2011 13" i5 Macbook Pro Battery Life Draining too fast?

[awdtrash]

I just bought a 2011 13" base model MBP yesterday and noticed that the battery life drains way too fast. I'm doing light web browsing and iChat (not using cam) on about half backlighting and it seems like the percentage is dropping every 5 miniutes... Am I being paranoid or what?? I even left the macbook on with the display on sleep and while downloading star craft 2 at 300kb per sec and it died 5 hours later when i came home. Is this normal??

 

[Kyzelios]

On average, how much total run time are you seeing performing these tasks?

 

[NZed]

can you please download CoconutBattery and check the battery capacity?

http://www.coconut-flavour.com/

 

[awdtrash]

it's at 100% capacity

 

[adnoh]

try calibrating the battery, check background programs

 

[iBieber]

I think you shouldn't worry about to much. It's normal that the percentage is changing constantly due the fact that it calculates the battery life according to the things your doing. I should calibrate it first, since it's a new MBP/new battery.

 

[mulo]

ichat can be very cpu intensive, especially if your doing screen sharing.

 

[ECUpirate44]

This can be helpful

This should answer most if not all of your battery questions. Compliments of GGJstudios. Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

 

[awdtrash]

i left my macbook on sleep last nite for 7hours and it dropped about 5-6% is that normal?

 

[elpmas]

i left my macbook on sleep last nite for 7hours and it dropped about 5-6% is that normal?

Don't worry about it...get iStat Pro =P

 

[ECUpirate44]

i left my macbook on sleep last nite for 7hours and it dropped about 5-6% is that normal?

Yes. 1-2% per hour while sleeping is normal.

 

[shoegal]

I'm a bit worried about my battery too. It's a 13" i7 two weeks old. Coconut says its on 96 % even after calibratring. When browsing and itunes percentage drops every 5 minutes. is this normal? does the percentage fluctuate in coconut?

 

[OldMacUser]

I'm a bit worried about my battery too. It's a 13" i7 two weeks old. Coconut says its on 96 % even after calibratring. When browsing and itunes percentage drops every 5 minutes. is this normal? does the percentage fluctuate in coconut?

Let's see now. A 1% drop every 5 mins means that you would get approximately 500 minutes use, which works out to 8.3 hours worth.

Pretty darn good if I may say so.

 

[Cyberheart]

I had the same problem leave it alone for about two weeks and it should get to normal battery life.. Dont download anything it would be a waste of space.. But istats is a good thing for the mac though.

 

[pullman]

A 1% drop every 5 mins means that you would get approximately 500 minutes use, which works out to 8.3 hours worth.

Pretty darn good if I may say so.

Yes, agree.

I'd turn off the percentage view if you find it stressful. Put it at number of minutes remaining instead.

If you're concerned about battery dropping when sleeping why not change the sleep mode? Or turn it off.

But don't forget batteries are made to be cycled to perform so discharging is a good thing.

 

[JPOWA]

I'm a bit worried about my battery too. It's a 13" i7 two weeks old. Coconut says its on 96 % even after calibratring. When browsing and itunes percentage drops every 5 minutes. is this normal? does the percentage fluctuate in coconut?

Was your battery at 96% before you calibrated it?

My new MBP 13" i7 now is at 101% capacity and the time seems pretty good. Right now 56% and 4:17 to go...

I'm afraid of calibrating my battery because i loosed capacity in the past (with my old MB 5,1) after calibrating it!

 

[shoegal]

Was your battery at 96% before you calibrated it?

My new MBP 13" i7 now is at 101% capacity and the time seems pretty good. Right now 56% and 4:17 to go...

I'm afraid of calibrating my battery because i loosed capacity in the past (with my old MB 5,1) after calibrating it!

yes happened AFTER calibrating

 

[redgaz26]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Mines too. Dropping a good 20% after say 45 minutes use. Only web browsing.

 

[shoegal]

Very unnerving. I got myself a mbp because thy seemed to en noisefree and have great battery life. Now I have a noisy HD AND my battery life is not that great. After three hours of on and off web sufing I'm in the forties!

 

[Smoother]

I don't know if I'm missing anything but 1% every 5th minute means more than 8 hours of battery life and Apple says 7?

 

[shoegal]

I don't know if I'm missing anything but 1% every 5th minute means more than 8 hours of battery life and Apple says 7?

huh... well forgive me. I'm just a nervous new MBP owner

 

[redgaz26]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Does flash through google chrome eat up ad much battery as having it installed on the hard drive? Or is it installed through chrome?

 

[wordoflife]

Was your battery at 96% before you calibrated it?

My new MBP 13" i7 now is at 101% capacity and the time seems pretty good. Right now 56% and 4:17 to go...

I'm afraid of calibrating my battery because i loosed capacity in the past (with my old MB 5,1) after calibrating it!

You don't lose capacity when calibrating it. It means that after you calibrated it, that is what you really had.

 

[shoegal]

You don't lose capacity when calibrating it. It means that after you calibrated it, that is what you really had.

which means that I really always had 96% capacity. that sucks..

 

[shoegal]

also should I drain the battery everytime or plug it in when it hits the 10-20%? I've been searching the forum but people recommend different things.