaks and blows you to pieces when it shorts your circuitboard, and 18 volts jumps a wire, causing a fire. boom. you're dead. yeah, right. that's like assuming they could never sell a 20 lb computer because if you picked it up and dropped it on your head, you would have a high chance of getting a serious neck injury. i am sorry, we have been through the FAA bull already on these forums. [/B]

While I agree with your post for the most part there are a few arbitrary guesses that seem a little off base. I think the total quantity between all the passenger if they were all to carry refills would not exceed 4 - 5gallons. Also it is very likely that the FAA will not allow refills but who cares if your fuel cell runs for 4-6hours/refill.

Also the amount of fuel these thins will hold is very small and a standar refill container may be no bigger then a lighter.

[shadowfax]

i guess that strengthens my point, right?

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
i guess that strengthens my point, right?

Yes, it would. I was just helping out before the critics tore you apart. Mainly because 150 gallons of fuel would be more then enough to turn a plane into a flaming arrow. I didn't feel 150 gallons was a very reasonable and I felt others would nitpick your post in to meaning nothing unless that was corrected.

[shadowfax]

150 rather, yeah... naturally, but i still think even with that number, it doesn't matter. its so spread out and individually packaged and all that that to set even a gallonof it on fire at once would be incredibly impractical and require a lot of coordination. i'd honestly rather take my chances with a series of box cutter, to bring in the issue of terrorism, because i really think that's the only way, and even that far-fetched, anythng could happen with these things... could be wrong, but you'd have to be really stupid to... oh wait. i'm in america. i take it all back.

[MacBandit]

originally posted by Shadowfax

150 rather, yeah... naturally, but i still think even with that number, it doesn't matter. its so spread out and individually packaged and all that that to set even a gallonof it on fire at once would be incredibly impractical and require a lot of coordination. i'd honestly rather take my chances with a series of box cutter, to bring in the issue of terrorism, because i really think that's the only way, and even that far-fetched, anythng could happen with these things... could be wrong, but you'd have to be really stupid to... oh wait. i'm in america. i take it all back. [/B]

Okay sorry misquoted. I went ahead and corrected that in my previous post. 150 Gallons is more then a gallon/person on any plane but a jumbo jet (i.e. 747, L1011, DC9). Most average planes only carry around 117passengers. I do agre though that by having it distributed among small cans that it is very unlikely that it would ever be combined to be a large amount. Though if each person had a gallon. 1 Gallon is more then enough to start a pretty horrendous fire on board a plane and without a doubt at least suffucate everyone if not burn them to death. Don't forget that plastic and most clothes are very flammable not matter how much fire retardent is built into them.

[shadowfax]

oh, right, i was thinking of a 747... or an airbus.. or something.. don't they hold like 300 people, or am i way off? that was the number i had in mind. but yeah, 150 is overkill ever for that... i guess like even with refills it's about 8 ounces a person...

[JupiterZen]

Originally posted by jettredmont


Well, HP advertised 4 hours of battery life for the notebook I have, and I've never gotten more than 2 out of it, sitting idle. If I actually do anything with it (just typing, no CD activity), I could get 1:30 out of it in Win ME and about an hour in XP. Start up the CD/DVD and life falls to about the length of a single CD (45-60 minutes max).

So, Apple calling their PB battery supply 5 hours when it's really only 2 in real-world usage isn't too far afield from what the Wintel world is used to now. I'd love to have 2 hours of real-world battery life on my HP POS.

And after the calibration someone proposed earlier, check if there is special powermanagement support from HP for your laptopmodel. I know the batterylife of my Compaq Armada E500 goes up after I install their special powermanagement software. The standard support in Windows XP just doesn't cut it.

Hope it helps

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
oh, right, i was thinking of a 747... or an airbus.. or something.. don't they hold like 300 people, or am i way off? that was the number i had in mind. but yeah, 150 is overkill ever for that... i guess like even with refills it's about 8 ounces a person...

Yeah some of the large Jumbo jets are around 300people. I do think 8ounces may still be a large refill though.

[MasterX (OSiX)]

It's hard to believe. I love OSX. Problem was apps launched slow as heck on my iBook. When i got Jaguar it fixed that problem. But now i get a PATHETIC battery life. I mean REALLLLLY bad. As in 43 minutes or so bad. I have the most aggressive battery saving settings enabled. I don't the the HD or fan is off enough. Any ideas? It's driving me NUTS. And btw under OS9 if i let it sit, waited for the screen to dim (when it was already on lowest) and unplugged it the battery monitor would register 10hrs. plus. :-D

I'd hate to go back to OS9, but OSX is almost not worth it. I'm going to fresh install OSX 10.2, then if it's still that bad, i'll install OS 9.2 on top of it. I don't want to, but 45 minutes? i can't live with that, it's like a Dell or something....