Two weeks ago, we mentioned that a website had found what it believed was a bug with new Intel Core Duo Machines and USB and reduced battery life.
It turns out it may not be the case, or rather that the issue is bigger and more extensive (however you want to look at it) – Anandtech has published an extensive article concerning this issue:
We [Anandtech] set out on investigating this issue immediately after it was discovered, but soon found out that it was a lot more complicated than we thought upon first glance. We’ve spent almost the past two weeks performing non-stop battery life testing on five notebooks with up to 4 different USB devices, testing theories, trying to pinpoint exactly what causes this problem and testing Microsoft’s fix……
Until Microsoft releases a fix we can only suggest that all notebook users, regardless of your CPU, either implement the temporary fix we outlined in this article or be very conscious of leaving USB 2.0 devices connected while on battery power.
I highly recommend you read the Anandtech Article if you are thinking of buying or already have an Intel based notebook and use USB 2.0 devices. It has information on the problem and on the cure (at least the temporary cure).