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21 day old MBP i5 - woeful battery life, being returned to shop

few things :

Make sure you're "calibrating" the right way

i.e. :

step 1) Drain your battery completely, until it shuts down on you.

step 2) Wait a few hours (the longer the better IMO...2 to 5 works fine)

step 3) Plug in the magsafe

step 4) Let it charge until 100%, and then wait 2 more hours.

step 5) check your battery capacity (current). For example, my design capacity on my 15" i7 is 6900 mAh....my current capacity (just calibrated) is 6954 mAh.

User "Pax" mentioned checking the mA read, to see at what rate your battery is draining, it's a very easy way to check how things are doing.

Second thing, is to use a flash blocker for your browser. You really do not need all the little ads and random pop ups in flash...and when you do want to see the video/game/whatever, just click on it. That alone saves my battery hours.

Many people say "I'm only getting 4 hours doing 'casual web browsing' ". However their casual web browsing might be on a page where a flash ad is running...which just ruins it.

Third : Disable Bluetooth if you're not actively using it.

I'm getting great battery life, and loving it. I was able to watch a 2hr+ movie (using quicktime...not activating the nvidia card) and had about 5 to 6 hrs left of "regular" internet browsing.

However, finally : if it is manufacturing, I'm sorry to hear that :S Order it from Apple directly, perhaps?
 
Hm, I've been complaining a lot but actually things seem to be looking up. Im currently getting around 4 hours while the nvidia is activated using google chrome, installing parallels, and downloading two torrents. Not bad eh?
 
I'm getting worried reading all this. I just unboxed like 3 hours ago !

Doing my first calibration now.....

Coconut is showing :

Original battery capacity: 6900 mAh
Current BAttery Capacity: 6632 mAh

i have another hour more to charge . then gonna run it down as per the instructions. Guess i'll know the answer tom
 
dreven79 said:
I'm getting worried reading all this. I just unboxed like 3 hours ago !

Doing my first calibration now.....

Coconut is showing :

Original battery capacity: 6900 mAh
Current BAttery Capacity: 6632 mAh

i have another hour more to charge . then gonna run it down as per the instructions. Guess i'll know the answer tom
Click to expand...

You probably wont be happy with it if you think your iphone 3g has horrible battery life. Sure its bad for a smartphone but my 3gs runs all day long while i surf the web and play music. Turn your brightness down to about %30 and turn off wi-fi. I think my battery has only died on me once.
 
Having gone from the previous 15" MacBook Pro to the new one.. there is definitely a decrease in battery life.

I think it is the discrete GPU being on when it really isn't needed. If we had an option (without 3rd party hack) to solely use the Intel integrated graphics, then maybe we'd get better battery life.
 
What is the point of returning the MBPs? Do you think you'll actually get one capable of 8 hours? If not, then either ask for your money back, or enjoy your new laptop.

Asking for a new one is silly, IMO. You know you're not going to get it, so it's almost like you're trying to prove a point to yourself or Apple (as if they'd care), or you enjoy exposing yourself to repeated disappointment.


Pax said:
What are you guys seeing as battery current when your i5/i7 is idle?

Put display to 50% brightness, close all apps
Unplug Magsafe
Open System Profiler & navigate to the Power page
Look at the Amperage figure
Watch it for a couple of minutes, pressing ctrl-R every now and then to refresh
What's the average figure?

For my 13" C2D the idle figure is about -740 mA. That ties in perfectly with the advertised 7 hour battery life (740 mA * 7 hours = 5180 mAhr, about the capacity of the battery)

You guys with 4 hours battery, what is your idle Amperage figure?
Click to expand...


At my current usage, I'd get around 5 hours and 20 minutes on a full battery.

6948 mAh on a full battery (as stated in the "Power" section of my System Profiler. Divide that by my "Amperage", 1297 mA, and that's it.


I own a 15" 2.4 GHz i5 MBP,
WiFi on
Firefox on (5 tabs)
No Flash, no videos running (just 4 MR tabs, and 1 iGoogle)
No Bluetooth
Screen brightness slightly greater than half-brightness (1 or 2 blocks over)


It sucks that it isn't even 6 hours on my usage, which is extremely basic at this moment in time.

However, I'm happy with 5.5 hours of battery life. :) Generally, it's all I'd need on battery power under most circumstances, and on those days where it's actually not enough battery life for me, I'll just put up with the slight inconvenience like I always have before. It's not the end of the world, and I've never had it this good.
 
I'm 3 blocks down from full brightness and just word processing and surfing the (non-flash) internet. Telling me I have around 5-6 hours.

I know realistically, I'll get around 3-4, which I'm fine with.. I always try to compute near power sockets anyway.

But the batteries aren't as long-lasting as the previous Core 2 Duo generation - even if Apple is advertising the battery is in fact longer.

Also, anyone that has put in a 7200RPM drive should note that it'll also decrease battery life.
 
15" i5 2.4, matte, had it about 5 days. Currently running Firefox (7 tabs, flashblocked), iCal, 3 terminals and a text editor (2 tabs), screen around half brightness, WiFi, no bluetooth. Amperage ~1A, battery rated around 7460 mAh.

This seems pretty consistent with my experience - it lasted > 6 hours on my first discharge, and that was largely spent installing software and with screen brightness higher than currently (because I wanted to make sure it did run down before I went to bed!). Figure I should give it another cycle or two before calibrating again, since rechargeable batteries generally need a few cycles to reach full capacity.

Switching to the nVidia chipset adds about 300 mA to the current drain, but even that gives much higher life than people are talking about here. So either you're running more than you think (run the Activity Monitor - or open a terminal and type "top" if you'd more old-school) or there is indeed something wrong.
 
Interesting amperage figures

I don't understand why your i5s at idle draw more power than my C2D. I guess your larger LCD should make a slight difference, but I expect that would be tens of mA. Where is the other 200-300 mA coming from? That's nearly 50% more! Faster drive? the nVidia chipset waking up every now and then?

Sounds like time for a firmware update by Apple.....
 
When idling, I suppose you get 9 hours of battery life? ( or do you still get only 5 hours? )
 
Seems like some of the i5/i7s are really having growing pains - battery, and freezing issues (the Apple forums are going bonkers). When I bought a MacBook in 2006, hot off the Intel-switch press, it had Random Sudden Shutdown for months until Apple came up with a proper firmware fix. I really feel bad for all the people having problems who excitedly purchased the new i5/i7s and are already having issues. I really hope Apple gets this addressed quickly.

It does sound like the OP is having real battery problems and I'd be concerned if I were him/her - although with the other issues the i5/i7s are having there could be some sort of extraneous power draw happening.

My new 13 MBP gets a solid 7 hours with Firefox, MS Office and Mail open at 2/3 screen brightness. I haven't calibrated the battery yet, but I assume that will slightly improve the performance.
 
Note that just the act of scrolling puts a large burden on batteries, I see the CPU activity jump up 20-30%!
 
Just a general question, how much does having a 7200rpm HD effect battery life? I've heard many conflicting views on this.
 
coolguyalex said:
Just a general question, how much does having a 7200rpm HD effect battery life? I've heard many conflicting views on this.
Click to expand...

It decreases it by a noticeable amount. Can't tell you exact figures.. I'm not prepared to take mine out, put in my 5400RPM drive, do tests, then swap in the 7200RPM again. But having used a 5400RPM drive for a week on my i5 before my 7200RPM drive arrived, the decrease was noticeable.

But I'd rather have the 7200RPM drive.. I use Parallels Desktop a lot, as well as other hard drive intensive things. SSD is out of the question due to price, so 7200RPM is the next best thing.
 
Hadron said:
15" i5 2.4, matte, had it about 5 days. Currently running Firefox (7 tabs, flashblocked), iCal, 3 terminals and a text editor (2 tabs), screen around half brightness, WiFi, no bluetooth. Amperage ~1A, battery rated around 7460 mAh.
Click to expand...

Hi.

Are you sure about that battery size? I also have a 15" i5 2,4 with HR matte screen and my battery shows 6900mAh! That' almost one hour batterytime. Have I got a smaller battery?? Care 2 open your mac and check specs?


Also I was checking the drain on my mac and I had 1500, i closed all my apps, same current. I unplugged my corsair usb memorystick.. WOW it dropped 500mA! and then I started thinking. Last week I got my mac new it did tell me 6 1/2 hour, since then I only got 4... What I have changed is from the 5400 drive to a 7200 AND added my logitech USB dongle for my mouse. This dongle have been in my mac since, cause it's so small..... Removed it now and guess what! even 200mA less drain.

So the moral is, if you have something connected to your usb/fw, try unplugging it.
 
I'm getting 6-7 hours with reasonable work (email/internet/programming/terminals), but also the occasional screen blank when I'm away for a few minutes. With bluetooth on (but disconnected) brightness on 2/5 (bright enough for me) WIFI and iTunes.

That's at home when I am near a power socket. Underway I forgo the iTunes and can then get a bit more but perhaps need to crank the brightness up a bit depending on location.

But I'm quite anal of my process list and make sure there is really nothing consuming any CPU power.

According to the specs the 7.2k drive doesn't use that much more than the 5400 one (5% according to the manufacturer). That means it idles for 0.84 watts against 0.8 watts. I have 8 gigs of RAM which probably helps a bit to control all too frequent hdd accesses - I'm usually having around 1GB free.

I don't necessarily agree with those who say that we never get the advertised life and should move on and I don't agree with those that swap their laptops for the third time because they can't get the battery life but in all fairness they should be allowed to if they are not getting what they have paid for.

I would really just be interested, if you had such a "lemon" battery, if you would boot up your mac and make sure no third party applications are running and just let it sit idling, how much time they get out of the battery. If they then get the advertised 8-9 hours (and it *can* be done by idling) then most likely they are running some software that empties their battery.

Just my 2 cents.

Tom
 
anthias said:
Hi. Are you sure about that battery size? I also have a 15" i5 2,4 with HR matte screen and my battery shows 6900mAh! That' almost one hour batterytime. Have I got a smaller battery?? Care 2 open your mac and check specs?
Click to expand...

Btw mine shows now as 7124mAh. It was 68XX in the beginning, now going up a bit. But these numbers really don't mean too much. You will find that they will go up and down regularly.
 
anthias said:
Are you sure about that battery size? I also have a 15" i5 2,4 with HR matte screen and my battery shows 6900mAh! That' almost one hour batterytime. Have I got a smaller battery?? Care 2 open your mac and check specs?
Click to expand...
Not able to open it up at the moment (need to use it this morning), but here's a cut and paste from the system profiler.

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Serial Number: W0014QUERBWZA
Manufacturer: SMP
Device name: bq20z451
Pack Lot Code: 0000
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0201
Hardware Revision: 000a
Cell Revision: 0158
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 7273
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 7499
Health Information:
Cycle count: 8
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 747
Voltage (mV): 12556
 
hmmm... strange.

Here is mine:

Modellinformasjon:
Serienummer: W0014PMUYBX0A
Produsent: SMP
Enhetsnavn: bq20z451
Pack Lot Code: 0000
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmwareversjon: 0201
Maskinvarerevisjon: 000a
Cellerevisjon: 0157
Informasjon om ladenivå:
Gjenværende strøm (mAh): 1871
Fulladet: Nei
Lader: Nei
Full ladekapasitet (mAh): 6741
Informasjon om tilstand:
Syklusantall: 12
Tilstand: Normal
Batteri installert: Ja
Ampere (mA): -1726
Volt (mV): 11076


Also notice my drain!! I'm currently only running this window in safari + my system profiler and activity monitor! Bluetooth off, graphic card turned on to intel only, sitting 3 meters from my wifi spot, no usb/fw device and 1 dot on screen brightness and keyboard light off.

The only difference here is the cell revision.



Edit: Hmm... a refresh and I got 820mA, then 922mA and then 1188mA writing this...
 
I've no idea what "cell revision" means - might just be a fancy way of saying "batch number". I understand that some battery-to-battery variation is to be expected, so maybe mine's just at the upper end of the distribution?

That drain is a lot higher than I see though. What cpu/ram/hdd do you have? Mine's the basic 2.4 GHz i5, 4GB RAM, 320 GB 5400 HDD - I figured that :apple:s disc/RAM upgrades were too expensive so I'd do it myself when/if it became necessary, and for cpu I actually chose the 2.4 GHz over the other options for power consumption reasons.
 
I have the same make and model. i5 2,4, 4GB ram but I have changed from the 5400 seagate to Seagate 7200 500GB. But that should not change this much. My Acer Aspire One that had the 500GB disk before do not suffer that much from a 5400-7200 swap.

What is the currentload you have over a 5 minute period?
 
With brightness reduced to 1 dot (as you described), and my usb mouse dongle unplugged, I see around 800 mA over a few refreshes (while typing this, rather than just idling). This is in very weak WiFi coverage. Raising brightness to 50% gives more like 870-900 mA.

My impression is that the profiler averages over a bit longer than the refresh interval, since the first few readings after a change in brightness show a trend until a new plateau is reached.

My stock disc's a Hitachi rather than a Seagate - likely not a big deal, but at the level of the odd 0.1 A it might matter.
 
Hmm.. maybe I should do a clean install on the 5400 and see if that changes things again.

currently -1240mA 8%, 3 browser tabs and the systemprofiler.... I'll do a calibration now and have a "looksee"
 
I know I'm not contributing much or anything but I really think Apple should put the "Switch between the two GPUs option manually" option again. I like the idea of being able to change it. As long as they do that without you needing to log out it should be fine.

I never EVER use the 9600 M GT on the battery. I like 4:30 hours not 3:30 plus a hotter computer.
 
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