Laptop Battery Draining.
B1ackSmoke
Join Date: 2011-01-25 Member: 78855Members
Join Date: 2011-01-25 Member: 78855Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Macbook Pro Battery drains While playing</div>Hello,
So it has been awhile since I played last and I just played tonight.
A lot has been improved! I do remember Ns2 putting a lot of pressure on my Cpu instead of their server.
This has never happened until tonight.
I was playing Ns2 on my 2010 Macbook pro 13" in Bootcamp mode, so running windows xp.
I have my ac adapter plugged in and I noticed halfway through a game that the adapter was Orange (It was charging)
I thought it was odd that my battery dropped % while plugged in. So I looked and it had dropped to 68%!!! :o
Fans were running high but they always do. Is this just because NS2 hasn't optimized enough to stop using so much of my cpu?
Any ideas?
Thanks,
B1ackSmoke
So it has been awhile since I played last and I just played tonight.
A lot has been improved! I do remember Ns2 putting a lot of pressure on my Cpu instead of their server.
This has never happened until tonight.
I was playing Ns2 on my 2010 Macbook pro 13" in Bootcamp mode, so running windows xp.
I have my ac adapter plugged in and I noticed halfway through a game that the adapter was Orange (It was charging)
I thought it was odd that my battery dropped % while plugged in. So I looked and it had dropped to 68%!!! :o
Fans were running high but they always do. Is this just because NS2 hasn't optimized enough to stop using so much of my cpu?
Any ideas?
Thanks,
B1ackSmoke
Comments
Here was the setup.
I was 100% charged battery with my AC adapter plugged in so from that point it should have used the AC Adapter.
But how could NS2 have required so much power that it needed to use my batter as well? Especially drain it to 68%.
-B1ackSmoke
-B1ackSmoke
The latest version used Unreal Engine 3.0 and looks pretty nice.
<img src="http://www.pcgameshardware.com/screenshots/original/2009/02/americas-army-3-16.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://www.pcgameshardware.com/screenshots/original/2009/02/americas-army-3-16.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
UE3 is a pretty old engine. UT3 is nearly half a decade old, and only a couple of years younger than the source engine.
Aaand
Pls don't talk about AA3! The DEVs just disapointed me toooo deep with the lastest patch, that I stoped playing it even I am honor 65. And loved AA2.
And this is why I love to play NS2!
Try another high-end recent 3D Game. I bet it does the same.
I guess the battery draining must have been a 1 time random deal because I played NS2 tonight for a couple of hours and no battery drainage at all. I played Red Orchestra as well and nothing happened so glad that's over with. Another question I have though is.....
Is it normal for my laptop (Macbook pro) fans to run high while playing? I played with a monitoring program running and recorded the following.
Temperature at normal state with nothing running in celsius.
Cpu-55C
Motherboard-35C
Graphics card-66C
Hard Drive-36C
Then with NS2 Running I checked and wrote down these stats.
Cpu-70C
Motherboard-35C
Graphics card-76C
Hard Drive-35C
I also ran it while playing Red Orchestra and got pretty much the same results.
So my questions are, are these temps normal, and is it normal for my fans to run high, and will NS2 stop using so much of my CPU as it keeps improving and using more of its server.
Thanks
-B1ackSmoke
It's bad for performance and the life expectency of the components but it is also entirely normal for a laptop under load, as far as I know.
Basically laptops are terrible at everything, except for the fact you can carry them around. Otherwise they're hot, slow, eat battery power, and generally not worth using if you can use a desktop. They sacrifice everything for portability. If your laptop is one of those extremely thin mac ones, this is even more true.
NS2 needs to run on your machine AND the server, the server can't do anything for you except maybe AI calculations, everything else needs to be done on your machine and the server and synced every now and then to save bandwidth.
Doom and gloom aside, I think a cooling pad is well worth it. Also, don't forget to dust the air ducts every few months to prevent overheating.
The drop in battery you saw may have been caused by a loose power adapter plug or socket.
Apple laptops are shipped with too weak power adapters(even more so for the 15 and 17'' models), so if you use the full potential of your machine(which you usually only archive with gaming in real world/"daily" applications - full cpu and gpu load) - it needs to drain additional power from your battery, and your cpu and gpu will downclock in addition (giving you less performance than they should)
I had a similar problem with my dell 1747, that was shipped with a 90watt power adapter => too weak, and thus downclocked cpu/gpu.
A lot Dell studio 17 laptop users contacted dell - dell cared, and so dell did all they could to give us the full potential of the machine we paid for - they made a few new bios versions very fast - and then shipped free 130w power adapters to customers.
Dont know why apple users dont care, this problems is known with apple laptops for at least the last 2 generations.
edit: It <b>could</b> help (at least for the 13" model) if you order the bigger power adapter with 85watt - the 13'' is shipped with 60w afaik.
Now a lot of you mention laptops being bad for anything performance.
What about those Alienware Gaming Laptops?
-B1ackSmoke
Now a lot of you mention laptops being bad for anything performance.
What about those Alienware Gaming Laptops?
-B1ackSmoke<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Overpriced, underperforming, still get very hot, probably burn out a lot quicker than you'd like.
Also as it's alienware you pay way more than you should because alienware jack all their prices up because of the brand.
If you want to game, honestly you're better off going to dell or any other company that does lots of pre-built desktops, and buy one of their $1000 gaming desktops. It'll run most things pretty well, be cheaper than a comparable laptop, and will probably last longer too. Plus you can always stick a couple of newer parts in it when it breaks, or needs an upgrade, can't do that with a laptop.
You don't need everything to be very high spec really, might be my imagination but games are sort of slowing down a bit on the graphics side nowadays. Not many games make the effort to look better than crysis did back in 2008. Mostly the only thing that's really increasing is texture resolution, and for that you just need lots of RAM which is pretty cheap nowadays. Lots of games come with high res textures because they're pretty easy to make and computer can often support them now. Otherwise it's not pushing forward very much.
I'd guess it's because we haven't had a new set of consoles for quite a while, so anything going on a console needs to be a little toned down compared to what a PC could run, but the good news is that it means PCs are lasting longer than they would otherwise.
Now a lot of you mention laptops being bad for anything performance.
What about those Alienware Gaming Laptops?
-B1ackSmoke<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You <b>can</b> get reasonable performance out of some laptops, but it will always end up costing you way more than a desktop solution. Just picture the size of a modern GPU (e.g. the <a href="http://www.amd.com/PublishingImages/Restricted/Photograph_ProductShots//242GIF/ATrHD5770_242x193.gif" target="_blank">Radeon 5770</a> I had to leave behind to go study abroad) and then compare with the size of a mobile GPU (like my 4 years old <a href="http://www.mobilewhack.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/8600mgt.jpg" target="_blank">8600M GT</a> I'll be stuck on for another year). Going mobile, you have to get smaller hardware which increases the price and diminishes performance due to limited power consumption, heat dissipation, etc. So basically, yeah, you can play games on laptops, but it's not really what they are designed for in the first place. This never stopped me though and I still enjoy every minute of gaming on this machine.
Also, about the heat issue: you should see the entire laptop as one big heat sink. It is designed to try and dissipate as much heat as possible in a passive way (i.e. without fan) and a good deal of that is usually done through the keyboard area, so it's important not to cover any are of the laptop and make sure there is room for air circulation on all sides (including bottom), so if you don't get a laptop cooler, I would suggest elevating your laptop in some way. Using an external keyboard may be good too, both for comfort and less contact with the computer itself.
I don't know how accurate these tips are, but that's what has served me well for the last 4 years. Take it or leave it! :)
I did a little research and found that Mac's are able to handle these high performance deals.
<a href="http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=928372" target="_blank">http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=928372</a>
I guess what I just have to realize is that the fans will sound much louder compared to a desktop computer because
the fans are easier to hear being under my hands instead of under my desk. The fans run high but that's what desktop fans do too it's just that we can't hear them because they're encased under our desk.
Guess it's just all apart of it yeah?
-B1ackSmoke
YEah. Well as of now the fan noise doesn't bother me at all. I just want to convince myself that it's okay for the fans to be loud because that's what they are meant to do. It's always unnerving to have your computer that you spent money on running hard. But considering it's a laptop regardless of it being a mac or it's performance, the fans will be loud on any laptop.
Your machine shouldn't NEED to be noisy and run hot all the time, keeping the components cool makes them work a little better and reduces damage from expansion/contraction.
Now a lot of you mention laptops being bad for anything performance.
What about those Alienware Gaming Laptops?
-B1ackSmoke<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is there a reason you need a laptop for gaming? You've got a laptop already for any office/utility/web browsing functions, so why not get a desktop? You can get a much bigger bang for your buck, and your cooling issues could be negated.
Even consider learning how to build your own PC to save additional cost. With some research into what good components are out there, some instructions on the assembly, and a place to ask questions (forum, buddy who's good with this kind of thing, etc), it's not too difficult.
Haha yes sad I know.
<!--quoteo(post=1879614:date=Oct 12 2011, 03:58 PM:name=Deadzone)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Deadzone @ Oct 12 2011, 03:58 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1879614"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Even consider learning how to build your own PC to save additional cost. With some research into what good components are out there, some instructions on the assembly, and a place to ask questions (forum, buddy who's good with this kind of thing, etc), it's not too difficult.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have considered this for a future computer but for now I gotta work with what I got haha. I actually don't even like laptops. I don't really take my macbook anywhere to use outside of my house. I hardly unplug it and hate using it outside the house. But I found all of this out two years later. Next purchase, DESKTOP COMPUTER.