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2011 11" air - battery drain when off?

D

douggnz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 26, 2011
9
0
I am seeing about 10% drain in battery when the machine has been shutdown and left off over night. Is this normal?

I went to bed at 10pm last night and the battery was 51%. I turned it on this morning at 10am which is 12 hours later and it was down to 41%. Is this normal? I didnt put it to sleep I shut it down completely so a full boot took place.

I shut it down from within Windows 7 bootcamp if this makes any difference? Is something not being shut off at shutdown? I will have to test from within OS X too.

I'm finding battery life on the 11" air to be really bad if I'm honest :(
 
douggnz said:
I am seeing about 10% drain in battery when the machine has been shutdown and left off over night. Is this normal?

I went to bed at 10pm last night and the battery was 51%. I turned it on this morning at 10am which is 12 hours later and it was down to 41%. Is this normal? I didnt put it to sleep I shut it down completely so a full boot took place.

I shut it down from within Windows 7 bootcamp if this makes any difference? Is something not being shut off at shutdown? I will have to test from within OS X too.

I'm finding battery life on the 11" air to be really bad if I'm honest :(
Click to expand...

The battery life is poor in comparison to the 2010 model, based on my experience. Unfortunate, since the specs don't really make it feel much "snappier" to be a good trade-off. I too notice the battery drain when closed, whereas that did NOT happen with my 2010 model. I didn't have Lion on my 2010 long enough to know if the issue was the hardware or the software that was causing the drain, so I can only assume it's hardware on the 2011. Hopefully Apple will patch it, but as quick as the boot up is I just shut down at night as a temporary solution.
 
Thats the thing, I'm not putting it to sleep. I am physically turning it off hence the shock at losing battery life when turned off. I could possily understand it if it was put to sleep but physically turning it off should surely use no battery?

Apple claim you can leave it in deep sleep for a month but if Im seeing 10% drain overnight then that will only last 10 days when turned off let alone in deep sleep!
 
I have a 13" 2011 Ultimate and I notice a slight battery drain of about 2-3% overnight if I let it sleep. No power drain if it's powered down.

And I may be in the minority here, but my battery life in the 2011 is *far better* than my 2010 13" Ultimate. By almost an hour. I was getting about 5.5 to 6 hours on a charge and I'm easily getting 7 now. I also have a lot less heat than the 2010 model.
 
Bump. The other day, I turned off my Air with about 52% battery life knowing I wouldn't need to use it for a few days.

Today, I tried to power it on, but it wouldn't start. Pressing the power button did nothing. This worried me. I plugged in my charger, then it powered up. When it booted, the battery was at 0%.

Not sure what happened here...

Anybody else experience this? Is this an indication of a bad battery? Or any other sort of failure?

It's a 13" base 2011 Air gotten around... August 2011.
 
onthecouchagain said:
Bump. The other day, I turned off my Air with about 52% battery life knowing I wouldn't need to use it for a few days.

Today, I tried to power it on, but it wouldn't start. Pressing the power button did nothing. This worried me. I plugged in my charger, then it powered up. When it booted, the battery was at 0%.

Not sure what happened here...

Anybody else experience this? Is this an indication of a bad battery? Or any other sort of failure?

It's a 13" base 2011 Air gotten around... August 2011.
Click to expand...

I have the same model as you, bought about the same time. I routinely turn mine off at night, rather than sleep. It was at 99% last night and it was at 99% when I turned it on this morning. I do lose 1-2% overnight if I choose sleep.

It I had your experience I would definitely take it in to be checked.
 
I am currently "testing" it again. Last night, I recharged it back to about 52%, shut it down (made sure it was shut down and not asleep)... and today, when I get home from work, I will turn it back on to see how the battery looks. Will make a decision then. Will post results.

In the mean time, checking my Power status yesterday, everything indicates the battery is normal and healthy. Not sure what's the problem. Hopefully it's a non-issue. Will know tonight...
 
Do you have anything connected to the laptop via USB or thunderbolt?

I never power down my laptop, i just close the lid and let it sleep.

If you have USB / thunderbolt devices attached the battery will drain at around 1% per hour i reckon. It's normally about 10% overnight.

However, if it is sleeping and everything is unplugged, it goes into hibernation and losses around 2-3% overnight instead.

Even if it is powered down, perhaps the USB devices are drawing some power??
 
also have you checked

onthecouchagain said:
I am currently "testing" it again. Last night, I recharged it back to about 52%, shut it down (made sure it was shut down and not asleep)... and today, when I get home from work, I will turn it back on to see how the battery looks. Will make a decision then. Will post results.

In the mean time, checking my Power status yesterday, everything indicates the battery is normal and healthy. Not sure what's the problem. Hopefully it's a non-issue. Will know tonight...
Click to expand...

Hi

have you checked the brightness (computer and keyboard), WiFi and bluetooth? Thanks to other folks here, I just learned these are a huge drain on the battery. I keep the keyboard unlit and brightness as low as possible. Bluetooth is off and I shut the WiFi off when I am not using the machine.

Last night I put the machine to sleep at 25% after doing these and when I checked this morning the battery was still at 25%.

good luck.
 
kazmac said:
Hi

have you checked the brightness (computer and keyboard), WiFi and bluetooth? Thanks to other folks here, I just learned these are a huge drain on the battery. I keep the keyboard unlit and brightness as low as possible. Bluetooth is off and I shut the WiFi off when I am not using the machine.

Last night I put the machine to sleep at 25% after doing these and when I checked this morning the battery was still at 25%.

good luck.
Click to expand...

His problem isnt that he is drawing too much power.


Also, I suspect it either failed to sleep, or hand something that draws USB power connected.
 
I left my Air inside a sleeve; nothing was plugged in.

I'm guessing it somehow went to sleep instead of shut down too. But that can't be the sole culprit, because even in sleep for a few days, the battery shouldn't drain from 50% to zero (to the point that it wouldn't power on until I plugged the charger in). I'm guessing it had to be some runaway app or program that prevented it from sleeping properly.

Thanks for the responses. I'll find out the moment I get home. Stay tuned.
 
So just booted up my Air. I'm on it now in fact. Battery life is reading 49%. So that's a 3% drop from 52% overnight with the Air completely powered off, nothing connected.

Is this more normal? I didn't realize the battery would drain even when the machine was completely off. Is this normal of laptops in general?
 
onthecouchagain said:
So just booted up my Air. I'm on it now in fact. Battery life is reading 49%. So that's a 3% drop from 52% overnight with the Air completely powered off, nothing connected.

Is this more normal? I didn't realize the battery would drain even when the machine was completely off. Is this normal of laptops in general?
Click to expand...

I lose a few % overnight when sleeping, but I've never shut it down completely. I will try it tonight. Are you 100% sure you aren't closing the lid before it shuts completely down?

Also - to everyone having sleep problems - Are you running BetterTouchTool? It will mess with your sleep. I had to download Please Sleep (http://www.dragonone.com/products/macosx/pleasesleep/) to get it to properly sleep and run BetterTouchTool at the same time.
 
Sean Dempsey said:
I lose a few % overnight when sleeping, but I've never shut it down completely. I will try it tonight. Are you 100% sure you aren't closing the lid before it shuts completely down?
Click to expand...


Yes. When I did my test, I made sure the Air was completely off before closing the lid. I know also cause I had to boot up normally with the power button tonight.

Please let us know what you find out. Would love others to try shutting down their Airs too to see what battery percentage drain there is, if any.
 
pretty sure thats normal.

you will lose about 2% or so when it is shut down.

also tip, when leaving the machine off for long periods of time, don't have it completely drained and don't have it at 100%, go for 30%
 
pieuk said:
also tip, when leaving the machine off for long periods of time, don't have it completely drained and don't have it at 100%, go for 30%
Click to expand...
That's not necessary. You can leave it off for quite a while, regardless of how much charge is on the battery. If you're storing it for 5 months or more, leave about 50% charge on the battery. Less than that, it doesn't matter. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:
 
ah I see...

onthecouchagain said:
I left my Air inside a sleeve; nothing was plugged in.

I'm guessing it somehow went to sleep instead of shut down too. But that can't be the sole culprit, because even in sleep for a few days, the battery shouldn't drain from 50% to zero (to the point that it wouldn't power on until I plugged the charger in). I'm guessing it had to be some runaway app or program that prevented it from sleeping properly.

Thanks for the responses. I'll find out the moment I get home. Stay tuned.
Click to expand...

I noticed after I fully charged and put mine asleep in the sleeve it lost about 1-2% an hour with everything either shut off or turned down to the lowest it could.

When I shut down again, I'll report back.
 
Bob Coxner said:
2011 13". As I wrote earlier, I routinely shut mine down at night and I don't see any battery drain the next day when I boot up.
Click to expand...


Thanks. Anyone else? Seemed like a few more people were going to test their Airs.

I feel I'm not out of the woods yet, so to speak. Although it didn't drain completely during my second test, the fact that it drained 3% (from 52 to 49%) while it was off over a night is a little alarming.
 
onthecouchagain said:
Thanks. Anyone else? Seemed like a few more people were going to test their Airs.

I feel I'm not out of the woods yet, so to speak. Although it didn't drain completely during my second test, the fact that it drained 3% (from 52 to 49%) while it was off over a night is a little alarming.
Click to expand...

Yes it is and you should have Apple check it out. They're the best ones to diagnose your issue.
 
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