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Can upgrading RAM reduce battery life?
- Thread starter karohan
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Actually in a worst case scenario, more RAM may save battery life. If RAM is so little and the computer has to use the swap file a lot, it would require more CPU processes and hard drive activity which translates to more battery consumption. By adding RAM, it will eliminate all that extra work and save some battery power.
This is true, it might save hard drive spinups, which take far more power.
The reason extra RAM takes extra power is that RAM continuously has to refresh it's contents or else they will be lost, and this takes power to do. The more RAM you have, the more content to refresh, and the more power required.
Although it's really an inperceivable amount of power required to do the refresh.
You're unlikely to see any difference in battery life due to increased RAM, unless you had been suffering from extensive paging before the increase. In that case, you may see a slight improvement from reduced paging. Also, you may notice a slight decrease in battery life in sleep mode, as slightly more power is required to power the additional RAM. Again, the difference will likely be imperceptible.
Other factors have a much larger impact on battery life, such as screen brightness, WiFi, bluetooth, apps/processes/widgets running, etc. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions: Apple Notebook Battery FAQ
Other factors have a much larger impact on battery life, such as screen brightness, WiFi, bluetooth, apps/processes/widgets running, etc. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions: Apple Notebook Battery FAQ
It may a little but probably nothing substantial.....if your trying to get a speed upgrade may I suggest using a SSD?
I frequently have 20+ tabs open. As long as there isn't a lot of Flash, it shouldn't affect battery life too much. I use ClickToFlash plugin to restrict Flash on sites.
Theoretical illustration
I had a 4GB and a 2GB RAM stick in the MBP and was playing with it. Battery life was slightly lesser than 4+4 or 2+2, but this difference was small. Performance wise it was not really affected by the 2 different sizes operating together.
since I put 8 gigs in it seems like my battery isn't nearly as high. But let me also say that I usually have 15 programs open at a time now.
I have a mid 2010 13" Macbook Pro. I was getting about 7 hours just browsing the web with 4 gb (2X2gb) RAM. I upgraded last week to 8 gb (4X4gb) and immediately went to a max time of 5 hours doing the exact same activity as before.
That is because it does.
Twice the ram usually needs close to twice the refresh power. That is some 200-300 mW. Under load it is about 2W extra for doubling RAM.
It is nothing huge but is something. 16GB is more still.
With an idle mit power draw of 7W a MBP that can be 5% less idle battery life.
Going from 4 to 8GB is comparable to the power a hdd draws. Almost like adding a second HDD in a way.
Twice the ram usually needs close to twice the refresh power. That is some 200-300 mW. Under load it is about 2W extra for doubling RAM.
It is nothing huge but is something. 16GB is more still.
With an idle mit power draw of 7W a MBP that can be 5% less idle battery life.
Going from 4 to 8GB is comparable to the power a hdd draws. Almost like adding a second HDD in a way.