2019 13" - Poor Battery Life 8 months after replacing

[dawgfan]

My cycle count was high enough to have the battery replaced in Nov 2022. Cost for replacing had gone up since last time I had to do it, so the $200+ seems to have been a little in vain as the battery life 8 months later is worse than when the original battery was installed. Has anyone else had this issue? Seems I'd get at least the 3 years out of a new battery that I got out of the original. Very disappointed. I'd love to hear there's a recall or other way to remedy this.

 

[Fishrrman]

What kind of info does Coconut Battery give you?
Post a screenshot of the results.

 

[rpmurray]

Did you have the battery replaced by Apple, or did you use someone else or a third party battery?

 

[dawgfan]

Apple Store and they had to send it off to Apple.

 

[dawgfan]

 

[dawgfan]

 

[dawgfan]

Where did all of you go?

 

[h.gilbert]

Maybe try going back to the store and say it seems defective???

 

[Fishrrman]

I'm thinking that replacement batteries for laptops are kinda like cars and tires.
That is, when you buy replacement tires, they almost never last as long as did the tires "from the factory"...

(OP, do you have a mandolin?)

 

[ignatius345]

View attachment 2222547

CoconutBattery says you're discharging with over 21 watts. That seems high.

Go into Activity Monitor and see if something is running amok.

 

[Honza1]

Few points.
85% is low, but within Apple limits (80+%). They will consider this battery in working order and will not accept this as defective. Batteries usually stabilize at some level and live relatively long life there.

What is baffling is your battery use. You have used this battery for 8 months (~240 days) and have 266 cycles? That is more than one full charge-discharge cycle per day. And as ignatius345 noted, 21W discharge is significant for 13inch MBP. May be your use is loading the battery beyond Apple expectations and that is why batteries do not live under your use long enough.

If you need to use device so heavily on battery, I can recommend replacing this one with Mx MBP (if possible and yes, it is not cheap solution). Battery life of M1/M2 MBPs is much better and it is very likely battery will perform lot longer to your expectations.

 

[ignatius345]

As a troubleshooting step I'd suggest maybe making a brand new "vanilla" user account and logging into it.

- Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups > create a new user account.

- Restart and log into ONLY that account. Don't bother tying it to an Apple ID, just log in and start playing around in it and see how your battery looks in CoconutBattery (particularly the power draw). If it's normal, you probably have something in your main user account that's loading up and causing problems.

 

[ignatius345]

What is baffling is your battery use. You have used this battery for 8 months (~240 days) and have 266 cycles? That is more than one full charge-discharge cycle per day.

That does kind of make sense if the Mac is regularly drawing that much power and he's using it on battery a lot.

My M1 Air generally pulls ~5 watts in normal use, and as low as 2-3 watts if I've got the brightness down to about 50% and am just writing or watching a video. My previous 2020 Intel i5 Air would very frequently hit 10+ watts, fans blasting, if I did anything vaguely taxing. The Apple Silicon chips are truly a revelation.

 

[dawgfan]

I am using the 2 USB-C ports for a larger display and a charging cable. The charging cable stays plugged in, but the power is only turned on when it reaches about 20% or less if I am not paying close atention. Usually between 15-20 % is the lowest I allow before recharging. I only allow charging to 90% per an article I read. It would seem I am doing something wrong, but what? I am told to not allow full discharge or charging above 90%. Help?

 

[chrfr]

I am using the 2 USB-C ports for a larger display and a charging cable. The charging cable stays plugged in, but the power is only turned on when it reaches about 20% or less if I am not paying close atention. Usually between 15-20 % is the lowest I allow before recharging. I only allow charging to 90% per an article I read. It would seem I am doing something wrong, but what? I am told to not allow full discharge or charging above 90%. Help?

I’d probably use one of the battery maintenance utilities like Al Dente to keep the battery at around 70%, and keep the power plugged in most of the time. Ultimately there’s no guaranteed way to preserve the life of a battery but you’re definitely putting a lot of cycles on the battery with the way you’re using it.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

I suggest that you change your "charging practices", slightly.

1. When you recharge, go all the way up to 100%.
2. But... don't let it drop all the way to 20% before plugging in the charger -- I'll reckon 40-45% is the time for that.

 

[dawgfan]

OP:

I suggest that you change your "charging practices", slightly.

1. When you recharge, go all the way up to 100%.
2. But... don't let it drop all the way to 20% before plugging in the charger -- I'll reckon 40-45% is the time for that.

Should we also be charging our iphones to 100%. I read we should stop at 90% and trusted the source...

 

[chrfr]

Should we also be charging our iphones to 100%. I read we should stop at 90% and trusted the source...

I just use my devices and when/if they need new batteries, I get new batteries. The variables in battery lifespan are such that it's not worth micromanaging them.