Terrible MacBook battery

[SuperShredder]

Batteries can have hardware issues, its not unheard of to have a hardware issues with your battery. However, the vast majority of users with low battery life times are software and usage related, especially when the battery is relatively new. Even if activity monitor is not showing something running heavily, there can still be bugs. You do have a lot of utilities running in your task bar, which could cause some battery issues. I'm not saying they definitely are, but that could be a reason.

If you want to resolve this issue once and for all, do what others have said many times.

Erase your computer and do a clean install of the OS. Run all system updates and I can almost guarantee you're battery life will go back to normal. If it doesn't, make a reservation at the Genius Bar and have a tech run a diagnostic on your battery. If it fails, they will replace it. If it does not, they will likely suggest a clean install, so it would be helpful to do the clean install before you go.

Just make sure you back it all up before you erase it

Also, GGJStudios isn't trying to prove you don't have a battery problem, he replies on almost all battery related threads because this type of thing pops up all the time. Most of the time it's not the battery and is software related. It would be nice if it was always as easy as looking in the activity monitor to tell what the issue is, but there are so many variables that it does not show the entire picture. He's just trying to point you in directions that may help rule out it being an issue with the battery hardware.

I know it's frustrating and I hope you get it figured out.

 

[David58117]

Do you have time machine running? Dropbox auto uploading?

 

[duervo]

Check your fan speeds. You said yourself that it's always been like this since you bought it (well, implied it in Post #31), which means if the fan(s) has(have) always been running at higher-than-normal speed, you wouldn't have anything to compare it to.

Fans running at high RPM would definitely cause a battery to discharge faster. It can be caused by a few things, but the first one which springs to mind is a possible faulty thermal sensor on the logic board.

 

[SammyDFG]

If you suspect the problem lies with your battery, rather than posting about it here (which won't fix it), take it to Apple and let them check it out.

posting may fix it, someone knowledgeable might know. since you offer nothing of value don't assume others can't

 

[maratus]

Get Intel power gadget (free), it displays actual CPU power consumption.
Since your machine uses HD4000, it will be taken into account as well. You can add other software to monitor battery drain (in amps/volts of course) to complement power gadget. You may also check console for GPU-related events.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-power-gadget-20

 

[tivoboy]

MUCH better

Just sick!

So, I have done a couple things in the past two days. I updated to 108.3 (or whatever the latest was) and the new SMC controller for the rMBP 15"..

I ALSO did a PRAM and SMC reset. I probably should have done these two large things seperately, maybe do the PRAM/SMC resets and tested, and then done the 10.8.3 and SMC FW update and then tested.

But, regardless. Since yesterday when I did this I have now been getting just EXTRAORDINARY battery life. I have done now about 4.5 hours (which is a typical TOTAL day) and my battery life still shows 65% remaining and about 4-5 hours remaining. Now, I don't think I will GET that much, but I am sure I am going to get 6-8 hours today, which would be JUST SICK! Best battery life of any laptop I have used.

I have not seen any performance degradation, so I don't know what is going on to enable this, reduction in CPU or GPU switching? I'd really like to know, how would I test that?

 

[deb6637]

Another Battery Story

I purchased 15inch macbook pro nov 2011 and about nov 2012 I started having similar battery drain issues like you kept wondering what the problem was...thought it was software related..usage etc... but then it got WORSE. About 2 months after the initial problems the battery would drain to 27% then the whole computer would just shut down. I would plug in and when it came back on date and time were wrong. The first time I called into Apple they told me it was software related and were pretty useless......they also said it was past warranty and TOO BAD SO SAD. I hung up frustrated then decided to call again. I got a new support person and explained to him that the problem started BEFORE the warranty was up and as I was talking to him I relayed information from the web about macbook pros defective battery problems...read to him verbatim from somewhere on their website or some apple related website I cant quite remember now. He quickly changed his tune and replaced the battery under the warranty. He actually did a good job troubleshooting and diagnosed it as a failed PRAM battery. They replaced the Pram battery and that took care of the problem ...life was good again(well after the messed up the logic board but thats another story for a different forum)...anyways not saying that this is your problem ..unless it starts randomly changing date and time..but maybe doing a little research on Apples batteries and being a little more pushy with them may help with the warranty issue....hey I pd enuf for the stupid thing and I dont care what your usage is the battery shouldn't fail so newly out of the box. If they want to stand behind their stellar product they should replace the battery ...maybe Cisco is taking over their warranty dept

 

[GGJstudios]

He actually did a good job troubleshooting and diagnosed it as a failed PRAM battery. They replaced the Pram battery and that took care of the problem

That's not a very good job of troubleshooting, since your MBP doesn't have a PRAM battery, so it's impossible for them to replace it.

 

[inlinevolvo]

To the OP. instead of attacking people for trying to help, why don't you take your comp to apple to get real help. We are simply judging your use by your perception of "everything is turned off". Just take your laptop in.