If you feel that your Windows laptop’s battery runs out of juice a bit quicker while using Google Chrome browser, you’re not wrong. Google has acknowledged a bug — which has been around since 2010 — which triggers the processor of your computer more frequently than it is supposed to, resulting in high power usage.
First spotted by Forbes, the ‘system clock tick rate’ value set by Chrome is pretty high compared to any other browser. Basically, ‘system clock tick rate’ is the measure of how often the operating system reacts to events that need attention. Apparently, Chrome is creating way too many events!
The browser has set the ‘system clock tick rate’ to 1.000ms, which generates over 1,000 events per second — which results in awaking the processor for the same number of times. The default value is supposed to be 15.625ms — which will create about 64 events per second. As of result of the higher tick rate, the browser could be surging power consumption by up to 25%.
Google is aware of the bug and says it is already working on a fix. Until it does, you Chrome users are better off using Internet Explorer or Firefox instead.