Topic: iBook Battery life

[John Kelly]

I consistently get around four hours from my iBook, and that was even powering an emi 2|6 while it was on...

The 14" iBook should be even better, it's battery is a lot bigger than the 12".  

[nic]

hmmm, I get 3-4+ hours when it(ibook and powerbook) sits idle with the occasional refresh of a web-page.
if I put a big load on them(audio processing, recording, playing a cd, watching a dvd) then battery life drops in half.
bear in mind the only power setting I change from fullpower for recording is the LCD brightness as I want fullpower to the cpu and HD

[John Kelly]

I set my CPU to full and the hard drive to never spin down.  However the 4+ hours is while recording, meaning the screen is off and the only program running is Spark XL.  But even when I use it on battery for every day stuff, I get around 3-3.5 hours.

[joeshambro]

With my Pismo, I used two batteries and easily got 4 hours in with a little time to spare...   wasn't cheap for that extra new battery, either.  Then the thing dies two weeks later... :-(

But as far as my 12" Powerbook goes, I found that at first I was getting great time, now it won't last through one whole show.. I think I need a new battery from Apple, best I get is like 2:15 on a full charge, with the LCD just about off.

Otherwise, I love the 12" PB...  Now to get that Superdrive upgrade that Scuba Jeremy has me convinced I need..

[scb]

did you calibrate the battery when you got it?

[MattD]

With my Pismo, I used two batteries and easily got 4 hours in with a little time to spare...   wasn't cheap for that extra new battery, either.  Then the thing dies two weeks later... :-(

With 2 batteries in my Pismo, I have NEVER run it down at a show. I estimate I'd get 8+ hours with the screen manually turned 'off.'

-Matt

[joeshambro]

did you calibrate the battery when you got it?

I did, per their instructions.  Charged it full, let it fully discharge, then charged back up...  I also re-did it a couple times when I was having the overheating problem (it's noted in an Apple support doc, talking about how the 12" models are overheating because the batteries think they're not charged, yet continue to overcharge...  which makes them very warm).  

Keep in mind it was a refurb unit when I bought it, so who knows...

[scb]

have you reset the power manager?