The Apple Store employees didnt' seem to know about this problem. I exchanged my MBA 4 times already and all had really short battery life. I'm going to another Apple Store this afternoon to make another exchange.(the one I bought my MBA from didn't have the 255GB model in stock and called the other store to hold one for me to exchange) They told me to keep exchanging it until I get one that shows at least 8 hours after updating to Mavericks. The MBA on display at the Apple Store showed 8+ hours of battery life and it had Mavericks.
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Any fix for battery problems with Mavericks?
- Thread starter fedecape
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The Apple Store employees didnt' seem to know about this problem. I exchanged my MBA 4 times already and all had really short battery life. I'm going to another Apple Store this afternoon to make another exchange.(the one I bought my MBA from didn't have the 255GB model in stock and called the other store to hold one for me to exchange) They told me to keep exchanging it until I get one that shows at least 8 hours after updating to Mavericks. The MBA on display at the Apple Store showed 8+ hours of battery life and it had Mavericks.
Soon, I should think. 13B40 was just seeded to both Devs and AppleCare personnel so most places seem to think 10.9.1 is imminent.
Apple store employees, yes even "Geniuses", are glorified retail employees. Most have little to no technical experience, and couldn't comprehend a kernel process from a bag of popcorn. I'm not disparaging these folks, because they are quite the professional retail staff, but they are seldom savvy to issues this technical.
As an example, 2011 MacBook Air's had issues with DVI adapters for quite a bit (mine manifested when connected to a TV), and not even AppleCare engineering really had a fix. It was later fixed in Mountain Lion, but the reality is it was a bug in kernel video drivers. Nothing that they could do except wait for an official answer in the form of an OS update (where software engineers had likely debugged the issue in labs).
There is no telling why Apple Store images don't exhibit the issue. They are refreshed daily, and there aren't really a number of use cases to test, e.x. AirPlay streaming, long term wake and sleep, etc.
I just came back from the Apple Store with my 6th MBA in 10 days. It's downloading Mavericks right now and sure hope the battery life will be normal. The Apple Store guy said this was the last one they would exchange for me.... if I bring it back again, they can only give me a refund.
After almost a day, the 6th MBA was bloody great! After two full charges(from 10% to 100%), it is now reporting over 8 and half hours of battery life. I gave it quite a workout by playing nothing but 1080p 24mbps *.M2T videos straight from my HD camcorder continuously until the battery died... then recharged it again...
I concur with Stayley - an erase and fresh install of Mavericks is the most likely fix (rather than awaiting 10.9.1)
I can go all day on a single charge with a base model 11" Air and my wife's 13" Air goes pretty much into late evening as well.
both received fresh installs of 10.9 when they first came to us as they were running ML.
I rarely run an upgrade install over existing OS because as someone pointed out, you could be bringing over inherent issues.
if indeed 10.9 does have a bug then it's in that overlay of ML, not as a fresh install.
(Hope this last paragraph makes sense)
I can go all day on a single charge with a base model 11" Air and my wife's 13" Air goes pretty much into late evening as well.
both received fresh installs of 10.9 when they first came to us as they were running ML.
I rarely run an upgrade install over existing OS because as someone pointed out, you could be bringing over inherent issues.
if indeed 10.9 does have a bug then it's in that overlay of ML, not as a fresh install.
(Hope this last paragraph makes sense)
so it's not going to improve with time?my new MBA has only been fully charged 4 times since I received it a few days ago. (plugging in the charger only after the MBA turns itself off when the battery is almost completely dead)
Do not run your battery down like this.
Are you just not aware that 10.9.1 was released today? I hope that is the case...
In regards to your other points, multiple fresh installs did not alleviate mine, nor others, issues, contrary to what other kept saying. Regardless, it was obviously a bug, and not isolated, because the update has fixed things.
Unless you're not near an AC outlet, there is no need to drain your battery this much, and it's putting unnecessary cycles on your battery. Run on battery whenever you need to and plug it in whenever you can. You can plug or unplug any time you need to, regardless of the charged percentage, and you never need to completely drain your battery. Just make sure you don't run on AC power exclusively, as your battery needs to be used regularly to stay healthy.so it's not going to improve with time?
The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it. I agree. My MBA 13 i5 change the battery life day for day. Today I use it with costant navigation, 2 hours of download for the game Garrys Mod, 30 minuts for play the game, for a total of 7 hours use total, and 3 approssimative restant (10 hours total). Some days I use it for 12-13 hours, some days for 9 hours, some days for 8.
Did 10.9.1 Fix the Problem??
I haven't seen much confirmation that this recent bug fix solved the problem. Can those with the battery problem please report "before and after" battery lif for your MBA along with size and processor? Anyone have battery life data with 13" i7 and 10.9.1?
I haven't seen much confirmation that this recent bug fix solved the problem. Can those with the battery problem please report "before and after" battery lif for your MBA along with size and processor? Anyone have battery life data with 13" i7 and 10.9.1?
I haven't had much time to test, but I did see a difference before/after the update.
Before the update I was sitting at 59% with 2:30 estimated remaining on battery life. I had been using firefox for about 30 minutes with brightness at 3 bars, backlit keyboard off, and bluetooth off. That is about the battery life I've been getting since up upgraded to Mavericks. (I had tried clean install, rest SMC etc.. with little luck)
After 10.9.1 I rebooted the computer and let it sit a few minutes. Estimated time was up to 9:45!
I used it for another hour or so, just firefox browsing, no youtube/video and estimate was down to 8:30. (still at around 58%)
So I'm pretty happy. Will test with a full evening of my usual usage, but the update looks promising so far.
EDIT: I have the 13" i5 2013 MBA with 128GB drive, 8GB RAM, and a 128GB PNY StorEDGE card attached.
Before the update I was sitting at 59% with 2:30 estimated remaining on battery life. I had been using firefox for about 30 minutes with brightness at 3 bars, backlit keyboard off, and bluetooth off. That is about the battery life I've been getting since up upgraded to Mavericks. (I had tried clean install, rest SMC etc.. with little luck)
After 10.9.1 I rebooted the computer and let it sit a few minutes. Estimated time was up to 9:45!
I used it for another hour or so, just firefox browsing, no youtube/video and estimate was down to 8:30. (still at around 58%)
So I'm pretty happy. Will test with a full evening of my usual usage, but the update looks promising so far.
EDIT: I have the 13" i5 2013 MBA with 128GB drive, 8GB RAM, and a 128GB PNY StorEDGE card attached.
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no I was not aware that 10.9.1 had been released - just heard it was in the pipeline.
I was merely pointing out that, in my experience, an erase and fresh install - in this case 10.9 - has produced a fast responsive Air with great battery life and was offering that as a remedy to the OP.
if it hasn't worked for you then I hope that 10.9.1 does.
good luck
Hey, can you provide a source or anything to confirm that Apple has indeed fixed the kernel task issue?
I've recently updated to 10.9.1 and it is still happening...
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Hey, I have an i7 13" and recently updated to 10.9.1
sadly I had the kernel run berserk again once already. IT has only been once but I'm always watching it after waking it from sleep.
If it doesn't go berserk I get great battery life... usually around the 13-15h claimed by most mavericks reviews
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I just realized that there are probably TWO different problems. One is related to the Mavericks update. The other one is a batch of MBAs that were produced within the last 3 months.
The Apple Store that exchanged my new MBA 5 times told me that they look at the serial number to find out which ones have the battery issue. (which is why they kept exchanging it, until they found one that had not issues)
Well, I can concur this statement. It happened to me again this morning, and it is happening to me again right now. Ugh. WTF apple?
after doing some testing last night it seems I still have the kernel issue.
After sleep my battery life is cut in half, kernel is running crazy, and a reboot resolves the issue.
This is very frustrating
After sleep my battery life is cut in half, kernel is running crazy, and a reboot resolves the issue.
This is very frustrating
after doing some testing last night it seems I still have the kernel issue.
After sleep my battery life is cut in half, kernel is running crazy, and a reboot resolves the issue.
This is very frustrating
+1. Mid 2013 11" MBA. Same with OS X v10.9 and v10.9.1.
If no apps is started, waking up from sleep would trigger one core at 100% for a few seconds only. If VLC was open before sleep, the core would remain hogged forever AFAICT. A few seconds after quitting VLC, core activity would return to normal.
I got the idea of quitting VLC after a looking at a spindump of kernel_task. Within that process, the 2 threads with most CPU time were related to Core Audio. The only apps which could output sound were Chrome (HTML5 or Flash videos opened in separate tabs) and VLC (paused). One time I had both Chrome and VLC opened before sleep, quitting both solved the issue. Another time I had only VLC, quitting it would solve the issue as well.
No, I do not. 11" i5/4GB/128.
At this point, I am fed up with Apple. This is unacceptable. I really don't know how this got out of the gate like this, particularly with battery life being the main selling point. They need to fix this, and they need to fix it now. This is two MBAs in a row (a brand new 2011, and now my 2013) that have had major and debilitating bugs directly related to OS upgrades touted at the release of the device.
Check:
Activity Monitor->Memory->Swap Used ( at the bottom ).
Also check:
Activity Monitor->Energy->Avg Energy Impact ( to see what is eating your battery ).
I have a feeling!
Activity Monitor->Memory->Swap Used ( at the bottom ).
Also check:
Activity Monitor->Energy->Avg Energy Impact ( to see what is eating your battery ).
I have a feeling!
And your "feeling" would be wrong. I can replicate this issue with a freshly rebooted, and reinstalled if you wish, 2013 Air. No swapping, zero applications running besides the OS. There is an issue.
It is CPU usage related, not memory (which, by the way, wouldn't really result in any power draw). One core gets pegged at 100% because the Mavericks audio subsystem is broken.
I'm with 960design.
I downloaded 10.9.1 as a standalone installer and upgraded yesterday morning.
My Air has been running without being re-started - either in use or asleep and activity monitor is showing 'normal' usage.
after recharging to full overnight, then using it since 8.30am until now (1.15pm) my battery is showing 68% remaining.
it's possible you may have something dodgy with your actual machine as in firmware? or even your OS X install?
hope you find a solution
No swap on a 4MB Mavericks laptop... I guess I'm done here. Cannot help someone that is dishonest and a little rude. And right before Christmas too, so sad. Santa is watching. And I just wanted to help. Unfortunately you didn't post the results of my request.
No need to ask for further assistance. I recommend heading to the nearest Genius bar and getting an exchange or refund.