The paper analyzes the performance of the Minimum Total Power Routing (MTPR) protocol in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), particularly in the presence of power-scarce nodes. It highlights the significant negative impact that low energy nodes have on network performance metrics such as throughput, hop count, and path optimality. The results indicate that while a small percentage of such nodes does not adversely affect the network, their increase leads to noticeable declines in overall performance.