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2010 MacBook Pro Battery problems

D

DanzBurG

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 19, 2012
10
0
Hi everyone,

I'd like to start off by saying I've tried many solutions to fixing this problem and looked all over the internet.. The problem is that I have a 2010 MacBook Pro and on full charge I get at most 2 hours.. I was wondering if anyone has had the same or similar problem. Here is some of the information I've collected thus far:

coconut battery reads:

maximum/current charge 6282 mAh

design capacity: 6900 mAh

age of Mac 26months

battery loadcycles 392

condition is normal

battery temperature 31.5C

2.66 GHz i7, 8GB's of 1067MHz DDR3 RAM, 250gb Intel 520 SSD, WD 750GB 7200RPM HDD


I've been suggested to upgrade to Mountain Lion but after reading many reviews saying that that Mountain Lion in face gives worse battery life, I've decided to stick with Snow Leopard.

Any help is greatly appreciated and thanks in advance!
 
DanzBurG said:
The problem is that I have a 2010 MacBook Pro and on full charge I get at most 2 hours.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Yeah, stick with Snow Leopard for now.

Do you have the changing wallpaper setting on? That was the culprit when my mid-2010 MBP drained battery fast lol.
 
Nope, no changing wallpaper, my setup's pretty minimal, I mean I've tried quitting all unnecessary apps and running just chrome or word and I still get the 2 hours, under load I get like 1hour30... doesn't make sense to me..
 
You have Google Chrome running. That forces it into the nVidia video card which uses more power.

Secondly, you have both SSD and HDD, which drains battery more and faster if they're constantly being used.

What's your brightness setting? Are you using it with good wifi signal or no? Any USB connections, SD cards, etc.

I noticed, when I used an SSD, the system drains the battery around 4-5 hours with normal use. On a hard drive, I get 6-7 hours running the same brightness and background applications.
 
I have it where it auto switches video cards from the nvidia card to the intel based one. Also harddrive turning off if I'm not using it (in the settings). I'm not sure if it makes a difference or not but when I use to use my laptop when I first got it I had around like 8h's w/ firefox open and alot of other programs, but then again I had 4gb's back then and a 7200rpm drive only I usually use half brightness or less when not plugged in, when plugged I use close to full if not full. Wifi signal is strong, blue tooth is off, nothing plugged in via usb, no cards or anything. My cousin has the same configuration as me but he has the 2011 MBP, he has 8gb ram OWC data doubler w/ same 7200rpm WD black 750gb and an ssd but he gets amazing battery life still. He uses chrome as well.. he gets around 6-8h. We've tried to troubleshoot together but still no progress.. I reset the SMC and PRAM and it showed around 8h's but then went right back down to 2h's.

edit: werid, i just looked at istat and coconut battery along with the "about this mac" and the max charge is now 6064 mAh from the 6282 mAh I posted the other day.
 
Last edited:
DanzBurG said:
I have it where it auto switches video cards from the nvidia card to the intel based one. Also harddrive turning off if I'm not using it (in the settings). I'm not sure if it makes a difference or not but when I use to use my laptop when I first got it I had around like 8h's w/ firefox open and alot of other programs, but then again I had 4gb's back then and a 7200rpm drive only I usually use half brightness or less when not plugged in, when plugged I use close to full if not full. Wifi signal is strong, blue tooth is off, nothing plugged in via usb, no cards or anything. My cousin has the same configuration as me but he has the 2011 MBP, he has 8gb ram OWC data doubler w/ same 7200rpm WD black 750gb and an ssd but he gets amazing battery life still. He uses chrome as well.. he gets around 6-8h. We've tried to troubleshoot together but still no progress.. I reset the SMC and PRAM and it showed around 8h's but then went right back down to 2h's.

edit: werid, i just looked at istat and coconut battery along with the "about this mac" and the max charge is now 6064 mAh from the 6282 mAh I posted the other day.
Click to expand...

If you're using Chrome, it's going to use the nVidia card regardless if you have it auto set or not. It automatically sets it to nVidia.
 
DanzBurG said:
edit: werid, i just looked at istat and coconut battery along with the "about this mac" and the max charge is now 6064 mAh from the 6282 mAh I posted the other day.
Click to expand...

That's not strange at all. The battery charge and health will fluctuate up and down regularly. It's nothing to worry about.
 
ayeying said:
If you're using Chrome, it's going to use the nVidia card regardless if you have it auto set or not. It automatically sets it to nVidia.
Click to expand...

would using a different browser change this? like using firefox or safari? It's just a pain especially when I bring my laptop to take notes at school and it literally doesn't last one lecture.


Thanks for the quick replies everyone, it's greatly appreciated.
 
Could you post the output from the following command in terminal? It'll help see what's running at start up and the actual load of the machine:

ls -al /Library/Launch* /Library/StartupItems/ ~/Library/LaunchAgents/; uptime

Also, could you post the contents of the power section in System Profiler ( -> About this Mac -> More Info (Snow Leopard) OR More Info -> System Report (Lion/Mountain Lion)
 
bma said:
Could you post the output from the following command in terminal? It'll help see what's running at start up and the actual load of the machine:

ls -al /Library/Launch* /Library/StartupItems/ ~/Library/LaunchAgents/; uptime

Also, could you post the contents of the power section in System Profiler ( -> About this Mac -> More Info (Snow Leopard) OR More Info -> System Report (Lion/Mountain Lion)
Click to expand...

http://imgur.com/18Qjg

and

http://imgur.com/XVMSE

I'm not sure why paralells is popping up, I 'deleted' that off my computer quite some time ago, it's not running thats for sure.. atleast that I know of...

edit: at school now and i'm at 88% battery I've been using for literally like 10mins... 2:06 is battery reading time 1/4 brightness on and only chrome open. same stats with safari.
 
Last edited:
DanzBurG said:
would using a different browser change this? like using firefox or safari? It's just a pain especially when I bring my laptop to take notes at school and it literally doesn't last one lecture.


Thanks for the quick replies everyone, it's greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

I use Safari because it doesn't use the nVidia card. You have to quit Chrome and not just close the window to release it though.
 
ayeying said:
I use Safari because it doesn't use the nVidia card. You have to quit Chrome and not just close the window to release it though.
Click to expand...

Alright, I'll give safari a try for a bit and see if it makes any difference. I didn't know chrome did this. Thanks for the input :)
 
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