Macbook Battery Question (When Running Windows XP) - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

FanIn80 · 10-14-2009, 04:39 PM

I have one of the new mid-2009 17" MacBook Pros. It claims an 8 hour battery life, but realistically I'm expecting about 6 or so.

The question I have is with regards to working with a windows xp vm inside VM Fusion. Most of my classes are 2 hours, but one is 4 hours. I find that I have about 30% battery life left when I leave my 2 hour classes, and I have to leave my 4 hour class early because the battery runs out in about three hours.

When I'm at home, or when I'm just running applications inside the Mac OS, the battery life is fine.

Do any of you guys know any tricks or configuration settings I can use to help extend the battery life when I'm running my XP VM?

PS: I know I can plug my MacBook in at school... one of the selling points behind getting a MacBook, though, is the insanely long battery charge cycle. When I just run Mac OS on its own, I get between 6-7 hours of use on one charge (depending on what I'm doing). It's only when I have to use my xp vm that the battery really drains.

sclitheroe · 10-14-2009, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I have one of the new mid-2009 17" MacBook Pros. It claims an 8 hour battery life, but realistically I'm expecting about 6 or so.

The question I have is with regards to working with a windows xp vm inside VM Fusion. Most of my classes are 2 hours, but one is 4 hours. I find that I have about 30% battery life left when I leave my 2 hour classes, and I have to leave my 4 hour class early because the battery runs out in about three hours.

When I'm at home, or when I'm just running applications inside the Mac OS, the battery life is fine.

Do any of you guys know any tricks or configuration settings I can use to help extend the battery life when I'm running my XP VM?

PS: I know I can plug my MacBook in at school... one of the selling points behind getting a MacBook, though, is the insanely long battery charge cycle. When I just run Mac OS on its own, I get between 6-7 hours of use on one charge (depending on what I'm doing). It's only when I have to use my xp vm that the battery really drains.

Just out of curiosity, do you have the virtual machine configured to run with one CPU core, or two?

Running VM's with a single core is much more efficient because VMWare can schedule the VM to run any time a core is available - with a dual core VM, it has to wait for both physical cores to become available at the same time. It stands to reason that this would also be more power intensive, as both cores are involved.

FanIn80 · 10-14-2009, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Just out of curiosity, do you have the virtual machine configured to run with one CPU core, or two?

Running VM's with a single core is much more efficient because VMWare can schedule the VM to run any time a core is available - with a dual core VM, it has to wait for both physical cores to become available at the same time. It stands to reason that this would also be more power intensive, as both cores are involved.

Actually, I do have it set to run two cores. Also with 2GB RAM. I'll turn that off and see how it runs in tomorrow's class.

sclitheroe · 10-14-2009, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Actually, I do have it set to run two cores. Also with 2GB RAM. I'll turn that off and see how it runs in tomorrow's class.

I'd be quite interested to know if it makes a difference...

FanIn80 · 10-14-2009, 09:31 PM

Cool I'll let you know. I hope it does, it's going to suck if I have to start plugging in. The battery life is one of the selling points behind spending three grand on a MacBook.

Damn you DeVry and your "IE-only" online apps. Requiring Windows for the VB class can obviously be forgiven, but online apps that won't even work in Firefox? Basterds.

silentsim · 10-14-2009, 09:48 PM

you can also try using a app called smcfancontrol, by lowering the fan speed your battery life may increase. sometimes the fans go faster then needed

FanIn80 · 10-14-2009, 10:50 PM

Actually I already use it, but I use it mostly to speed up my fans to keep the macbook cooler.

(Though I have the fan speed turned down to 2500rpm when in the Battery state. I guess could probably knock that down to 2k.)

Phaneuf3 · 10-15-2009, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Damn you DeVry and your "IE-only" online apps. Requiring Windows for the VB class can obviously be forgiven, but online apps that won't even work in Firefox? Basterds.

I hate those types of things that only work properly in IE... that's why I love my IE tab add-on for firefox.

FanIn80 · 10-15-2009, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

I hate those types of things that only work properly in IE... that's why I love my IE tab add-on for firefox.

Yeah, I tried that too... but the main app I use for one of my classes wouldn't even work in that. Couldn't even log into the site, the login button was literally disabled.

kermitology · 10-15-2009, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

I hate those types of things that only work properly in IE... that's why I love my IE tab add-on for firefox.

Not an option on a Mac.

sclitheroe · 10-15-2009, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silentsim

you can also try using a app called smcfancontrol, by lowering the fan speed your battery life may increase. sometimes the fans go faster then needed

SMCFanControl sets the baseline speed, not the upper limit. And it won't go below Apple's minimums.

And the fan doesn't draw much power relative to the screen & CPU anyways.

sclitheroe · 10-15-2009, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Cool I'll let you know. I hope it does, it's going to suck if I have to start plugging in. The battery life is one of the selling points behind spending three grand on a MacBook.

Damn you DeVry and your "IE-only" online apps. Requiring Windows for the VB class can obviously be forgiven, but online apps that won't even work in Firefox? Basterds.

Have you tried Crossover by CodeWeavers? It runs IE "natively" using an emulation of the Windows libraries. I'm able to use it for the one IE-only web app I need at work, and lets me avoid having to use virtualization all together.

It's worth a shot - it installs and uninstalls like any other Mac app, and is driver-free, so its easy to try.

FanIn80 · 10-15-2009, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Have you tried Crossover by CodeWeavers? It runs IE "natively" using an emulation of the Windows libraries. I'm able to use it for the one IE-only web app I need at work, and lets me avoid having to use virtualization all together.

It's worth a shot - it installs and uninstalls like any other Mac app, and is driver-free, so its easy to try.

Hey cool, I'll look into that. Thanks!

silentsim · 10-15-2009, 07:28 PM

When i had windows specific apps i just used boot camp, as the battery doesn't get killed that way, but if you were also using the osx component then yeah, no point.

crossover's site has a compatibility list, and user notes on specific apps, check it out for your program. mine wasn't compatible, but havn't checked since the newest build

FanIn80 · 10-15-2009, 09:07 PM

I wouldn't mind doing the boot camp thing, but it's a pain in the ass to have to switch back and forth.

I like VM Fusion because I can just save the state and then close it. When I need to go back in to do some homework or whatever, it's a 15 second procedure to restore the saved state, and away I go. I can still have itunes in the background and everything else I'm working on.

I'm looking at Crossover right now (or at least I'm going to, when I finish this post). Other than IE, the only thing I'll need it to support is Visual Studio 2008. Oh, and Office 2007.

Edit: Doh. Right off the bat, Visual Studio 2008 = "Known Not to Work." Maybe I'll try a Windows 7 image instead of XP. I know it'll probably use more power, but I'm trusting that it'll have some decent power management (you'd think, at least).

FanIn80 · 10-15-2009, 09:18 PM

Oh by the way... It turns out I left it at 1 processor and only 1024 RAM. I mentioned earlier that I was using 2 processors and 2048 RAM, since I usually do that, but I forgot I used minimal settings on this VM.

Edit: I'm going to try recalibrating the battery too. Maybe that'll help? Also, what about resetting the SMC? If I were to do that, would I do it before or after the recalibration? (And is it even worth doing?)

When I got to class this morning, I noticed it was saying (in Mac OS) that my battery was at 96% but the time remaining was showing just under 4 hours. I had (literally) no apps opened at all. I checked my activity monitor, and it there was nothing alarming. I think I had one process ("All Processes" was checked) that was running at 4% and everything else was under ~1%.

I'm starting to think this is a battery issue, not a Windows VM issue...