MacBook Pro :: Disappointed With Battery Life - Expectations Too High?
Jul 14, 2010
I know I'll never be able to achieve 8-9 hours, but I was hoping for at least 7 or thereabouts. Unfortunately, I only managed a paltry 5 hours on my first two 'complete' discharges. This is with airport and bluetooth on, screen at half brightness and running windows 7 in parallels in addition to the usual browser/office stuff. Is there something I can do to improve battery life? Or is having parallels running all the time draining the battery extra fast? Also, is there some sort of battery monitoring utility that can accurately detect what exactly the battery is doing? I find the default one to be somewhat sparse in terms of details.
Background: Air i7 Mid 2011 4gb RAM, 256 SSD, purchased in Aug 2011. Battery life is normally 5.5hours with wifi on, blue tooth off. I charge the battery until status says charged then I unplug until I get the reserve power message at 9%, most days I charge 2 times, sometimes 3 times. When I plug in an external monitor using my thunderbolt to dvi or thunderbolt to hdmi my battery life drops to 2.5-3.5hours (extra work, less battery, makes sense), back left is hot and fan is running. When I have apache web server, mysql, php, netbeans, firefox with over 30 tabs, safari with over 10 tabs, thunderbird, avast antivirus, adium, skype and other random pgms loaded my battery life stayed over 4.5 hours, activity monitor at about 80% idle. The back left corner of the keyboard stays cool during this time.
I have read the CPU power and cores are adjusted automatically based on usage, and this is what I have found to be true with great consistancy. About 1-2 months ago my battery life dropped to about 2.5 hours. I have been trying to figure the cause. At the same time my back left corner of the keyboard is getting hot like I have the external monitor plugged in. The fan is running all the time. I look at the activity monitor and it shows 80%-90% idle. I have been on the phone with support and we tried the SMC reset, but the fan is just doing it's job of cooling the cpu. Apple phone support seemed to feel this was normal, even though I told them the back left of the keyboard was not normally this way. I have narrowed it down to.... the cpu is being told to run harder than before, so where is the mixedup signal? I began this morning reading all the messages here in the disscussions this am (and there are many with the same description), many references to activity monitor.
[URL]- the activity monitor in this will show the process that is using the cpu the most. In my case I had installed HP scanner software 2 months ago, which is badly written and very misbehaved, see the following link. This process would go to 100% cpu every few seconds (not all the time, so I could not see it in the summary, ), shown when I sorted by cpu % usage.
[URL]I have removed my scanner drivers. My battery life is back to 5.5hr, back left of keyboard is cool to touch, and the fan is off. My findings, when the back left of the keyboard is hot, the CPU is running hard. External monitors heat up the cpu. Activity monitor can tell you what is using the cpu, by sorting by %cpu usage (don't trust the summary, look at the individual processes, as shown in the link TS1473) and watching for 10-30 seconds, a misbehaved app may not be at the top all the time.
i just ordered a late 2008 macbook pro 15 with the dual GPUs (9400m and 9600m GT) and I'm a little worried about the battery life.
-What can I expect if just doing normal every day stuff (web surfing mostly?)
-does watching a movie off of the hard disk use less battery than watching it off a DVD? Is there a big difference?
I'm not a big gamer but would like to have the horsepower to play a game should one come out that I want. I'm also not a big traveler so battery times are only of average importance.
Basically, I'm asking if I made a good purchase considering I have only average concerns for both battery and game performance. They had the new 7 hour battery 15" macbook pro for the same price but it doesn't have the dual GPUs.
I calibrated my MacBook Pro battery and then noticed that the battery life seemed slightly shorter after that. I calibrated it according to this: [URL]
Just wondering if I have done anything wrong...
One more question... What do they mean by "At this point, save your work. Continue to use your computer; when the battery gets very low, the computer will automatically go to sleep." Does it mean that I have to use the computer until it just shuts down or should I shut it down once the "Low Battery" warning pops up?
I have a 13" 2.4 GHZ white macbook that I bought in march of 2008. About 4 months ago I all of the sudden started having problems with battery life. It was very abrupt. I used to be able to take my macbook and sit through 3 classes or more with no trouble in regards to batter life. Then suddenly the battery would drain within a few hours. It has remained that way since.
I've spent the last month or so looking around forums and other places to try and find someone with a similar problem and possible solutions. As a result I've discovered that my situation seams to be somewhat unique.
Using cocoanut battery I tested my battery's capacity and it remains at a solid 98%. How can my battery still be at 98% capacity and have such a short battery life? I also seam to be losing charge while my macbook is closed. How and why does that happen? If I leave my macbook closed for a day or two it can lose up to 25% charge just sitting there!
I've tried loads of things including turning off unnecessary things such as sharing and bluetooth and calibrating my battery, all with no avail.
What is going on?? My battery is too old to be eligable for a recal and I'm not paying $30 just to have a phone conversation with a "Genius". If anyone has any idea what's going on and any possible advice, I would greatly appreciate it.
I am getting a very short battery life out of my "New" A1261 battery - we're talking 2.5 hours tops. I've recycled it a few times, but this is no where near the "7" hours that is quoted.
Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
I've had this MBP for just over 8 months now, I'd intially purchased one in november, but the audio out used to give a crackle sound so they replaced the laptop. Moving on to the point - in the last week or so, I've noticed the MBP suddenly seems to get very hot and the fans turn on and thus suddenly becomes very noisy. I was using it on the bed so could appreciate that I may have been blocking the vents, but I've had it on a stand the past couple of days and it still seems to do it for no particular reason. The charger usually always gets ridiculously hot, but the MBP used to stay relatively cool, now the MBP gets hot independently of whether its being charged or not. Moreover, my battery life has gone from what used to last 4 hours, to around 2.25.
Cocunut battery gave the following stats: Current Battery capacity: 4483mAh Load Cycles: 222 Age: 8 months
I have just bought a MacBook. I have downloaded the Battery Health Monitor and it says obviously that my current capacity is at 100%, with 5,791 mAh. I would like to know how many hours does this value correspond to, because it has certainly not been the highly announced 10 hours battery life
My two year old macbook pro battery life is getting shorter after recharging. I only get about 40 minutes on a full charge when it used to be 3 hrs. Is it time to replace the battery?
I've had my Macbook Air for 10 days now and I find its an incredible machine. However there is one thing that really bothers me: the quality of the screen. First, like many Macbooks (LED or not), it is unevenly backlit. It starts bright from the top, then darkens, and when you get close to the hinge it gets really bright again (is this the bleeding effect that people talk about?) Also I find the vertical viewing angle appaling. You really have to get your eyes aligned in a certain precise way in order to have a correct display of colors. As soon as you move your head up and down slightly you get major shifts i nuances and tint. This might just be the deal breaker for me. I have the 9C73 display, which is supposed to be quite good too. Yeah its bright, but who cares about bright when a yellow page looks green in the middle and white on top?
I am interested in getting a refurbished Macbook Air. I was looking at the following two models:
Macbook Air Rev B., 1.86 GHz, 2GB RAM, 128 GB SSD for $1349 OR Macbook Air Rev C., 2.13 GHz, 2GB RAM, 128 GB SSD for $1549
Other than the processor difference of 0.27 GHz, and based on reading the technical specs of each system, I don't see any difference between the two machines. The one piece of information that I couldn't find was the advertised battery life for the Rev. B unit. The Rev. C unit is supposedly rated for 5 hours of wireless productivity. Is the same battery used in the Rev B also or is the battery of lower WHr?
My needs are pretty simple - I would like to get the Air as a small and portable, easy to carry machine for rounds and writing up patient notes, consult notes, etc. It will not be my primary machine, but hopefully a worthy road-warrior. I will be using Windows for the clinical electronic medical record application, but other than that, all other use will be on Mac OS X. Based on this, would you recommend going with the Rev B or Rev C. Money is tight, and this will be a gift from one of my mentors, but I do want to get the biggest bang for the buck. If the only difference between the two machines is processor speed, I can't justify spending 200$ extra just for a 0.27 GHz gain.
I have a 2007 White Macbook 2.4 Intel Core 2 Duo Laptop. I purchased it in June 2007 and this is my current battery health. Check the picture below, It's pretty amazing and I don't know how I did it. I'm on my computer almost everyday. Any idead on what I did to get such great battery life after three years? I know people with newer MacBook Pros that have terrible battery life after a year and a half.
I bought a 1st Gen Macbook Air in March of this year and I recently have noticed that my battery is not lasting as long as it should, so I checked iStat and it said that my battery life is at 86%. I also have a 12 inch powerbook G4 that still has the same battery it came with and the battery life is also 86% and it is more than five years old. Is this normal for the Macbook Air or should I take it into Apple?
I have a quick question about the battery in early 2008 MBP. The laptop is 13 months old, with 273 load cycles, and it is already down to 72% of original capacity. I've read that it should still have 80% at 300 cycles. Is this normal, or is the battery dying faster than it should? I don't suppose there's anything I can do short of buying a new battery right??
I got my MacBook Pro on the 1st of September and I'm a bit worried about the battery life. At the moment the screen brightness is one bar and bluetooth is off, which is how I normally have it and the battery life time estimate keeps changing quite a lot. 5 minutes ago it said 5:11 left, and since then it's changed to 7:30, 7:58 and now it's saying 6:50 and is now on 95% and 8:03. I'm not doing anything differently and I don't know why it's doing this.
Im a little confused, is the Air Battery life that good? I've taken the following claims from the Apple website. MacBook Air - Get up to 5 hours of battery life on a single charge on the 11-inch model and up to 7 hours on the 13-inch model. 13" MacBook Pro - The new energy-efficient architecture in the 13-inch MacBook Pro gives you up to 10 hours of battery life on a single charge. I understand that Steve Jobs advised that they were using a better way to measure battery life for the Air that reflect real world usage better (WiFi Browsing I think?) so how does this compare to the MBP range? I guess the MBP battery claims were made using another older method, so any thoughts on how the Air's battery life compares to other PC's and Mac's?
would like to say that is my first mac and I am loving it. I've got the new 13" 1.86ghz 128gb and the upgraded ram 4gb. Now I've fully charged it and left it on a further 2 hours or so, following the instructions for calibrating the battery. Now that I'm using the macbook, I'm noticing the battery going down fairly quick, already at 88% after 30mins of use. Is it supposed to go down this quick?
Looking into getting a SSD 128GB for my 2009 uMB but I am wondering if that helps extend your battery life because I am getting 3.5 to 4 Hours on a single charge now. I just wonder if I can get more than 5 hours out of the battery with an SSD, then I can use the external drive for everything else but OS and Applications.
I have become incredibly confused and frustrated as to why my MBP battery life has gone down the tube. I've had it around release date with minimal cycles. I've tried:
1. brightness reduction 2. turning off wifi/bluetooth 3. items that auto log when computer is turned on where removed (such as adobe updater)
I was an early adopter of the MBA 1.0 and had to return it due to all the "Rev A" issues that plague Apple machines (just look at the new MBPs and MBs). The unit I had back then had about a 2-3 hours of use (vs. Apple's claimed 5) and it took FOREVER to fully charge the battery. Not to mention the core shut downs, ridiculously loud 6200 rpm fan, excessive heat, etc. etc.
I was wondering if any early 2.0 owners could comment on battery life or charging. Have they fixed this problem? Any 1.0 owners notice less batt. life now that Apple claims 4.5 and we have the nvidia chipset?
I'm sitting on the fence with trigger finger itching to get a new 1.8 SSD...
I have read a lot of forums and discussions about the Mac battery. The normal life should be around 300 Charges. Mine has already more than 722 and is about 2 years old, but still has 100% life with sometimes dropping to 96%.Has somebody else exp. this kind of long life of the battery ? How long can a battery actually last ?
Battery life on my MacBook Air (1.86/SSD) has dropped to less than two hours (for casual web browsing).When new, I got more than 4 hours on a full charge.Also, the battery meter seems to be way off.The machine shuts off with the meter showing 40% remaining. I've tried several full charge - discharge cycles.System information shows battery health to be good.
My four and a half pound MacBook, even with wonderful battery life is too much to bear. So is the thought of using Windows 98. Otherwise I'd buy a Netbook.
How many hours of word processing can I expect from the latest version of the MBA?
I have a late 2008 15" macbook pro, 2.8ghz. Since I got it, it's been running fairly hot at times. It's summer right now and pretty warm here, but it's idling at about 67 degrees. I've seen it get a lot higher, up to around 85. Is this normal? Does it need a trip into the apple store?
My other problem is battery life. I'm only getting about 2.5 - 3.5 hours with the lower end video card, just using safari, and I don't know if that's normal or not.
I have the 13" MacBook Pro with the beefiest processor and a 500GB HDD. When I bought the machine, I quizzed the guy at the store about a couple of things. In particular I asked about the battery life. He told me apple claims that this machine should have 7 hours of battery life when doing light tasks, but that he personally was able to squeeze out over 8 hours of battery life with simple web browsing.
My problem is that I can barely get 3,5 hours worth of batterylife out of the machine before it gives up the ghost. And this is with the backlight on the display turned down to 1/3 of full brightness. And all I'm doing is browsing text webpages with no flash. Is this normal? Or have I simply overlooked some basic power option that I need to toggle?
