Maybe something is running in the background and eats up all the energy? You should check for that with Activity Monitor.
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2013 11" Battery Life Thread (real world)
- Thread starter catalyst07
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Maybe something is running in the background and eats up all the energy? You should check for that with Activity Monitor.
So before we go deep into scenarios of a bad unit:
What are the battery/heat/fan issues reported so far for an i-7 in 11' ?
I have heard ONLY PRAISES and PRAISES so far for I-5 whereas I-7 is full of confused numbers, issues, heat etc....so far....
I haven't experienced any battery/heat/fan issues with my i7. The battery life is roughly equal to what's been reported for the i5. The computer is constantly cool to the touch during heavy use. The fans are never above idle (which is constant for all machines and silent).
The "confusion" is due to one persistent commentator's bad experience with a particular i7 machine, but it appears to be an outlier.
ROFL believe what you want to believe but please perform the same test I did and then let me know. I'm finishing installing ML on i5 and not fan at all, shocking.
I do want to have the most powerful machine (hey I've paid for it) but I also want to the best machine too.
Maybe someone with an i7 machine could do what curtoise is asking so we could definitively say if it's an issue with that particular machine? That would be pretty useful for everyone, actually.
I'm not going to reinstall my OS just to test. I don't care that much. Now when you said you got the fans to go nuts with Coda, Safari, iMessage and Screen Sharing running, I can confirm that I've run all those and more simultaneously and the machine didn't get hot and the fans didn't spin up.
Let me ask you this, did your i7 machine install the OS dramatically faster than the i5?
Edit: A full list of the apps I had running simultaneously, doing work (uploading, downloading, background updates, etc.):
- Coda 2
- MarsEdit
- Safari
- Reeder
- Messages
- Carousel
- TweetBot
- Wedge
- Screen Sharing
- ReadKit
I never said that the fan went crazy with those apps but if you care you should do the same tests before assuming anything about my machine or tests as I'm spending all this time trying to do test and share with everybody what is going on with the machines since last Saturday.
The fan went crazy with Mountain Lion installation (clan install from USB) and here are the results so far on i5 and i7
Installation time from USB on both machines
i7 = 48 minutes (fan going on like crazy)
i5 = 50 minutes (no fan at all)
Battery from start of installation to a complete install:
i7 = 65% at start and 27% at complete install = 38% battery loss.
i5 = 95% at start and 70% at complete install = 25% battery loss
I'll keep doing the left over tests.
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I never said that the fan went crazy with those apps but if you care you should do the same tests before assuming anything about my machine or tests
The fan went crazy with Mountain Lion installation (clan install from USB) and here are the results so far on i5 and i7
Installation time from USB on both machines
i7 = 48 minutes (fan going on like crazy)
i5 = 50 minutes (no fan at all)
Battery from start of installation to a complete install:
i7 = 65% at start and 27% at complete install = 38% battery loss.
i5 = 95% at start and 70% at complete install = 25% battery loss
I'll keep doing the left over tests.
Apple is probably hating you right about now.
@curtoise: Could you do a test under same conditions? I propose the following: Charge both laptops until they are 100%. Set screen brightness to 100% and sleep to 1 hour. Open Terminal and enter the following command: while true; do echo -n ""; done (The command does nothing, except repeating itself, thus producing cpu load). After one hour you compare the battery of both, while not running any other applications on them. That should make a comparable test. Starting at different battery capacities is known to produce different drainage.
No I will not do that.
I'm doing tests while working on the machines as I would normally do with any machine on any given workday at my office, that is the real battery life that I need to see, heat, fan, etc with actual real world use, of course other users can have different opinions and tests too, please do not buy or make decisions based on any of the tests here as every situation is different.
What is the purpose of saying Yes! I've got to play in loop dora de explorer song for 500.000 times until the battery died and lasted 20 hours?
I'm doing my real condition tests on battery and heat for my own purposes (and wallet)
I'm just sharing my journey here
Yeah, I think something easily reproducible on both machines would be best. Maybe close all apps and loop the same Youtube video for a couple hours in Safari, or something?
No I will not do that.
I'm doing tests while working on the machines as I would normally do with any machine on any given workday at my office, that is the real battery life that I need to see, heat, fan, etc with actual real world use, of course other users can have different opinions and tests too, please do not buy or make decisions based on any of the tests here as every situation is different.
What is the purpose of saying Yes! I've got to play in loop dora de explorer song for 500.000 times until the battery died and lasted 20 hours?
I'm doing my real condition tests on battery and heat for my own purposes (and wallet)
I'm just sharing my journey here
Yes but if you could do some kind of standardized test, I think it would help a lot of people. There are many people debating over getting the i5 vs i7, with the decision hinging upon how much the i7 really affects battery life.
We need to realize a few things. Apple itself used the i5 for battery life, and i7 for performance numbers. There's a reason why. A cpu that idles at 1.3(2.6) vs 1 that idles at 1.7(3.3) will certainly have different power draws. Throw in the smaller 11 inch chassis into the mix and I am sure the fans will turn on more/sooner with an i7.
I bet the i7/13 will have lesser fan rpm or wont have to turn on as frequently (because of the larger chassis) as the i7/11. Add the $150 to the mix and you can decide yourself what combination works best for you. We all have different usage models, and have a lot of configurations to choose from. For my usage model, the i7/13 or i5/11 is the best option.
I bet the i7/13 will have lesser fan rpm or wont have to turn on as frequently (because of the larger chassis) as the i7/11. Add the $150 to the mix and you can decide yourself what combination works best for you. We all have different usage models, and have a lot of configurations to choose from. For my usage model, the i7/13 or i5/11 is the best option.
Unfortunately I'm working on one of the machines, one day I test one, the next day I test the other.
I need to pay the bills. ( and I never can go back to my MBP now.)
Why not doing the test I proposed on one machine and then on the other consecutively?
Most people are asking for reproducable tests. You have dozens of variations in your setup: While you work you perfom different things. You start with different battery capacities, which is known to produce different results, because the drainage of the battery is not linear.
I never said that the fan went crazy with those apps but if you care you should do the same tests before assuming anything about my machine or tests as I'm spending all this time trying to do test and share with everybody what is going on with the machines since last Saturday.
The fan went crazy with Mountain Lion installation (clan install from USB) and here are the results so far on i5 and i7
Installation time from USB on both machines
i7 = 48 minutes (fan going on like crazy)
i5 = 50 minutes (no fan at all)
Battery from start of installation to a complete install:
i7 = 65% at start and 27% at complete install = 38% battery loss.
i5 = 95% at start and 70% at complete install = 25% battery loss
I'll keep doing the left over tests.
First of all, these were your exact words: "Now I have the i7 with Coda, Safari, iMessage and Screen sharing to a Mac mini on and then fan is going like crazy." You literally said the fan went crazy while running those apps.
Second, there's clearly something wrong. The i7 shouldn't get hotter and use more battery than the i5 doing the same task if it is only 4% faster at doing the task.
It seems that you've missed the I placed the i7 in clamshell mode attached to the Thunderbolt
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For those interested the i7 display is LP116WH4-TJA3 while the i5 is LTH116AT01A04
No, I didn't miss that. Closing the lid doesn't change what apps you were running when the fans went crazy.
You missed the Thunderbolt one.
I've worked all week with the i5 and thunderbolt and not issues, as soon as I placed the i7 on thunderbolt and started to do some real work the fan started to spin.
Not a fight buddy, I do not have time for right or wrong, I just shared my experience, now let's get back testing
For my entire battery drain/usage test, I got a pace of 7 hours 1 minute.
2013 MBA 11" i5 1.3/4GB/128GB
I had WiFi and Bluetooth both on, brightness at 10 dots and keyboard at 2 dots. Apps running during the entire actual-use testing were: Mail/Chrome/Messenger
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17438921/
2013 MBA 11" i5 1.3/4GB/128GB
I had WiFi and Bluetooth both on, brightness at 10 dots and keyboard at 2 dots. Apps running during the entire actual-use testing were: Mail/Chrome/Messenger
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17438921/
He does not seem to care about reproducability.
Therefore you can safely remove this thread from your bookmarks, you'll sleep quieter than.He does not seem to care about reproducability.
I do care about reproducibility of my own workflow and that's what I'm doing, I bought both machines with my own money to perform the tests and decide what I need.
As I've said before I'm sharing here what I'm learning in my journey. (sounds too biblical?)