C-860 & Ambicom Wifi Card, Why is it zapping my battery ??? Options

[pdahero]

A few months back I picked up an Ambicom WiFi card for my Zaurus. It works great - just plug it in and connect. I'm pretty sure it's this guy: http://www.ambicom.com/products/wave2net/wl1100c-cf.html

The problem is that it kills my battery - I can get about an hour of surf time before my battery goes yellow then I get the "connect to AC power" message. I'm on a pretty new battery too; I just got it this February and have only charged it about 5 times.

I can use AC power but I don't want to kill the battery prematurely. Is there some way to throttle the power consumption?

Thanks for any advice!

[pelrun]

Roughly 1.5 hours or so on wifi from a full battery has always been my experience. I certainly expect a wifi card to be more powerhungry than the CPU.

BTW don't cycle Z batteries; LiIon/LiPoly batteries don't need it or like it - and they really *hate* "full drain". The only case where it serves a purpose is with smart batteries that need occasional recalibration to show an accurate battery level, and the Z battery isn't one of those.

[cptpike]

My ambicom with my c1000 does the exact same thing. Which is okay when I'm at home. On the road, not so much. Most of the time though I use a sitecom bluetooth card and my cell. The bluetooth drains my battery maybe a quarter what the wifi card does. I've been thinking about replacing the ambicom with another brand just to test the difference in battery life. If so, I'll let you know what I find.