Digital Gadgets

Intel Core Duo hit by USB battery drain bug

As we reported a few days ago, the team at Tom’s Hardware ran some tests on laptops powered by Intel’s Core Duo, and found some puzzling results: a mystery power drain that seemed unconnected to the processor itself. Now they think they’ve found the answer, and it turns out that Intel is in the clear: the source of the power glitch is a bug in Microsoft’s Advanced Configuration and Power Interface driver, which can cause Core Duo-powered laptops to rapidly run out of juice if they’ve got any USB 2.0 devices connected to them. The solution? Well, actually there isn’t one yet.

Although Microsoft has known about the driver bug since last July, the company has yet to release a patch. Meanwhile, Intel is working on its own fix, so chances are the problem will be resolved in the near future. In the meantime, if you find your brand-spanking-new Core Duo laptop running out of juice quicker than you thought it would, you’ll know who to blame.

Intel may be off the hook as the source of a bug observed by reviews that significantly reduces the battery life of Core Duo-based notebooks - apparently it’s all Microsoft’s fault. Or is it?

The glitch was first noted by Tom’s Hardware Guide last week. The site identified a persistent power drain whenever USB 2.0 devices are connected.

A bug in Intel’s processor or chipset? Not so, said Intel representatives cited by TG Daily. It’s a fault in Windows XP Service Pack 2’s Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) driver - a problem allegedly documented in Microsoft’s Knowledge Base in July 2005, but still unfixed.

But here’s the thing. TG Daily tried to replicate the problem with a previous-generation Centrino notebook and failed. If the glitch is indeed a problem with ACPI, it should have appeared in the older machine. That it didn’t suggesting the real issue may lie somewhere between ACPI and Intel’s 945PM chipset.