Battery life with 13" MBA 2013 and Parallels

[daooof]

Hello,

I got my new MacBook Air yesterday (8GB RAM, i7, 256GB) and I immediately put windows 7 on bootcamp and then downloaded parallels to run off of my bootcamp partition. With Parallels on the power-saving setting, from a 100% charge my macbook is estimating 4:41 of battery usage. Without it I'm at around 12. Right now all I'm doing is downloading FIFA from Origin, nothing intensive.

While I'm not complaining, I'm just being inquisitive if this is really what I should expect or if I'm doing something wrong. I'm new to OS X and Mac so I'm not sure on power-saving techniques. Any ideas?

 

[mattopotamus]

I'm confused why you bootcamped to use parallels?

 

[uncletoby]

Very curious to hear more. I run windows 7 on parallels on my 2010 15 inch Mbps. Nothing intense but I usually have it on. If it were that serious of a battery drain, it would be a big deal for me. And I was very close to pulling the trigger on a fully stocked 13 inch.

 

[tann]

I'm confused why you bootcamped to use parallels?

I would assume so OP can bootcamp to play games with all of the computers resources etc, and using parallels so can download the game to his bootcamp partition while using OSX?

Maybe.

 

[jedolley]

I would assume so OP can bootcamp to play games with all of the computers resources etc, and using parallels so can download the game to his bootcamp partition while using OSX?

Maybe.

I do both Bootcamp and Parallels on my iMac for similar reasons. I will us bootcamp mainly for Windows only games, but if I just need to use some other Windows specific program real quick then I will use Parallels.

 

[mattopotamus]

I would assume so OP can bootcamp to play games with all of the computers resources etc, and using parallels so can download the game to his bootcamp partition while using OSX?

Maybe.

He said he was running parallels on the bootcamped partition. I have never tried it that way, but you can boot into windows and then run Mac in parallels?

 

[jedolley]

He said he was running parallels on the bootcamped partition. I have never tried it that way, but you can boot into windows and then run Mac in parallels?

If that's the way you read it, I don't think that's what he meant... Parallels is a Mac program, it will not work on Windows.

 

[tann]

He said he was running parallels on the bootcamped partition. I have never tried it that way, but you can boot into windows and then run Mac in parallels?

I have no idea whether that's possible, I just thought that OP meant they were using OSX and then had Parallels running (running the windows bootcamp installation). We'll see what OP says!

 

[mattopotamus]

If that's the way you read it, I don't think that's what he meant... Parallels is a Mac program, it will not work on Windows.

That is how I read it so was crazy confused.

 

[daooof]

Yeah I've set it up so I can use it quickly for apps when I need to or I can do a full native boot to get max performance.

Problem is my battery life just seems off... Also I'm struggling to get games like FIFA 13 to run on parallels smoothly (even though people have done so on previous gen MBAs).

 

[Harperman979]

Wondering

Am wondering on this too. I would like to have Parallels run of the bootcamp partition but am not sure if that is necessary. Won't be playing any games but would like to use office and other apps like that

I understand that parallels in processor intensive but was hoping battery life would not take a huge hit!

If someone could advise more on their experience it would be great

 

[milhouse994]

Can I ask, what version of Parallels are you using? I have been trying unsuccessfully to get Parallels 8 to run Windows 8 from the Boot Camp partition and had come to the conclusion that this was an incompatibility in the Parallels with the '13 MBA's new PCIe architecture.

Sounds though like you have it working?

I'd posted my issue here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1598966/

Thanks!

 

[Harperman979]

How is battery life with parallels? I am planning to bootcamp and then use parallels.

 

[MeatRocket]

Can I ask, what version of Parallels are you using? I have been trying unsuccessfully to get Parallels 8 to run Windows 8 from the Boot Camp partition and had come to the conclusion that this was an incompatibility in the Parallels with the '13 MBA's new PCIe architecture.

Sounds though like you have it working?

I'd posted my issue here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1598966/

Thanks!

You are absolutely right! I'm not giong to go digging for the url where I read it, but Parallels did issue a patch for this very problem. There was a workaround that the community found but Parallels quickly came out with an official patch. Just google for it, shouldn't be hard to find.

 

[milhouse994]

You are absolutely right! I'm not giong to go digging for the url where I read it, but Parallels did issue a patch for this very problem. There was a workaround that the community found but Parallels quickly came out with an official patch. Just google for it, shouldn't be hard to find.

Thanks. I think perhaps we are taking about different issues then as myself and several others are on the latest version and still seeing issues. Thanks anyway.