Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Dont use B/2 - that's when the battery actually might drain faster with coolbook AFAIK. The bus speed of the 11.6 is already slower than the 13MBA anyway.. And 1.6ghz will use more battery (and create more heat) than 1.2ghz even if the volt is the same - so again, my advice is to stick with the original CPU freqs.
 
Okay thanks -- I have the frequencies

800, 1200, 1400 and 1600 all setup with 0.8750 V.

Right now i've used the laptop for about 3.5 hours, with some music playing, youtube videos, and web browsing. LCD brightness is set to 50%. Have about 39% left, so lets see how much longer I can stretch this.
 
Dont use B/2 - that's when the battery actually might drain faster with coolbook AFAIK. The bus speed of the 11.6 is already slower than the 13MBA anyway.. And 1.6ghz will use more battery (and create more heat) than 1.2ghz even if the volt is the same - so again, my advice is to stick with the original CPU freqs.

To me, it seems like there is a lot of 'quess work' associated with using Coolbook. It seems like there ought to be some way to estimate what settings are most appropriate for the type of work one is doing.

For example, logically more power is used (and more heat is generated) when running at 1.6GHz than 1.2Ghz. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you would always use 1.2GHz since at 1.6GHz you get your computations done sooner and more quickly enter an even lower power mode.

I wish there were recommendation as to what settings would be suggested for various scenarios. In my mind, halving the bus speed doesn't seem like it would ever make make sence since your CPU would be likely running at full speed just waiting for data. But is this thinking logical?
 
I got about approximate 6 hour with coolbook on my 11". I'll try and do more 'scientific' testing by running itunes from 100% batter and see how long it lasts then.

Please post your stats.
 
To me, it seems like there is a lot of 'quess work' associated with using Coolbook. It seems like there ought to be some way to estimate what settings are most appropriate for the type of work one is doing.

Not really.. It's quite obvious. Just try it out yourself. If you put 1.6ghz as the only CPU freq, you will soon find out that the standard temp on your MBA will become noticably higher.
 
I got about approximate 6 hour with coolbook on my 11". I'll try and do more 'scientific' testing by running itunes from 100% batter and see how long it lasts then.

Please post your stats.


Yeah but I've managed to get just over that without any coolbook running, with just browsing websites (without flash) and writing & checking email. Screen 1/3rd brightness.

So (genuine question) wondering what were you doing anything dramatically different with your machine with coolbook on to say it made a difference ? :confused:
 
Yeah but I've managed to get just over that without any coolbook running, with just browsing websites (without flash) and writing & checking email. Screen 1/3rd brightness.

So (genuine question) wondering what were you doing anything dramatically different with your machine with coolbook on to say it made a difference ? :confused:

Coolbook does not do anything when your computer is in an idle or nearly idle state. The lowest frequency/voltage setting in coolbook is not any lower then what the processor runs at by default. So if you get 7 hours doing virtually nothing, you'll get the same 7 hours with coolbook. Under load situations however, coolbook keeps the lower voltage delivery as the clock speed increases so your runtime is not as adversely affected.

I have not done a controlled test with and without cool book to get exact figures, i just don't have the desire to go through two battery cycles to get solid figures. What I can tell you is that my usage patters with coolbook are the same as before I got it, and the laptop runs noticably cooler and I have yet to hear the fan crank up to full speed with coolbook running, something that it did fairly frequently prior to coolbook.
 
Is there a broad consent on which settings are stable for all/most Air 11" 1,6?

I'd like to know the settings I can use without doing hours of testing with CPUtest - or is testing always recommended?
 
Ideally you would run any CPU at the minimum stable voltage for that particular CPU. Apple juices the voltage up because there are variances across different batches of CPU's and they don't want to have to test every batch or even each CPU for its optimum stable voltage.

The only risk you run is that of a kernel panic, but that is why you test to find a stable voltage before you start writing your doctoral thesis.
 
Is there a broad consent on which settings are stable for all/most Air 11" 1,6?

I'd like to know the settings I can use without doing hours of testing with CPUtest - or is testing always recommended?

i use 0.875v for all the settings with 11" (1.4ghz), it works OK. but you have to test it yourself for the 1.6ghz clock setting.

anyway, my boot time is increased by 12 seconds after using Coolbook, and it's not as snappy as with stock voltage settings. guess i will uninstall coolbook because of this.
 
i use 0.875v for all the settings with 11" (1.4ghz), it works OK. but you have to test it yourself for the 1.6ghz clock setting.

anyway, my boot time is increased by 12 seconds after using Coolbook, and it's not as snappy as with stock voltage settings. guess i will uninstall coolbook because of this.

I disabled Coolbook on my 11.6" machine so that I could reduce my boot times. I'm thinking I am going to try it out again, though.

There are a lot of people who really like Coolbook and it sounds like they use it regularly. It doesn't make sense that it should slow your machine down (since really all you are doing is lowering the voltage levels...and lowering the voltage shouldn't affect performance just power used: CPU power should be proportional to the square of the voltage for any given frequency)
 
Last edited:
I disabled Coolbook on my 11.6" machine so that I could reduce my boot times. I'm thinking I am going to try it out again, though.

There are a lot of people who really like Coolbook and it sounds like they use it regularly. It doesn't make sense that it should slow your machine down (since really all you are doing is lowering the voltage levels...and lowering the voltage shouldn't affect performance just power used: CPU power should be proportional to the square of the voltage for any given frequency)

but when the first time i used coolbook, my boot time was the same as new. about 2 months later, i noticed it's increased. maybe it's not coolbook's fault at all. maybe after u installed lots of apps, the boot time will be decreased.
 
but when the first time i used coolbook, my boot time was the same as new. about 2 months later, i noticed it's increased. maybe it's not coolbook's fault at all. maybe after u installed lots of apps, the boot time will be decreased.

Try disabling it and see if that makes a difference.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.