Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Battery Life on Haswell 15" rmbp

S

sabbyp

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 26, 2013
139
1
hey guys,

i'm running the top spec haswell 15" rmbp, and finding the battery life much lower than advertised.

I should note that I previously owned a mid-2012 15" rmbp and had some issues with the battery life that slightly extended over time, but never got more than 4-4.5 hours on a single charge.

I've had the laptop for two days now and cycled the battery 3 times, right now it's at 100% and displaying 3hrs 40min remaining.

I'm only running safari, display is at 100% brightness, keyboard backlighting is off and graphics switching is on meaning the iris pro is running (not the 750m).

Really hope it improves, how are you guys finding yours?
 
sabbyp said:
hey guys,

i'm running the top spec haswell 15" rmbp, and finding the battery life much lower than advertised.

I should note that I previously owned a mid-2012 15" rmbp and had some issues with the battery life that slightly extended over time, but never got more than 4-4.5 hours on a single charge.

I've had the laptop for two days now and cycled the battery 3 times, right now it's at 100% and displaying 3hrs 40min remaining.

I'm only running safari, display is at 100% brightness, keyboard backlighting is off and graphics switching is on meaning the iris pro is running (not the 750m).

Really hope it improves, how are you guys finding yours?
Click to expand...

Most battery tests use 65% brightness. 100% is a big drain I believe. Try lowering it to like 70% and see if the time increases a lot
 
I've managed to get 8:25 - 9.24 on wifi , brightness lower, keyboard dim.

It was less but I hunted down dropbox was sucking ma from the system.

I really recommend istatmenus and putting the battery icon in the menu bar and you can see the drain on the battery and what's draining it along with the new Mavericks activity monitor energy usage.

I do have a gripe that we have a gorgeous retina screen have to dim it to get battery life.


Full brightness and keyboard lights, with wifi same about 7 - 8 hours.

I'm convinced you have to be more 'hawkish' on apps then hardware.

Just my thoughts.
 
sabbyp said:
hey guys,

i'm running the top spec haswell 15" rmbp, and finding the battery life much lower than advertised.

I should note that I previously owned a mid-2012 15" rmbp and had some issues with the battery life that slightly extended over time, but never got more than 4-4.5 hours on a single charge.

I've had the laptop for two days now and cycled the battery 3 times, right now it's at 100% and displaying 3hrs 40min remaining.

I'm only running safari, display is at 100% brightness, keyboard backlighting is off and graphics switching is on meaning the iris pro is running (not the 750m).

Really hope it improves, how are you guys finding yours?
Click to expand...

The real question is how the hell have you had your haswell top spec for 2 days? By top spec, do you mean 15"/2.6Ghz/16GB?
 
I only got around 5-6 hours on my first charge. I stopped using Chrome and can now get over 10+ regularly. I'm not sure if the first day was an anomaly but dropping that browser seems to have made a huge difference. I kept brightness the same which is around 75%. From now on I'm only using browsers other than safari when I'm plugged in or need flash.
 
I can get around 10 hours safari browsing with low brightness and keyboard backlight.
 
jgbr said:
I've managed to get 8:25 - 9.24 on wifi , brightness lower, keyboard dim.

It was less but I hunted down dropbox was sucking ma from the system.

I really recommend istatmenus and putting the battery icon in the menu bar and you can see the drain on the battery and what's draining it along with the new Mavericks activity monitor energy usage.

I do have a gripe that we have a gorgeous retina screen have to dim it to get battery life.


Full brightness and keyboard lights, with wifi same about 7 - 8 hours.

I'm convinced you have to be more 'hawkish' on apps then hardware.

Just my thoughts.
Click to expand...

Mine calculated the battery to last 14 hours, and as I wasn't using constantly its hard to say how long the battery really lasted, but it did last me two days!
 
I got the 13" still i get >14 hours on medium low brightness and safari 5tabs and some other stuff running.
 
sarakn said:
The real question is how the hell have you had your haswell top spec for 2 days? By top spec, do you mean 15"/2.6Ghz/16GB?
Click to expand...

I bought it directly from the apple store fifth avenue on friday. I knew i'd be in for a wait ordering it online but figured i'd go down there on the off chance and what do you know, they had 2 in stock that obviously weren't showing up on the online store. It's the 2.6ghz haswell, 1tb drive, 16gig ram.

as mentioned there were no other apps open other than safari - under 4 hours at full brightness even seemed a little strange. I'll cycle the battery more this week and see how it goes - I was under the impression that the battery life on this model was slightly better than the one I had due to the cpu and mavericks, and so far that's not the case.

However i'm loving the machine other than that, incredibly fast running my music and video apps.
 
i've cycled the battery 3 more times now and it's not any better. currently at at 95% battery, my brightness is at 60%, only running safari and it's saying i've got 4:40 left

any ideas? think my machine is faulty?
 
sabbyp said:
hey guys,

i'm running the top spec haswell 15" rmbp, and finding the battery life much lower than advertised.

I should note that I previously owned a mid-2012 15" rmbp and had some issues with the battery life that slightly extended over time, but never got more than 4-4.5 hours on a single charge.

I've had the laptop for two days now and cycled the battery 3 times, right now it's at 100% and displaying 3hrs 40min remaining.

I'm only running safari, display is at 100% brightness, keyboard backlighting is off and graphics switching is on meaning the iris pro is running (not the 750m).

Really hope it improves, how are you guys finding yours?
Click to expand...

Can you play a 4K youtube video and see if the battery goes down even when its plugged in? Also, what are the temperatures?

----------
Domdog31 said:
9 hours yesterday no less than 8 yet
Click to expand...

Your probably using the 2.3 instead of the 2.6 processor?
 
sabbyp said:
i've cycled the battery 3 more times now and it's not any better. currently at at 95% battery, my brightness is at 60%, only running safari and it's saying i've got 4:40 left

any ideas? think my machine is faulty?
Click to expand...

Getting the similar results as you are. Disheartening :(
 
Sounds like tests were done with 2.3 and not 2.6.... maybe.... just maybe... get a 2.3 instead of 2.6?
 
I agree. Lower brightness setting and report back.

I'd need sunglasses if I was running at 100% :eek:
 
Is spotlight indexing? Look at the magnifying glass on the right side of the menu bar, does it have a little dot in the glass part?
 
I was consider getting the 2.6, but if the battery is struggling (which is expected with a faster CPU), I don't mind the 300Mhz downgrade. Could you report back soon? Please and thank you :)
 
thaifood said:
I agree. Lower brightness setting and report back.

I'd need sunglasses if I was running at 100% :eek:
Click to expand...

as i just mentioned, i've reduced my brightness down to 60% and there's little change

----------
Branskins said:
Is spotlight indexing? Look at the magnifying glass on the right side of the menu bar, does it have a little dot in the glass part?
Click to expand...

spotlight is not indexing, as I mentioned the only application/process running on the machine is safari, one tab open on this forum.
 
sabbyp said:
really? it's a brand new machine....
Click to expand...

Let me know if you plan to return and get a 2.3GHz because of battery life over speed... I think the best thing to do is wait and see if someone else with a 2.6 reports better (or worse). Or if there is a way to underclock it, which would be awesome (manual/auto set it at 2.6GHz when your plugged, 2.0GHz when your on battery)
 
Starfyre said:
Let me know if you plan to return and get a 2.3GHz because of battery life over speed... I think the best thing to do is wait and see if someone else with a 2.6 reports better (or worse). Or if there is a way to underclock it, which would be awesome (manual/auto set it at 2.6GHz when your plugged, 2.0GHz when your on battery)
Click to expand...

there shouldn't be an issue with it, the haswell is supposed to be better than ivy bridge for power consumption...and it's not in my case.

i'll keep it for another few days and if it's same i'll try to return it....
 
sabbyp said:
there shouldn't be an issue with it, the haswell is supposed to be better than ivy bridge for power consumption...and it's not in my case.

i'll keep it for another few days and if it's same i'll try to return it....
Click to expand...

The thing is, the the 2.6 is equivalent in power to the fastest quad core processor for Intel Core i7-3940XM, which is amazing in its own right. Can't really say you arn't getting what you paid for, though I agree it should be better... even at 7 hours at the very least.

----------
patrick001 said:
There was a guy in another thread who had the top specs like you but is getting around 11 hours. So.
Click to expand...

I hope there are more guys, and girls that are getting around 11 hours that share their experience. I would much prefer a 2.6 if it had decent battery life with its superspeed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back