Awful Battery Life - Late 2013 RMBP

Did you try using Safari instead of Chrome, I generally get worse battery life out of chrome. Now that said, it does not decrease the battery life by 4 hours!

If you still have AppleCare call Apple see what they can offer to help you.

shadow82x said:

So I have a few days to return/swap my macbook as its still under the return policy. But my issue here is my battery life is awful. I'm at 89% now, half brightness, and its estimating 4 hours of battery life. All I have open is chrome (on intergrated graphics) and gfxcardstatus. That's it! Do you guys think I should try to return it for a new device before its too late? When I had the 2012 macbook and I first got it, it estimated 10 hours around this time, not 4. Nor is 4 even close to the advertised 8 hours.


I have posted additional images/stat pics up at https://discussions.apple.com/message/24682078#24682078

I've also tried a smc reset and pram.

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does using gfxcardstatus effect battery?

also I agree with trying safari

also look in activity monitor for any processes running high

right now i have 96% battery, 50% brightness, with just safari open and its estimating 8 hours.

shadow82x said:

My macbook is about a week and a half old so it still falls under the return period. So I definitely have apple care, just deciding if this is worthy to exchange it for another one.

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Call them and ask them what is going on.

shadow82x said:

Safari helps a little but not much. Here's a screen capture of everything. Granted this is at about 75% brightness since I'm in a bright room but still the battery seems unusually low.

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Im confused why it says time on battery 8:43 how long have you been using it before it went to 75%

shadow82x said:

Safari helps a little but not much. Here's a screen capture of everything. Granted this is at about 75% brightness since I'm in a bright room but still the battery seems unusually low.

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There's a lot of misinformation in this thread. The estimate is just that-an estimate. It in no way will tell you the exact amount of battery life you will get, and it changes based on settings, brightness, etc.

What battery life are you ACTUALLY getting?

Been There Done That

Like the title says, 15"rMBP, maxed out, already posted in another thread, what it comes down to from doing allot of search's , both here in the forums and apples support forum's is that it seem's that the OS is what's reporting the wrong information, supposedly another user loaded the beta 10.9.2 and the battery issues were all taken care of.

Now on Monday I went through Apple care on the phone and did the SMC reset and went from 18 hour's to 4 hours in less than 20 minutes, VMware, running along with Safari, Mail, Contacts, i Photo, web services. He said take it back that's not good and you should return it.

Go into buy a new pair of headphones and the manager saw me and said they figured it out and that the next update should fix / display the proper numbers.
They took back 8 15" rMBP's yesterday.

The gfx program worked great, and the coconut battery program was good for information also.

Its frustrating for sure, the boot up and shut times are fast and slow according to the genius's because of all the drivers they have to load

Good Luck

shadow82x said:

So I have a few days to return/swap my macbook as its still under the return policy. But my issue here is my battery life is awful. I'm at 89% now, half brightness, and its estimating 4 hours of battery life. All I have open is chrome (on intergrated graphics) and gfxcardstatus. That's it! Do you guys think I should try to return it for a new device before its too late? When I had the 2012 macbook and I first got it, it estimated 10 hours around this time, not 4. Nor is 4 even close to the advertised 8 hours.


I have posted additional images/stat pics up at https://discussions.apple.com/message/24682078#24682078

I've also tried a smc reset and pram.

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PRAM/NVRAM has nothing to do with battery/power/charging issues. Resetting it will not help. Only resetting the SMC addresses such issues.

The "time remaining" indication is an ever-changing estimate, based on the current workload of your system. It will fluctuate up and down from minute to minute as your power demands change. It is not perfectly accurate, but only an estimate. The only true measure of battery life is to fully charge your battery, then measure the time while you run on battery under your normal workload until your Mac shuts down/sleeps from the battery being drained. There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life. The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

shadow82x said:

That includes standby time.

And my actual battery time is accurate according to those estimates. It's draining pretty darn fast for no particular reason.

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So it went from 100% to 75% in a few minutes of use?

shadow82x said:

That includes standby time.

And my actual battery time is accurate according to those estimates. It's draining pretty darn fast for no particular reason.

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What is your system configuration?

Also what you have in the screen shot is what I was seeing on monday when I had Applecare on the phone, that's when they said take it back.

Any updates?

shadow82x said:

So I have a few days to return/swap my macbook as its still under the return policy. But my issue here is my battery life is awful. I'm at 89% now, half brightness, and its estimating 4 hours of battery life. All I have open is chrome (on intergrated graphics) and gfxcardstatus. That's it! Do you guys think I should try to return it for a new device before its too late? When I had the 2012 macbook and I first got it, it estimated 10 hours around this time, not 4. Nor is 4 even close to the advertised 8 hours.


I have posted additional images/stat pics up at https://discussions.apple.com/message/24682078#24682078

I've also tried a smc reset and pram.

Click to expand...

I'd reccomend checking activity monitor for any CPU craving processes, and also why use chrome and not safari?, when apple says 8 hours of web browsing they mean safari.

Have you run any terminal commands to see your cycle count and charge capacity?

shadow82x said:

I've ran coconut battery. The results are below:

Cycle count is 17. Doesn't seem like coconut battery is entirely accurate though since I get different "design capacities" every time. Before it was saying 99% and now its saying I have above a 100% capacity.

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That info is the same you'd get from terminal and all looks good.

I would recommend a fresh install of mavericks.

I just got a new 13 mbp yesterday.

Seems my battery life is not good. It is at 95% and says I have 4:05 remaining.

Is that normal or low?

I am in a similar situation. Top tier 15" rMBP, 2.3, 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM, dGPU. Battery shows about 4 hours on full charge. I have until Monday to return. Similar to you I have been using chrome. Can't imagine chrome would reduce the estimated battery life in half, but I will try switching to safari or firefox this weekend. I really do not want to return or have to go back to the apple store. Other than this issue the machine runs flawlessly but half the estimated battery life is not acceptable IMO

Everybody appears to be relying on the estimated battery life, and not posting the ACTUAL battery life.

Barney