Another computer question...

[peterworks]

As this topic is 'Another computer question' I thought my post to be okay. It is losely connected to @Black Hole 's post vis-a-vis either less for the same money or the same for more money.
Sorry for any confusion and thanks for the responses.

 

[Black Hole]

I wasn't confused!

 

[Black Hole]

What uses more power: mobile phone with data enabled, or mobile phone with WiFi enabled?

In other words: does 4G data require power over and above the regular voice connection, and if so is that greater than the power required to connect to local WiFi. I imagine that both need more power if the signal is weak.

 

[EEPhil]

A search engine might be your friend. Putting your first sentence into one gave me
https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/does-mobile-battery-drain-faster-on-mobile-data-or-wi-fi.html. That suggests WiFi uses less power.

 

[Black Hole]

I was aiming for a discussion rather than a short cut!

 

[Black Hole]

That article only talks about activities, not when the phone isn't doing anything in standby but can still receive pushes such as Messenger or WhatsApp. Also, which version of GSM is it talking about? The phone is consuming power by being able to receive voice calls in standby, so it is maintaining a connection to the base station whether I use data or not. Is that the same connection as receives data, or is that additional?

Then again, since I switched networks, my phone is able to receive calls via WiFi. If I switched to air mode and then re-enabled WiFi, is that going to save power over keeping the 3G/4G and turning off WiFi?

I guess WiFi will be better, because even if the 3G/4G tower is more efficient per se, I have a poor signal therefore assume the phone has to use a high transmit power to remain in contact.

 

[gomezz]

My experience is a mobile data connection uses more power than a wi-fi connection. But I suspect that is largely down to the phone expending resources hunting and changing mast connection as you move around.

 

[EEPhil]

I wonder how many people will delay automatic updates as a result of today's shenanigans?
Doesn't anyone test updates before rolling them out? I mean, BSOD requiring reboot in safe mode followed by some jiggery-pokery and then another reboot. FFS! (Glad I'm still on an old version of Windows).

 

[MartinLiddle]

I mean, BSOD requiring reboot in safe mode followed by some jiggery-pokery and then another reboot. FFS! (Glad I'm still on an old version of Windows).

It wasn't a standard Windows update but an update provided by CrowdStrike which I wouldn't expect to have any impact on the average home computer user.

 

[trog]

It wasn't a standard Windows update but an update provided by CrowdStrike which I wouldn't expect to have any impact on the average home computer user.

But I bet there are a lot of rogues out there now working on replicating the cause of the issue for future use that could affect us all. I had to chuckle though when I found out a cybersecurity firm was the cause.

 

[bottletop]

I suppose the circle is complete.
There are hackers.
Then there are cyber security companies employing ex hackers.
So the security company takes out the systems themselves.
No more need for hackers.
Extra hours, extra pay, etc.

 

[EEPhil]

It wasn't a standard Windows update but an update provided by CrowdStrike which I wouldn't expect to have any impact on the average home computer user.

I didn't suggest (because I didn't know) that home users had this problem. As someone who once had responsibility for computer systems - I'd be tempted to stop automatic updates and wondered whether any of the affected users might feel the same

 

[antipodean]

I didn't suggest (because I didn't know) that home users had this problem. As someone who once had responsibility for computer systems - I'd be tempted to stop automatic updates and wondered whether any of the affected users might feel the same

I'm also surprised by this outage, it seems that unwarranted trust has been placed in Crowdstrike - and it has come to bite all their customers in the tailend. I know the computer support group where I worked (a government laboratory) would check out all the updates before spreading them across site, to escape this very sort of problem.