Internet Battery Life, Round 2
We were a bit concerned with some of the Internet battery life results, so we decided to retest all of the systems using different websites. We felt that variance in the content of the webpages we used originally, even with repeated testing, might have skewed some of the results, so we switched to websites that present content more consistently. This time, we selected Yahoo!, MSN, the main YouTube page (no videos actually playing), and the Facebook login page (representing a simple web page, though logging in on Facebook makes it a lot more complex). The Yahoo! page is active while the other three are in tabs and their content is not visible. Here are the results for both systems.
[Drum roll…]
Okay, we're not finished yet, since we're still running some of these tests on the laptops. We'll update this page as we complete additional tests, so check back during the week. You can see what we mean when we say the results were inconsistent, however, as the placement of certain OSes is very different from our original Internet tests. On the NV52, all of the Balanced battery results are a lot closer to the Power Saver results this time, with the largest difference coming in Windows 7 at 9%. That isn't entirely out of sync with what we would expect, since Flash content may result in the CPU running at higher speeds without the limits imposed by Power Saver. However, Windows 7 suddenly drops to the back of the pack and we again have to question the results. [Queue yet another retest.] Ubuntu still shows a 27% boost in battery life by using FlashBlock, but that's less than the 44% boost shown originally. That makes sense, considering we aren't using sites with nearly as much Flash content. We will update the charts with Vista + Firefox results later this week and rerun the Windows 7 tests just to be safe.
The NV58 results aren't any better at clearing things up, since this time Windows 7 has a huge lead in its Power Saver result but trails by a significant amount in the Balanced test. So despite using sites that appear to be more consistent at first blush, we're afraid that there's still variability and we need to run more tests. Another interesting aspect is that Ubuntu hardly shows any difference between Firefox and Firefox + FlashBlock on the NV52, garnering a scant 5% increase in battery life. At least XP and Vista generate relatively consistent results, which is more in line with what we would expect. Of course, expectations are frequently wrong, which brings us to round three….
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
What I would love is to have a definitive Linux source that I can use that will "just work". But that's probably asking too much. I've now got suggestions to try the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, Moblin on the NV58, and Archlinux.And hey, if anyone lives near Olympia, WA and wants to come give the Linux install some fine luvin' let me know. LOL
stmok - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
quote('What I would love is to have a definitive Linux source that I can use that will "just work".')That isn't going to happen. Simply because Linux isn't Windows or OSX. They approach things with different paradigms.
Per Hansson - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Hi, something I have noted when installing AMD laptops with a clean RTM WinXP disc and not the bundled one that includes all drivers + lotsa more crap you don't want;In all cases the systems have not been throttling the CPU speed or CPU voltage, I have had to install the AMD PowerNow! driver and then everything has worked (even though both AMD and Microsoft say this is included with XP!)
The difficult part is actually finding the driver, since both AMD and MS feels it is not needed it can be a real pita, please verify with CPU-Z or similar if your systems have this issue
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Vista definitely worked properly - I saw CPU speeds of down to 1050MHz (5.25 x 200) on the NV52. Since XP and Win7 both achieve similar results, I think it's working right but would have to check. I'll try to be more careful for the next tests. :)jasperjones - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
I assume you ran Ubuntu with the 32-bit Flash plugin (that's available on x86-64 via nspluginwrapper (Netscape plugin wrapper).I'd be curious to see how results are with the native x86-64 Flash which is available as an alpha on Adobe Labs.
For the last two or three years, I've had nothing but problems with 32-bit Flash on a 64-bit OS and those problems finally somewhat subsided after moving to the 64-bit native alpha build.
clavko - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Actually, graphics card power management with open source ati drivers (xf86-video-radeon and xf86-video-radeonhd alike) is not up to par with custom power management of fglrx proprietary driver. If tests were made using open source drivers, some of the battery time difference should account for that.However, I find it quite fair comparing Windows to Ubuntu, given that Ubuntu really is considered vanilla, desktop user distro. Obviously, things are not exactly "there" yet, but I'd be interested in power consumption with newer fglrx drivers, perhaps on OpenSUSE.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
On my laptop (T40, 1.86GHz Pentium M Sonoma) I primarily use Ubuntu, with XP when I need Photoshop or Lightroom. I never measured the battery life exactly, but never felt it was that different, certainly not by a third. Do you have the scripts to run the internet test I could try and see what my results are?I also never felt Firefox was notably different between XP and Ubuntu, both misbehave in different ways. The notable exception is flash in 64bit Ubuntu on my desktop, which is of course more hit-or-miss.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Send me an email.gwolfman - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
When I originally purchased my Dell Mini 9, it shipped with Ubuntu. Rather than coming with the standard/original kernel, it came with the Low Power Intel Architecture (LPIA) kernel. I'm not sure what optimizations are done with regards to the kernel, but do you think it's worth looking into with regards to the bad numbers you got from the default kernel bundled with your Ubuntu install? Maybe there are some optimizations for battery life in there that are not included in the standard kernel.vol7ron - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
As nice as these tests are, I think the reliability/consistency may be overlooked a little bit. I'm not saying it's not reliable/consistent enough, you've already touched on that in the final paragraph, with regards to the websites themselves. What I'm saying is that there are other factors that may be affecting battery life.Are you using a multimeter to measure the power consumption, or are you just letting the battery drain and measuring time? I'm guessing that if you just let your computer start up and run it's battery drain naturally (no erroneous applications running), the battery life would also vary in minutes.
I also am assuming that these devices aren't cooled to the same temperature, before tests begin. Heat not only dissipates the energy stored in the battery, but it also requires more power to the fans for cooling. As I've touched on in another article, processor speeds vary - that's something that is truly hard to keep consistent, since it is irrelevant to BIOS settings. It'd be interesting to see if a processor running at 2.096 vs one running at 2.104 over an extended period of time has enough impact on battery life.
That being said, it's also known that processors vary in clock speed even after it's started, so I'm not sure if any points I've made can be applied in setting a realistic control at this point.
My last point is about the battery itself. Manufacturers claim the battery is "good for" a certain period of time, but these batteries are often "cheap" in quality. I think a few uses could impact the natural battery life; this goes back into testing regular start-up/shut-downs, w/o running any tests.