Does Changing Desktop Wallpaper Affect Battery Life?

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Level 1

56 points

Does Changing Desktop Wallpaper Affect Battery Life?

Does anyone know if setting the system preferences to randomly change your wallpaper affects battery life? Someone had sent me a bunch of cool nature wallpapers and showed me how to set the system preferences to randomly change them (can do that every day/hour/half hour etc). Im wondering if this eats up your battery more than if you didnt change the wallpaper at all.

If got a new Macbook pro and am noticing the battery (while it shows as 'normal'), is not giving me anywhere near 7 hours of time...and Im not using any other heavy programs - just mainly Safari internet and itunes - and sometimes iphoto...I seem to be getting 3 hours of life which is not acceptable.

So just curious - I cant think of anything else that could be eating the battery up. Ive already adjusted the brightness to as dark as it can be...and Ive let the battery go down to zero and fully charge it - so I dont know what else it could be.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Sep 24, 2011 9:08 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 24, 2011 9:10 PM in response to sajam

Of course it would affect battery life. You're telling the OS to frequently change backgroud pictures and redraw the screen..thus using processor power, which in turn uses more battery.

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Answer 2

ds store

Level 7

30,855 points

Sep 24, 2011 9:23 PM in response to sajam

Yes it can make a dent in the battery life changing the desktop picture often.

Likely your main problem is OS X Lion though and quite frankly I can't advise anything except to go back to Snow Leopard if possible.

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Answer 3

sajam Author

Level 1

56 points

Sep 25, 2011 9:03 AM in response to Templeton Peck

I tried NOT changing the wallpaper but that doesnt seem to change much; My battery still shows NORMAL but is 98% charged and only showing 3:29 so that's half of the expected 7:00. So I dont know if its Lion or not because thats all Ive had...but even with Lion, Apple seems to claim seven hours. Three and a half makes it almost unusable.

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