Energy Saver and shorter PowerBook/iBook battery times

We previously reported that after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.2.4, the battery life on some users' Macintosh portables has been drastically diminished.

Some readers report that their battery life has fallen to about half of its previously effective time, while others report remaining battery indications as low as 5 minutes. Resetting the power management unit does not seem to help.

It now appears that in at least some cases, making sure that the correct power method is selected in Energy Saver can result in increased battery time. For a handful of Mac OS X 10.2.4 adopters, Energy Saver appears to forget whether the portable is being powered from an AC adapter or the battery. Since the machine is using power at the rate it would when externally powered - but is actually being self-powered - battery life is shorter.

Try manually setting which power method is being used via the Energy Saver pane in System Preferences. Let us know your results at late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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