I am running Vista Home Basic SP1 on my 15 inch 2.66 GHz MBP, 4GB Ram, 320 GB HD, 512 VRAM 9600. Lately, while playing Dragon Age Origins especially, I have noticed that my battery slowly drains over a period of hours (despite the fact that the computer is plugged in). Eventually, the battery totally drains and the computer shuts off. However when I boot into Snow Leopard, everything works fine and there is no issue with the battery at all; it charges fine and maintains its charge while plugged in. Obviously this is a Vista software issue and not a hardware issue. Anyone have or know of a fix? Will SP2 fix this? Thanks a lot...
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Dragon Age Origins drains my battery...
- Thread starter ebonn101
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Is it only when you're playing Dragon Age or also during times when your system is less taxed as well?
If your system power load is above whatever your power supply is rated for, your Mac will take the extra power it needs from your battery. This is the reason why your Mac will clock limit itself when the battery is removed.
If your system power load is above whatever your power supply is rated for, your Mac will take the extra power it needs from your battery. This is the reason why your Mac will clock limit itself when the battery is removed.
... Seriously? Do you really mean to tell me that Apple's power supplies aren't capable of supplying the energy required to run the system? How has Apple got away with that? 
This might be the reason they tell you to keep the battery in, even when plugged in all the time. I know about the KB article and the downclocking without the battery.... Seriously? Do you really mean to tell me that Apple's power supplies aren't capable of supplying the energy required to run the system? How has Apple got away with that?
Though the power adapter should supply enough watts to charge the battery, albeit slowly, and run the system at full load.
Errr....why are you not running SP2 of vista to begin with?
Can try this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
Can try this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
This is normally a non-issue but no, it's not.
If my MBP is running both cores at full bore, with a full load on a discrete GPU with heavy I/O and memory access, my 85W power supply is not enough. Throw in a spinning optical disk and a couple of power hungry USB and FireWire rails and you'll definitely exceed 85W.
Of course this normally never happens - the system will overheat well before then, but depending on your cooling solution, it could definitely happen.
This is true for almost every laptop/notebook/mobile on the market, including the workstation class stuff.
The only mobiles where the units' maximum theoretical power draw doesn't exceed the power supply's maximum output are SPARCBooks, which really aren't laptops at all.
Oh yeah, and some Toughbooks.
... Seriously? Do you really mean to tell me that Apple's power supplies aren't capable of supplying the energy required to run the system? How has Apple got away with that?
same reason why the iphone cannot keep up with using gps/data without draining battery despite being plugged in.
... Seriously? Do you really mean to tell me that Apple's power supplies aren't capable of supplying the energy required to run the system? How has Apple got away with that?
I'm not saying this is the case in this case, but there are different rated power supplies. As of about a year ago, one made for MacBooks and one with a higher rating for MBPs. I wonder what happens if you try to run a MBP with a MB power supply- the battery drains?
Or maybe your power supply is not working properly? You might be able to put a volt meter on it to check it's output. The Apple Store, if one is closeby would probably check it for you too.
Regardless this is the gaming forum... and Dragon Age: Origins is a great game so far. It is seriously occupying me, the wife, the son and the Mac Pro in boot camp. I set aside Bioshock for this one.
I got it to run via Crossover Games / Wine. However, it ran terrible... so had to boot camp it.
No battery problems here... cause I don't have one
I got it to run via Crossover Games / Wine. However, it ran terrible... so had to boot camp it.
No battery problems here... cause I don't have one
That really depends on the game and the GPU. For higher rez and more demanding games, Vista and W7 do sometimes have an advantage over XP.
I'm playing DA under XP64 and it works great, but it's definitely the slowest OS for gaming on the PC side. You'll be fine with XP, but if you can do W7, you might as well.
I'm playing DA under XP64 and it works great, but it's definitely the slowest OS for gaming on the PC side. You'll be fine with XP, but if you can do W7, you might as well.