Microsoft has recently announced a fix for the battery drain issue in Windows XP affecting laptops equipped with Intel’s Core Duo dual-core processors. This flaw was initially discovered in the summer of 2005 but remained undisclosed until February of this year.
In a support document released by Microsoft on May 16, the company stated that mobile devices integrated with Core Duo chips were prevented from entering a “deeper ACPI sleep state” – also known as “C state” – due to the USB 2.0 driver.
The C state helps conserve energy when the processor is idle. These states range from “C0” to “C3” or “C4”. Typically, a laptop that is not in use can save battery power by entering C3 or C4 states. If the laptop does not enter either C3 or C4 while idle, the battery will deplete quickly.
The Windows XP SP2 patch can be downloaded directly from the Microsoft website. Only users with a legitimate Windows license can download this patch.
VH – (CRN)
