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I have a late 2008 MacBook and have recently installed Windows 7 via Bootcamp. Under OSX I can get about 4 hours of web browsing and general usage but under 7 that is slashed to about 2 hours. I know it's not a 'Windows being rubbish thing' but is there any settings I can change or updated drivers to improve this?

(I'm already using Bootcamp 3.1).

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  • I hate to say it, but I think that's just Bootcamp for you. There might be some settings in the program to lower resource usage (I don't know, I haven't used the program), but other than that there isn't much you can do. This issue isn't specific to Bootcamp: all virtual machine software is resource-hungry.
    – Sasha Chedygov
    Mar 15, 2010 at 21:28
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    @musickfreak Bootcamp isn't a virtual machine. It's just a collection of mac drivers for windows. You can install windows on the mac without bootcamp at all, you just won't have somethings working flawless, such as the touchpad.
    – cregox
    Mar 15, 2010 at 21:30
  • @Cawas: Oh, I'm thinking of Parallels. My mistake.
    – Sasha Chedygov
    Mar 16, 2010 at 0:52

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I don't have any experience on running windows on mac, but battery also drops quickly on OSX if you use programs that consume CPU.

So, what I would do in your place is check for programs with low CPU usage.

For instance, Safari on the mac does that. If you open Activity Monitor and check how much it consumes of CPU and memory (with less memory there will be less CPU to load and unload things) you'll see it keeps it really low.

If, at other hand, you're not using any program and Windows still drop battery just for being turned on, then I'd look for drivers.

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  • I'm pretty sure in this case Bootcamp is going to use more CPU than Safari or any other program running in the background. The OP is probably looking for a way to lower Bootcamp's CPU usage, or something with a similar effect.
    – Sasha Chedygov
    Mar 15, 2010 at 21:27
  • @musicfreak maybe you're right, I wouldn't know that far.
    – cregox
    Mar 15, 2010 at 21:31

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