CPU performance ac adapter vs battery

[Nykwil]

Quick question, does the macbook underclock it's cpu when in battery mode? Or is is 2.4ghz all the time no matter what?

 

[Jeeves]

i know that if you take out the battery and run just on AC then it will run slower.

 

[logana]

i know that if you take out the battery and run just on AC then it will run slower.

2.4GHz on battery
2.4GHz on ac power with battery in place
1.0GHz (!!) on ac power with no battery in place

 

[Nykwil]

2.4GHz on battery
2.4GHz on ac power with battery in place
1.0GHz (!!) on ac power with no battery in place

weird.

 

[AW.kennedy]

i know that if you take out the battery and run just on AC then it will run slower.

ok that does make no sense to me

 

[misterredman]

ok that does make no sense to me

It makes sense since the mac may draw more power than the AC adapter can deliver, when doing very intensive tasks. It will then draw the power from the battery.

If you remove the battery the mac will slow down, as a safety measure, to consume less power, since it only has the AC power.

 

[logana]

It makes sense since the mac may draw more power than the AC adapter can deliver, when doing very intensive tasks. It will then draw the power from the battery.

If you remove the battery the mac will slow down, as a safety measure, to consume less power, since it only has the AC power.

That is the official Apple answer and I can confirm that a MacBook running on ac power with no battery runs at approx the speed of a 1GHz MacBook

Weird but true...........

 

[fuzzielitlpanda]

can you guys tell me in what normal situation would you run only on ac power (w/o the battery)?

 

[m1stake]

If you were running it for a long period of time plugged in, in order to keep the battery healthy. Stores do it with their demo models sometimes.

 

[logana]

can you guys tell me in what normal situation would you run only on ac power (w/o the battery)?

I have a 2.16GHz MacBook that has a water-damaged logicboard and does not recognise a battery so runs on ac power (at 1GHz). Works fine for most things but when encoding video it takes twice as long as my 2.4GHz does for the same task.....

Some MacBook owners (who used to be PowerBook owners possibly) think that they will damage the battery if they leave it in the machine and running on ac power constantly. So they remove the battery without realizing that they are crippling the CPU speed.