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For a laptop, if you play a game and have the sound really loud, does this drain the battery faster than if you had it low? And what about a cell or cordless phone? It is my opinion that the louder you have the sound, the faster you will drain the battery. Any thoughts?
I think that there is a difference, but very little.....I lack the laptop and cell phone to test my theory, but i'd only think a small extra percentage of extra power would be required for louder sound

Alex~
Yes. A speaker is very similar to an electric motor. If you want the motor to spin faster, you have to send more juice. If you want the speaker to bounce harder, you have to send more juice. :wink:
Yep your right Dr D, but speakers require a VERY small voltage. Sound wont really affect the battery life in a noticable way. Stuff like CD players use up voltage mainly because of the motors and mechanical parts. Actual sound output plays little part in draining the batteries.
Quote: if you play a game and have the sound really loud
If you play a game on a laptop good luck getting any decent amount of minutes out of your battery, they're not desigined for playing games on. And the ones that are, have a battery span of 15-45 min, since they dont always downclock speed.
??? I get loadddds of time on my laptop when playing games.
Quote:If you play a game on a laptop good luck getting any decent amount of minutes out of your battery, they're not desigined for playing games on

What games are we talking here? Unreal Tournament 2003/2004? Max Payne 2? Far Cry?

Also your computer downclocks when uplugged from the wall and the screen dims right? So your not playing them at the framerates your machine is capable of.

And how much time is "loaddds of time"?
If your laptop downclocks when running on batteries, then it is a sad, sad laptop and your battery sucks major ass if it only lasts 15 minutes while running games. A game program is no more power-intensive than any other program...all programs put the same load on the CPU because the CPU must always be executing code. The reason the screen is dimmer is obvious...to save battery life. My own laptop maintains its CPU speed no matter what power source it's running on. Then again...my laptop is a Dell. 'nuff said. Big Grin
No. If your laptop downclocks, then it is likely to be a more recent model that's trying to save power. Many times you can override this if you don't care about shorter battery life.

Game programs are definitely more CPU intensive than many other applications, because the CPU is not always executing code (ever heard of the HLT instruction?)
According to every Intel programming manual I've ever read...the CPU always has to execute code. Always. Or at least that's what they make it out to sound like. (And anyways...if they didn't, then why do all multitasking operating systems have an idle process? To keep the CPU busy, obviously...to keep code going through the CPU at all times.) And of course I've heard of the HLT instruction...virtually anyone with 2 days worth of assembly programming experience knows what it does.
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