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Operating System, Laptop, Battery


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#1
cFosWinns

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Hi,

Does the operating system on a laptop have any effect on the battery usage.

Thanks in advance.

Edited by cFosWinns, 19 August 2006 - 04:15 AM.

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#2
warriorscot

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No not really it depends mostly on the power consumption of the components which wont vary much by the OS but by how much you use it.
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#3
cFosWinns

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Warrior,

Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.
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#4
admin

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There are a couple exceptions. If you have a modern CPU like a Pentium M, you will need WinXP or newer to take advantage of the speed stepping technology. Also, with Vista if you choose the Aero (3D) interface it will decrease your battery life significantly.
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#5
cFosWinns

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There are a couple exceptions. If you have a modern CPU like a Pentium M, you will need WinXP or newer to take advantage of the speed stepping technology. Also, with Vista if you choose the Aero (3D) interface it will decrease your battery life significantly.


Admin,

Thanks for your reply. Much appreciated. :whistling:
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#6
SirKenin

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Also, with Vista if you choose the Aero (3D) interface it will decrease your battery life significantly.


How is that possible? I must be honest, I've never heard of such a thing... Before I put it on my laptop would you care to elaborate? To be truthful I can't see why an interface would affect battery usage. I'm not at all saying it can't, as I really don't know... But I would be really interested in arming myself with the information for future reference.
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#7
warriorscot

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It requires a greater amount of usage of the graphics card, the aero interface isnt hugely intensive by modern gfx standards but its much more than the basic inerface and gfx chips in modern laptops are more powerful than they used to be and consume more power.
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#8
negative_silent

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You might also want to check your Power Settings, there are several options available there too.
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#9
Matt T

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Really the drain on the battery isn't the OS that your computer is running but what parts of your computer the OS is using. So if you play a graphic intense game then the OS will tell your computer to send more power to the graphics card etc. and therfore be draining the battery, but as negative_silent said, you can change some of your power saving options in the control panel.

However if an OS claims that it uses less of your CPU etc. then it wouldn't be using as much power.

~Matt :-)
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