I recall reading that if I keep my MBP plugged to the wall all the time ( I do), I should drain the battery to about 50% every 2-3 days, to keep the battery's juices flowing.
Personally I don't have the patience to do this all the time. Is this step really that important?
What are your thoughts?
I had my MBA rev B turned of for 3-4 weeks and when I turned it on today it was at 40% power. Is that normal that it to loose that much battery when turned off, are you seeing the same number? I know when in sleep mode that there is a pretty high loss even over night but turned off I thought it was minimal.
Seems higher than my previous Mac laptops.
I'm wondering, what is better for prolonging your macbook pro's battery life, is it
1. drain the battery, recharge it fully, plug out the source, drain it, and recharge it again
or
2. keep charging it whenever you have a power source and never drain it?
I've always been doing #2 because I use the laptop a lot and home and it would just be a hassle to keep switching the power source on and off.
But then I heard that it's bad if you overcharge your battery, so once in awhile I try to do #1. Last night, though, my friend told me it's bad for your battery if you drain it all the time.
So which is, in fact, good or bad for your mbp?
My MacBook shuts down when the battery drains all the way down. I'm pretty sure back in the days of PPC lappies, they went to sleep before the battery died. Is it supposed to shut down, or is something goofed?
View 4 Replies View RelatedQuestion in the subject line, nothing more to add here other than i am getting bad battery life and only use FF... so was wondering.
View 24 Replies View RelatedWith mine, when I drain it completely, it just shuts down, i.e. it doesnt go to sleep mode as there is no pulsating light on the front right corner. Once I start charging, however, and I can again switch it on, it resumes where I left off, so the computer has saved the contents of the memory onto the hard disk. On my SR MBP it was different, it would actually go to sleep mode when the batteries were almost completely drained.
View 22 Replies View RelatedAfter about two hours my battery on my 13" mbp is at 35% from 100%.
All i did was some web browsing and about half an hour of video chatting on ichat. My brightness is at halfway.
is this normal drain? the specs say 10 hours, but when i first got it it lived for about 6 hours, which was plenty for me.
i've noticed recently that my battery has been acting funny, i'm thinking it may be because of my heavy audio work with garage band and reason.
the app coconut battery says my battery capacity is at 94% so I'm not sure what the problem is.
I've had this laptop for about 3 months, and i've properly calibrated it twice.
lately I have noticed that even though I close the lid on my macbook pro, the battery continues to drain and it is very hard to wake it. I have to restart it several times to get to to open properbly.
Info:
macbook pro, Mac OS X (10.5.6)
I have a 2010 13" MBP that will shut itself off instead of going to sleep when the battery is drained. I tried recalibrating and resetting the SMC, as well as disabling hibernate, but the same thing happens. The computer is barely a month old. Anybody else with a 13" experiencing this? I posted this issue on the Apple forums and someone replied stating that they heard Apple is looking into it, but usually occurs with i5 and i7 machines.
View 6 Replies View RelatedGetting fustrated with my Macbook Pro 15''. Could never get battery to last more than 5-6 hours. This is the MAX i can achieve, with great pains to enhance battery life.
Argh, what's wrong with my Macbook Pro?
Check out the amperage drain. At this rate the Macbook Pro wouldn't last more than 5 hours. This is with half brightness, only finder and Chrome open, and the battery recently calibrated.
The amperage drain increases to -1400+ when i have more tabs open, and a few other apps.
However there was this ONE RARE OCCASION, where my Macbook Pro would only drain between -700 to -800 amperage. This was in normal usage and the battery easily lasted closer to 8 hours. But somehow, i can never replicate this anymore!
I looked around and I find varying opinions. My laptop is mostly at home. Should I keep it plugged in when its full or should I let it drain? Please explain too.
Also, coconutBattery says I've used five cycles even though none of those were complete cycles. Is it just problems with the software or does it really count as a complete cycle?
I’m hoping someone can help me troubleshoot some strange behaviour of my Macbook Pro4.1. It’s an early 2008 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo. I’ve had this running perfectly for the past 2 months with an Apple 65W Magsafe Adaptor, although I recently got an 85w version so I’ve started using that for a bit. I recently read somewhere that it’s good to allow the battery run completely flat once a month or so, so I unplugged the adaptor last week and ran it off the battery for the afternoon. When it was almost done (10% charge left) I went for a shower and came back to find the Macbook powered down. I plugged in the Adaptor back in but I couldn’t get it to start. Â
I have to say at this point, that my 85w adaptor sometimes needs a wiggle at the magsafe end to get it to work. Despite this though I couldnât get the green power LED to light or the Macbook to boot up. I then tried my 65W adaptor, which is perfect, and although the LED lights up (first green and then amber) the macbook just doesnt power up with it. I tried the 85w one again the following day after leaving the macbook disconnected and battery removed overnight, and was pleased to find that it finally booted. Amazingly, despite having no power at all for the whole night it came back with all my applications running, safari tabs and the documents open! Anyway, I noticed from the menu bar that the battery was not charging and I couldnt seem to get it to charge. I ran it all day and the system profile showed that the Battery was about half full and had a ˜normal condition with about 187 charge cycles. However I cant run the Macbook off the battery. When the power cuts out from the 85w adaptor the whole macbook shuts down. The battery isn’t doing anything, even after charging all day and being half charged. What’s more neither of my 65w adaptors can start the macbook no matter how many times I try them. Only my 85w one can boot it, but it’s defective so very rarely seems to work. The 65W ones worked perfectly before,so I don’t know what’s changed.Â
I read the Apple guide to resetting the SMC and have now followed the procedure several times, but it hasn’t helped. I cannot boot the Mac any more. Does this Macbook come with an 85w adaptor or 65w? I’m confused because the 65w ones always worked until now. Also, the battery itself is only 60w. I’m going to purchase another 85w Adaptor, in the meantime any advice would be very welcome.
So when I charge my macbook pro retina display too a 100% and then when I come back the next day and turn it on the battery has drained by itself by like 7%. Sometimes they are even drastic changes like 15-20%? I have just bought this macbook and is only a week and a half old? What should I do?
Info:
MacBook Pro with Retina display
I have a sleep problem with my MacBook (9400M White). I recently resolved a problem where it wouldn't go to sleep by itself if left inactive on battery power (regardless of energy settings) by resetting the SMC and PRAM/NVRAM but now something else has popped up. Now, whenever I cycle my battery down to past the low battery warning popup, it just eventually completely dies. Shouldn't it go to sleep first? That's what my old iBook G4 would do. I doubt it's something related to the SMC or PRAM/NVRAM since I just reset those. What else can I do? I'm pretty sure my MacBook should still have enough juice go to sleep.
View 8 Replies View RelatedIs it better, during normal usage, for example at home, where you could either charge your MacBook Pro or let the battery drain until it is used up (5%, ...).
Some people say that letting the battery cycle is the best option, yet other people, including my friend who had lost many many cycles even though he had attempted precautions (Dim screen brightness until one block remained, wireless off, bluetooth off) had said that having your laptop plugged in as muchas possible is the best option, as there would be no cycle change.
I just bought my MBP, It came in on 9/3. I'm not sure if I should be concerned by this or not.
I've had the MBP for 4 days total. Watts and the System Profiler both show that I've had 6 cycles. I'm down to 5506 mAh from 5770 mAh, and I have 95% health left. If it continues at this rate, 95 days (or cycles) or so I'll be down to a useless battery. I performed a cycle 2 days ago.
I use my MBP as such - I charge it to 100%, sometimes I'll continue to use it on the charger, other times I won't. After its charged, if I leave my room with it, I won't charge it again until it gets down to 40% or less. I'll plug it in at the end of the night, and let it charge up. Sometimes I'll take it off the charger once I go to bed, other times I'll let it charge throughout the night.
I've searched around, and haven't found a similar issue. Most of the ones I see are after a few months they are having battery issues. The Battery FAQ doesn't really answer this question for me.
When I close the lid on my MacBook Pro (Late 2008), the battery drains almost completely over a night or so! Very odd. Anyone else dealing with this? I reset the PRAM already.
View 24 Replies View RelatedI just got my mac about a week ago. I'm currently arguing with my grandmother over whether it's better to leave the MBP plugged into the adapter all the time or let it drain the battery.
View 10 Replies View RelatedI'm a happy owner of a MBP 2010, 15" i5, 2.4GHz.
Before some days I noticed that Snow Leopard installed its update 10.6.4.
Well no big problem but I have a sense that the time remaining without using AC adapter has slightly fell. Before, using only firefox for example I could see about 6 hours remaining (some minutes after powering on my mac). Now it hardly shows about 4+.
Has any other noticed that?
I Have an October 2008 Macbook Unibody 13.3 and after installing Lion the CPU fan stays permanently on and the battery drains in 2 hours. What can I do to fix this?
Info:
MacBook (13-inch Aluminum Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
Last night I had a weird experience with my mid-2011 MacBook Pro; I went out to dinner and came back to find the cat had kicked the power cord out, draining the battery. I've had this happen before and wasn't too worried; it's always just restarted after I plugged it back in. This time, however, I plugged it in (getting, perplexingly, a green light on the cord) and nothing happened except for the sleep light slowly flashing; it didn't respond to any pressing on the power button, and the sleep light disappeared if I unplugged the cord. The battery test button on the side got one flashing light (meaning, I believe, a dead battery), which also didn't work if the computer was unplugged.
I left it plugged in while I hunted for info on the problem and about an hour later had just decided that I was going to have to take it in to the Genius Bar when it suddenly booted up. The cord light turned orange and it proceeded to fully recharge over the next two hours. Is this normal behavior after a battery drain? Should I be concerned? Is it worth taking the computer in to get the battery checked, or some other element of the comp? (some of the things I looked at were talking about the logic board, which is not a happy thought) iStat Pro claims the battery is at 41% health, 111 cycles, which I would think would mean it has some life in it yet.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7)
I bought a MacBook in late October, and it was my first, so I'm pretty new to Macs. Love it so far!
But anyway, here's my question -- my battery capacity has been at over 100% since I bought it, according to coconutBattery, and yesterday it dropped to 98%. I decided to calibrate it because I hadn't done that yet. So I let it put itself to sleep and left it that way overnight, then recharged this morning. When I first plugged it in, the capacity was at 99%. Now a few hours later, it's at 95%.
So, is it more likely that my capacity has been 95% for awhile and the calibration just helped synchronize the capacity display with the actual capacity, or did I really lose 5% in two days?!
I'm trying not to be totally crazy obsessive about this, but I really need a good battery life, and I want to keep this one going for as long as possible.
I keep seeing different anecdotes about people having lagging issues with the Intel HD graphics card. Is it really that bad? It would be a real pain to have to keep it on the nVidia card all the time, even when unplugged. I'm afraid that it will really drain the battery a lot faster than having the Intel on. Anyone have any estimates of this? It's one of the more worrying things about the Pro.
View 24 Replies View RelatedI have no idea what is going on with my battery. Two days ago I downloaded Coconut battery and it showed the battery health at 99%. I checked it today and now it is at 76%. Is my battery already biting the dust? I only have 79 cycles on my Al MB.
View 1 Replies View RelatedAfter discovering that the Tweetie app I use turns on the discrete GPU, I've been looking at alternatives to maximize battery life. A lot of twitter clients use Adobe Air, which also seems to get a bad rep, but is that because it drains battery life too, or because it's just buggy otherwise? So far I've been using twhirl without any obvious issues, and I'm testing out the battery usage with that running. I have to admit, I didn't notice any significant battery drain when Tweetie was running, so maybe I'm just overreacting here. If I remember right I got a little over 6 hours, and installed Tweetie about two hours after I turned my MacBook on then. I'd actually prefer twhirl since I use that on the desktop and I'm just used to it, but not if Adobe Air is going to cause problems on my shiny new MacBook.
View 7 Replies View RelatedIs it a substantial amount? Considering going magic mouse.
View 4 Replies View RelatedNew 17" arrived today.
Looking to care for the battery from day one - should I start her up and drain before beginning the callibration process, or charge before starting up?
I've read this [URL] but it doesn't really highlight if I should drain the battery first or not.
My macbookpro power drain quite fast after i turn on the java, I am using OS X lion. How do I fix it?
Info:MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
This happened when i put my MBP to sleep. it wont wake the following hours, after 2 days it turned on.
i shut it down completely after then same thing happened, waited another 2 days then bam! turned on.
i already tried resetting the SMC still no progress.
i deleted almost all my files. no progress
recently I've been getting a lot of kernel panics. They usually happen at random times when I'm browsing Safari. Most of the time I can reboot normally but once I got 3 repeating beeps when trying to start-up.
This is from the problem report:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Problem Report
Interval Since Last Panic Report: 1793 sec
Panics Since Last Report: 2
Anonymous UUID: C34C5139-B7F4-46C2-8CA4-C69C21CC73FD
Sun Sep 13 11:29:39 2009
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x2a6ac2): Kernel trap at 0x00000001, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x00000001, CR3: 0x00100000, CR4: 0x000006e0
