2010 MBP Battery Life

[movieboy23]

Hey everyone,

I've got a Mid-2010 15" MBP 2.66 i7 and I continue to experience short battery life with my machine. I can never get more than 4 hrs out of the machine, with bluetooth off, browsing non-flash sites and screen brightness at 50%. With the screen brightness at 65% and using Final Cut, my battery drops to a piss poor 1:30.

I tried taking the machine into the Apple Store but they were super unhelpful and said that the best they could do would be to take my machine for a week and test the battery.

I know that my battery life is obviously going to be affected by the fact that I've got two hard drives in it, but when I'm trying to maximize the time out of my battery, I don't access anything on the secondary drive so as to keep it spun down. At that point, it's only my SSD on. Also, while my cycle count, as you'll see below, is pretty low, I recalibrate the battery every month and still I get no improvement.

I know that my battery life isn't supposed to be 9 hours, but if I could even manage a mere 5:15, 5:30, I'd be happy.

Below are the stats on my battery charge capacity:
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 6352
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 6417
Health Information:
Cycle count: 82
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 380
Voltage (mV): 12578

Any help is greatly appreciated. Alternatively, if you have some advice on how to coerce a genius into replacing a MBP battery, I'd take that too.

Thanks.

 

[nufanec]

Doesn't look like you've got anything wrong with your battery. Holding the correct level of charge. 2 HDs hammers battery life. That is all. From my testing it makes the battery drain about 30% faster.

 

[movieboy23]

I guess I'm also concerned since most 2010 MBPs have a full charge capacity up around 6900, 7000 while mine is down at 6400. Any thoughts?

 

[treestar]

your battery's stats all check out and it doesn't sound like there is any problem with it.

it's too hopeful to think that because you are not accessing your secondary drive that it isn't drawing significant power.

i think your results while running final cut are as to be expected. if you are doing this kind of work just connect the power supply.

i expect you have a lot of background processes running that you aren't considering. check the activity monitor to see what the cpu usage is like. also, unless you are using a flash blocker, you probably are running flash from sites. flash gets used a lot for things other than video. sometimes it's ads, menus, and et cetera. get ClickToFlash and BashFlash.

i have a 2010 13" mbp and 200 cycles through my battery. with attention to my usage and occasionally checking the activity monitor, i can run half the day off battery. i think having a solid state drive would help a lot, but you still have a disk drive as well. i use ClickToFlash and i think it makes the biggest difference. my computer never runs hot and hardly makes a peep.

i think your battery is fine and the apple employees realized you didn't have a problem. if you aren't sure, i would take their offer and let them test your computer. maybe they would actually find something wrong and that's about the only way you'd see them replacing your battery. though, i think you should leave the nice people alone.

 

[treestar]

I guess I'm also concerned since most 2010 MBPs have a full charge capacity up around 6900, 7000 while mine is down at 6400. Any thoughts?

are you aware that charge capacity degrades over time? my charge capacity is down to 5187. keep up the good work recalibrating your battery and make sure it charges and discharges regularly.

 

[movieboy23]

@treestar Of course I'm aware that charge capacity degrades over time. Just didn't think it'd go down this quickly.

As for the rest of it, I guess I'm just obsessing over it for no reason. I'll continue to recalibrate it regularly until the next gen redesign of the MBP when I'll sell it and upgrade.

 

[GGJstudios]

As for the rest of it, I guess I'm just obsessing over it for no reason. I'll continue to recalibrate it regularly until the next gen redesign of the MBP when I'll sell it and upgrade.

You only need to calibrate it every 30-60 days. Calibration doesn't affect your battery's health; it only makes your readings more accurate. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[sydenham]

I am getting about the same with my 2010 15 2.66. I don't think I get above 4 hours either. It could be flash...

 

[mario.jr]

Im getting low battery time too in my mid 2010 corei5.
Battery is fine according coconut.
Just web surfing and Im having 60% in 2hs
Bright is 8, idle most of the time. Is that right? My C2D mbp battery was 90% of its life and i was getting 6..to 6:30 hs
Is that normal?

 

[diamond.g]

Install gfxCardStatus to see if your dGPU is turned on. That, for me, shortens my battery life in half.

 

[macmikey2]

I see about 6 hours on my 15" Mid 2010 i7 2.66. It seems pretty normal for me and I just use it for idiot crap, photo editing, mostly silly stuff.
Only 1 HD in it
Here are my stats (MBP is only about a week old):

Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 7056
Fully Charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 7056
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 9
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 307
Voltage (mV): 12572