Tech Link (Mobile): Core Duo Battery Drain Bug Demystified

A worthwile read if you have the time. They also made a more comprehensive article back at AMDTech. I never had issues with this USB 2.0 bug, most of the time, I can do my work before my battery runs out. I guess many relies on a single battery rather than bringing an extra or a power supply just in case battery runs low (it's common sense really).

Grossly incomplete reports previously stated that Intel's Core Duo was flawed; today the missing information is revealed

Several weeks ago, tech tabloid TGDaily reported that the Intel Core Duo platform was flawed by a battery draining bug. In their tests, they used a "standard technician's tool" -- which is still unidentified -- and found that battery life was reduced over 40% when using certain devices with Intel's latest mobility platform. In a conclusion, they stated that the bug they witnessed was a Core Duo issue only. However, today AnandTech has released an extensive report which indicates otherwise.

Testing with five different notebooks from various manufacturers, AnandTech discovered that the claimed Core Duo bug was not an isolated occurrence and in fact appeared on all the tested platforms including the notebooks based on Sonoma as well as those using single core CPUs. They also reported that Microsoft has a quick fix for the USB/battery drain issue but at the time the fix is only a temporary solution until something more permanent can be issued.

From the article:

[The] Napa notebook lost 17% of its battery life due to the bug, while the Sonoma based W5A lost 25.5%. Once again, implying that this is a Core Duo issue alone is simply incorrect; the problem affects Sonoma platforms just as much, if not more, than Core Duo platforms. Based on the results we've seen in our perfmon analysis we tend to believe Microsoft's assessment that the problem would exist on any system that spent any time in C3 or lower power states.

Source:DailyTech