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10.10.3 Battery Life Reduced on Macbook Air

R

RobbyIdol

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 20, 2012
248
185
Just updated to 10.10.3 and the first I notice is an intense battery drain. My fully charged 2014 Macbook Air, which normally displays 13-15 hours of remaining battery life at this point, is sitting at 5-6 hours. The life % has dropped from 98 to 92% in the last hour. This is REALLY unnatural for my relatively new Macbook Air, purchased in Dec 2014.

Anyone else noticing battery issues on the new update?
 
RobbyIdol said:
Just updated to 10.10.3 and the first I notice is an intense battery drain. My fully charged 2014 Macbook Air, which normally displays 13-15 hours of remaining battery life at this point, is sitting at 5-6 hours. The life % has dropped from 98 to 92% in the last hour. This is REALLY unnatural for my relatively new Macbook Air, purchased in Dec 2014.

Anyone else noticing battery issues on the new update?
Click to expand...

Yes, 100%. Mine's a little older (Aug 2013), but I've definitely taken a hit.
 
RobbyIdol said:
Just updated to 10.10.3 and the first I notice is an intense battery drain.
Click to expand...

Many such updates trigger Spotlight, Time Machine, iCloud sync or similar activity that causes a lot of cpu and therefore battery drain immediately after the upgrade. Several days after the update I am noticing consistently better better life (by approx 0.5-0.75hrs on 4.5hrs before).

If you are concerned simply look in the activity monitor, cpu tab and see what is actually using your cpu, better than guessing...
 
simonsi said:
Many such updates trigger Spotlight, Time Machine, iCloud sync or similar activity that causes a lot of cpu and therefore battery drain immediately after the upgrade. Several days after the update I am noticing consistently better better life (by approx 0.5-0.75hrs on 4.5hrs before).

If you are concerned simply look in the activity monitor, cpu tab and see what is actually using your cpu, better than guessing...
Click to expand...

I will check on that later, thank you for the tip. I assumed it would be a clean slate (i.e.- no programs running that I didn't start myself) since I rebooted a couple times. Maybe the update triggers those things to stay on until otherwise turned off?
 
Update: Checked if Time Machine or other apps were running and using excessive CPU; nothing was wrong. Looks like 10.10.3 has currently tanked my battery life in half for no reason. :(
 
RobbyIdol said:
Update: Checked if Time Machine or other apps were running and using excessive CPU; nothing was wrong. Looks like 10.10.3 has currently tanked my battery life in half for no reason. :(
Click to expand...

It will show in the activity monitor cpu tab, have you looked? Post a screenshot if you want help...
 
I'm with you all - my battery life on a 2012 MacBook Air and 2013 MacBook Pro is awful.

I've upgraded days ago, yet still see some kernel_task continually sucking ~15% of my cpu at all times.

I'm not sure what that is - but I'll leave my laptop on while I try to determine if usage of one of these 3rd party tools is an issue:
- flux
- dropbox
- evernote
- 1password
- macid

Whatever is wrong - it's bad to be on battery.
 
louden said:
I'm with you all - my battery life on a 2012 MacBook Air and 2013 MacBook Pro is awful.

I've upgraded days ago, yet still see some kernel_task continually sucking ~15% of my cpu at all times.

I'm not sure what that is - but I'll leave my laptop on while I try to determine if usage of one of these 3rd party tools is an issue:
- flux
- dropbox
- evernote
- 1password
- macid

Whatever is wrong - it's bad to be on battery.
Click to expand...

And I'm assuming prior to 10.10.3 you had what you considered to be good battery life for your machine?
 
Also seeing this issue.

I know it's just a guide, but on 10.10.2 a full charge would easily show an estimate of 12-13 hours and it would actually last that too.

Now it won't estimate any higher than 9:27 on 10.10.3

8LvJvOu.png
 
peckerhead said:
Also seeing this issue.

I know it's just a guide, but on 10.10.2 a full charge would easily show an estimate of 12-13 hours and it would actually last that too.

Now it won't estimate any higher than 9:27 on 10.10.3

Image
Click to expand...

I wish that my Macbook Pro (early 2011) would display me the same usage time as yours... Yosemite really killed my battery, the movericks (or however it is called) was in my opinion much better.
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
Try an installation without 1Password and without dropbox! Still the same (lower) battery life!?
Click to expand...

I can turn those off and there's still an issue.

I'm further convinced there's an issue because:
- this wasn't an issue prior to 10.10.3
- this is happening on two different laptops (2011 MBA/late 2013 MBP)
- i see a "kernel_task" in activity monitor that's always 15-20% of a cpu
- both machines 'run a little hotter' doing the things I do
- - bunch of iterm sessions
- - evernote
- - a few browser tabs
- - xcode

Something isn't right (IMO)
 
Wierd, I noticed a step down in temp and a 10-15% increase in battery duration when I put 10.10.3 on vs 10.10.2

Clearly 10.10.3 has an ability to be more energy efficient but is sensitive to...something.

I have transparency turned off from previous battery life concerns with 10.10.1 and 10.10.2...?

BTW I am still running Airmail, Capture One, Safari, Wunderlist, Dropbox, OneNote, OmniFocus, OneDrive sync, Lync, Preview plus other applets like Freespace, Battery Guard, Bartender etc etc as before...

kernel_task and window_server both tick over at about 3-5% each...
 
louden said:
I can turn those off and there's still an issue.

I'm further convinced there's an issue because:
- this wasn't an issue prior to 10.10.3
- this is happening on two different laptops (2011 MBA/late 2013 MBP)
- i see a "kernel_task" in activity monitor that's always 15-20% of a cpu
- both machines 'run a little hotter' doing the things I do
- - bunch of iterm sessions
- - evernote
- - a few browser tabs
- - xcode

Something isn't right (IMO)
Click to expand...

OK - replying to my own message -

I'm thinking Chrome is the issue - Because I just moved to Opera, and those issues seem to have gone away...
 
louden said:
OK - replying to my own message -

I'm thinking Chrome is the issue - Because I just moved to Opera, and those issues seem to have gone away...
Click to expand...

Chrome is definitely a known resource hog which will lead to excessive battery drain, but it would have been the same before 10.10.3...
 
simonsi said:
Chrome is definitely a known resource hog which will lead to excessive battery drain, but it would have been the same before 10.10.3...
Click to expand...

Maybe, maybe not.

I remember when I was using a Yosemite Beta (after wwdc last year) - Chrome was out of control. Once Yosemite released, that issue seems to have went away.

Now with 10.10.3 and regular channel Chrome - We're back at that resource hog level.

There's an article from the verge about it: http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/10/8381447/chrome-macbook-battery-life

While Chrome is more bloated, if the playing field is changing under Google's feet, that might be the result of Apple's changes to the OS.

All I know is - my laptops are back to running cool...
 
louden said:
Now with 10.10.3 and regular channel Chrome - We're back at that resource hog level....All I know is - my laptops are back to running cool...
Click to expand...

I never have used Chrome so that isn't the reason for the step-down I saw 10.10.2 to 10.10.3...
 
battery life

My 2014 Macbook air 13 inch has definitely taken a hit on battery life after the 10.10.3 update. I used to get 13 hours of battery life before, now I hardly get more than 8. I don't use chrome and I don't have any background processes running.
 
zosokm said:
My 2014 Macbook air 13 inch has definitely taken a hit on battery life after the 10.10.3 update. I used to get 13 hours of battery life before, now I hardly get more than 8. I don't use chrome and I don't have any background processes running.
Click to expand...

Same here. I don't use Chrome or have any major 3rd party apps running, like Dropbox or whatever. It's basically an out of the box laptop. I use Safari for web browsing, and usually close out any applications that aren't in use. 10.10.3 has taken a major hit to my battery. Will be getting in touch with Apple's support hotline about this soon.

The #1 reason I bought the 13" Macbook Air was the 12+ hour battery life. If I'm back down to a 7-8 battery with the OS update, that's unacceptable.
 
MBA 13" mid 2013
12 hours battery life a few hours after upgrade to 10.10.3

----------

Btw... That's with Dropbox going nuts in the background
 
UPDATE:

Spoke to Apple Care on the phone, they troubleshooted the battery issue with me. Didn't seem to have any specific knowledge of this being a common problem, but we ended up reinstalling the OS which took about an hour. I would say the battery is running better now, but it still feels slightly weaker than it was just a week ago on 10.10.2.

So if you're struggling with battery life on 10.10.3, try to reinstall the OS and see if that helps. Apparently there can be a "bad" install that causes issues like this.
 
RobbyIdol said:
"Didn't seem to have any specific knowledge of this being a common problem"...."Apparently there can be a "bad" install that causes issues like this."
Click to expand...

Frankly just sound's like tech waffle. A re-install always tidies up any loose/rogue code that has got into the installation that may be behaving badly...
 
Okay, so Update #2:

The battery health seems to be back to normal. Still not getting a 13+ hour projected battery life on 100% charge like I used to, but at least it's not draining at a rapid rate anymore.

However a new issue --

The % remaining doesn't update naturally anymore. It will sit at 100% or whatever the last update was until I turn off the 'Show Percentage' feature and then turn it back on. It will then update with the actual % of battery life remaining.

Guess I should re-re-install the OS? Ugh, so frustrating. Wish I just stuck with 10.10.2.
 
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