power consumption of Rosewill keyboard?

[mike1127]

I just got a new laptop, an MSI GS60 6QD (gaming-type) and yesterday I took it to a coffee shop and plugged in my Rosewill mechanical keyboard. I was running on battery, and it seemed to drain awfully fast. (I am not sure, though, what the expected life is with this laptop.) Could it be that the mechanical keyboard was using a lot of power? Would a mechanical keyboard be extra power-hungry compared to another type?

[Muirium]

Some data here:

keyboards-f2/power-consumption-of-keybo ... wer%20draw

Keyboards can draw differing amounts of power. But the power hungry ones are really vintage hardware, from before laptops were a thing. Modern boards shouldn't be much worse than a USB hub.

A laptop's battery is a big thing to drain. Try experimenting without the board for yourself.

[Ratfink]

A laptop's battery is a big thing to drain.

And gaming laptops invariably drain them incredibly fast.

Gaming laptops combine the portability of a desktop computer with the performance of a laptop. They're strange things.

[mike1127]

Yeah, I need to experiment. I shouldn't have even asked first. Sorry about that.

I discovered that I was using the "performance" power setting and had the screen brightness at max. So that may have contributed. I also had a USB hub and external USB drive attached at the same time as the keyboard.

Ratfink, it looks like you were making a witticism, and suggesting gaming laptops are large and heavy. This one is truly portable however. It's 15.6" and very thin/light. There's no optical drive, helping a bit.

Speaking of keyboards (this forum), the laptop's keyboard is very good (nice travel distance, nice resistance, nice "bump"). I would expect that for gamers.

I have recently tried about five Windows 10 laptops looking for a 15" size that I can use for

1. watching movies (requires good video on its screen plus HDMI connector),

2. audiophile audio playback through a USB DAC (requires USB 3.0 connection),

3. a good keyboard,

4. moderately-high CPU performance (enough for some professional audio processing).

5. no optical drive to make it lighter

It's not easy to find all these things at once... and I was willing to spend a lot of money.

For instance, if you look at high-end "workstation" laptops, they will typically lack some of these criteria. Maybe they only have two USB ports (I need at least three). Maybe they lack an HDMI connector. Many brands of laptop have a lousy keyboard. Many high-performance laptops have a screen with poor viewing angle.

Then I looked at "business" laptops which often have a good keyboard and are rugged, and are often high-performance. Well, a couple I tried had problems. Like driver bugs in the USB 3.0 ports. Or really ugly screen colors.

Also most high-performance latpops have optical drives.

This MSI laptop fits my criteria perfectly, and was $1200 (actually $1100 on sale), cheaper than most workstations. "Gaming" was what I was looking for all along! Gamers want a good keyboard, good video (certainly they want HDMI too), and good performance. Also this laptop has two USB 3.0 ports and one USB-C port (which can function at 3.0 speeds). I am not sure if gamers normally want these ports, but they are there. And no optical drive.

Battery life will probably not be great, no matter what I do. This is unfortunate, but I know there are external batteries available.

Mike

[adhoc]

Yeah, no way the keyboard would be the culprit here. As much as I dislike Apple, their laptops are really good. They have what you want, except the keyboard is garbage (especially the latest switch). Just install windows on it and you're good to go.

Obviously GPUs are terrible, so this recommendation isn't valid if you want to game on the laptop.

[mike1127]

My understanding is that Apple has only one USB port on their latest laptops (USB-C). I need at least two USB 3.0 ports for my audiophile-quality audio playback plus at least one more port where I can attach a hub. By some criteria I should get a desktop, but my space is limited, so why not use a laptop if I can find one that meets my criteria? And it appears I can.

[adhoc]

Great news. I will not be the one to defend Apple by any stretch of the imagination. I recently bought lots of Apple gear, absolutely hated it and sold it all to go back to my Win/UNIX/Android setup (and losing lots of money in the process).

But like I said, keyboard is the last culprit of battery drain.

[andrewjoy]

My understanding is that Apple has only one USB port on their latest laptops (USB-C). I need at least two USB 3.0 ports for my audiophile-quality audio playback plus at least one more port where I can attach a hub. By some criteria I should get a desktop, but my space is limited, so why not use a laptop if I can find one that meets my criteria? And it appears I can.

Get a macbook air or pro , they have multiple USB 3 ports and lighting connectors for a dock, the current gen macbook is a toy nothing more .

[Muirium]

Anyone wanting to habitually hook up an eternal sound interface to their laptop is a MacBook Pro customer anyway. I've got a 15 inch one, been doing me great service for two years now, and both USB ports are indeed USB 3. They were way back, before anyone else figured out how to do so with the traditional connector, as I recall.

The MacBook, meanwhile, is a great machine for most every other human but us nerds! I'd buy one of those over a 13 inch Pro (let alone the crappy Air) if I had the money for a separate commuting laptop. Wonderful machine. Just never plug a damn thing into it! Apple sells both for a reason. Different designs for different users.

[andrewjoy]

Normal people want to plug there phone in or camera or a printer and so on , and they will look at the USB C and think , what the fuck is that. It reminds me of the pocket Dos machines form back in the late 80s early 90s, an add on for your main 386 so you can do limited amounts of work on the move for a crazy inflated price.

The air is cheaper and faster than the Macbook With better connectivity, oh and it does not overheat and throttle itself down because they are obsessed with making it super thin.

The pro is a loverly bit of kit , but apart from the super fancy screen and extra lightning connection there is no difference than an air, now if the pro has a GPU like it should it would be THE laptop.

[adhoc]

Anyone wanting to habitually hook up an eternal sound interface to their laptop is a MacBook Pro customer anyway. I've got a 15 inch one, been doing me great service for two years now, and both USB ports are indeed USB 3. They were way back, before anyone else figured out how to do so with the traditional connector, as I recall.

The MacBook, meanwhile, is a great machine for most every other human but us nerds! I'd buy one of those over a 13 inch Pro (let alone the crappy Air) if I had the money for a separate commuting laptop. Wonderful machine. Just never plug a damn thing into it! Apple sells both for a reason. Different designs for different users.

I had the new macbook retina. What an amazing machine, really. It's all a geek would want. Amazing screen, built in DAC, long battery life, style (oh so much style), minimalistic, runs pretty cool, no fans. But the transition from multi monitor setup and a gaming rig (with lots of Topre <3) was painful...I couldn't live with it. I bought the 130€ adapter (lolz, what an idiot I was) to hook up additional usbs, tv, etc. I even bought the 40€ RJ45 adapter. It works - kinda - sorta - okayish, when you have all of the adapters.

But as a facebook machine with some word here and there and very light work application - perfect. The best laptop I have ever had by far.

[Muirium]

Exactly. We've got to remember what oddballs we are. Everyone else, with a vanishing rounding error, never hooks up any damn thing to their laptop besides power. (And that should be wireless too.) SD cards? No, your photos are on your phone, and should cloud sync accordingly. Keyboards and mice? No, grandpa. Hard drives? No, backup was something you always put off in the past, nowadays you don't even pretend any more.

The network connection is the pipe to rule them all.

now if the pro has a GPU like it should it would be THE laptop.

The high end MacBook Pro does have a GPU. And the ones coming out soon ought to be quite an update. Apparently a generational shift in the whole design. Which is well due.

[mike1127]

We got a bit off topic, but I don't mind learning about Macbooks at all! Thanks everyone!

To follow up the power consumption question, I did a test with nothing plugged into my MSI (gaming) laptop except the mechanical keyboard, and the laptop's power configuration set to power saver, with screen brightness to lowest legible level. It got three hours of battery. Now I need to test it without the mechanical keyboard, but it seems that three hours is about the most I could expect anyway. That works for me; I would almost never desire more than three hours. Heck, I don't even spend three hours on my laptop in any given single day.

If I can get rid of my desktop and a few other audio items, and do it all from my laptop and audiophile USB DAC, I can move to a smaller desk. That will help me fit into my new apartment. So I am glad this laptop has good performance.

This thread mentioned how people need to make fewer and fewer hard-wired connections these days. I used to need a ton of USB ports on my desktop, but now my printer works by Wi-Fi and my mouse works by Bluetooth. To make it easier to replace the desktop with my laptop, I may start backing up to a network drive (rather than a USB drive). My piano (musical) keyboard still needs a USB connector, and so does my external optical drive. And my mechanical (typing) keyboard will probably need a USB connector as well. I wonder if there are bluetooth-based USB hubs for low-bandwidth USB hardware---I could hook up the two keyboards that way.

[y11971alex]

I do use the SD card port on my laptop regularly: it expands my storage capacity by 50%.

[andrewjoy]

I find i need less USB connections than i did too, but thats mainly due to the fact that i dont use a N52 anymore, i don't have a printer or external HDD connected directly anymore. But i have more monitor connections , more audio connections and more dongles for keyboard and bluetooth and the likes.

Regarding wireless keyboard and mouse, i prefer the dongle type ( 2.4ghtz RF) than bluetooth , bluetooth is flaky as hell in windows , and you have to sync stuff up and so on , rather just stick a module into a USB port and have it instantly connect even in bios / efi mode, not to mention the range on older bluetooth hardware is terrible ( i am looking at you 2009 mac mini!!!)