ASUS W5A/W5F battery life drained because of intergrated USB camera

Hi guys,

I just read this article on Anandtech
called "Intel Core Duo USB Issue: A Mischaracterized Bug".

They use ASUS W5A/W5F as two of their test systems and get some interesting results.

Very informative for you guys, who want to maximize your battery life.

Read it here
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=2693

 

Thanks for the find!

This kinda bugs me...

DOH!

 

This is the third time this was posted... and you're right and wrong... It was a bug on the 945 chipset.... so it affected the W5f - but not the W5a....

I can't tell you if this was fixed yet because it's something Microsoft was working to fix... not Intel or Asus.. it's something that was affecting units like the camera which are essentially usb devices that are built into the system....

 

Rumor has it that microsoft finished the patch, and it yet to release it, at least thats what tgdaily says:

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/14/microsoft_to_release_patch_for_power_drain_bug/

 

If I remembered correctly when I read the article, it was affecting the older generations of the Centrino based laptop too.

 

W5A not affected? I don't think I understand you...

 

Exactly. That is a BIG difference. You get over an hour more of battery. Very significant.

 

Haven't seen that exact issue in any of the old models.... there was a fix for something to do with USB's on the old models, but never heard about it again on the W5ae as it was already part of the package..... the issue on the 945 chipsets is different, is it not? But technically there is ALWAYS something attached through USB becasue the camera is always on via usb.... NO has experienced those low battery life numbers on the W5a or W5ae.... EVERYONE would be an an uprour if so.

 

Well.. 204 min is not bad and I don't think anyone would file a complaint against it. But it should actually yield around an hour more so people are just not experiencing the best out of these W5 if they have WinXP with SP2 running.

 

.... Asus states normal battery life and yes, and hour difference is going to be noticed by a lot of people.

 

People would notice if they lost an hour of battery life, but with XP SP2 pre-installed it would've come out of the box like this already and everyone with one would report the same battery life so no one would think there's a problem. And Asus has at times posted 'optimistic' battery life times.

 

No one has complained, which means they are getting the normal battery life that Asus states... Asus has never had a claim against it's numbers... if they have, those complaints would be on this forum...

 

Asus claims up to 4 hours for the W5A. According to Anandtech's report, it acheived 204 min which is 3 hours 20min. Close enough to what Asus is stating for the specs. However, Anandtech showed that the Asus W5A is capable of doing one more hour which push the battery life up to 4.5 hours or so. Of course no one is going to file a complaint against this because everyone knows that battery life varies a lot and 3h20min is not bad at all even with the current bug.

But the fact is that the Asus W5A is capable of doing more than what it is capable of doing out of the box. The point is the W5A is getting 'normal' battery life according to Asus's specs but the W5A is capable of more.

 

A quick google search pulled out these battery life numbers and statements from different reviews on the W5a:

Apparently most people don't mind that actual battery life was less than the specified 4 hours.

 

I've got enough experience with all of the models to give everyone an accurate reading of what life they should expect from a system - crossing all models, batteries and configurations.... I've stated this many times before and it's come in handy for those who have questioned battery life and have never had a complaint about it.

Per battery cell on a sonoma based model you can expect between 30 and 45 minutes of life. 30 coming from a higher end spec with dedicated graphics and 40 coming from a low end spec with integrated graphics. Yes, there are exceptions below and above... but only by a maximum of probably 2 minutes a cell.

Based on that, the W5 fits into the 40 minute catagory and with a 6 cell battery should run for 4 hours of normal use...... screen brightness, camera, wireless (802.11 / BT / RF) will certainly affect this, but we're talking average - normal - standard stuff.

 

encourage everyone to read the entire article - especially the last page

Toms Hdwre indicates they received insider info from someone in the industry that knew Intel was covering up what they knew and that Microsoft has know for for a long time about the problem but refused to address it

neither seem to have been interested in acknowledging or addressing the issue until they were outed

that sure ticks me off - makes you wonder how many other similar situations are out there ...