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Battery? 3 Hours???

P

phame

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 28, 2010
17
0
Hi Guys,

So I finally got my MBP and loving it! Only problem im facing is the battery life...

What is the actual life you get from normal use? I know apple claims 8 hours but is that true?

Ive calibrated my battery, And charged/drained it a few times...However i can still only get 3-4 hours on it...

Using Interl Graphics card, Blue tooth off, Wifi on, Screen brightness MAX, and doing light jobs, like email, skype...surfing the web...

Is my battery busted? Or is this normal?
 
i get 9-11 hrs on my 13" with mail, iphoto and web browsing light itunes/youtube.
 
3 hours sounds a little low unless your doing something hardcore which you probably would have mentioned. It still sounds low even with full brightness but you can change the settings and try letting it adjust automatically on one charge cycle and see if it makes a difference.

The only sure way your gonna find out if the battery is defective is take it to the applestore or third party apple service provider. Describe what you just said and they should run a battery check on it. Takes 2 minutes.
 
phame said:
Hi Guys,

So I finally got my MBP and loving it! Only problem im facing is the battery life...

What is the actual life you get from normal use? I know apple claims 8 hours but is that true?

Ive calibrated my battery, And charged/drained it a few times...However i can still only get 3-4 hours on it...

Using Interl Graphics card, Blue tooth off, Wifi on, Screen brightness MAX, and doing light jobs, like email, skype...surfing the web...

Is my battery busted? Or is this normal?
Click to expand...

does surfing the web include watching lots of videos on websites, playing flash games, being exposed to flash ads, etc? that will drain your battery quite quickly as these things are quite CPU intensive.

Fabian
 
Maxing the screen brightness isn't a recipe for best battery life - that could be costing you an hour or two (at least it would on the 15").
 
I'm not watching any heavy flash videos...Just surfing the web (Normal sites) like Macrumors...etc

Some emails...Skype....Excel...Vuze on in the background Downloading a movie

Just light jobs....

Doing a test right now...

Been on full Brightness w/ GFXCardStatus set to use ONLY the Intel Graphics card...Computer temperature running cool at 44 C / Fan 2000 RPM (Using SMCFan Control)

So far its been on 2 Hours & 40 mins...So far the battery meter at the top is showing 36% left and 1Hour 33 mins...Ill see if its accurate and post an update...

If it is accurate that means i got a little over 4 hours...Still seems a bit weak...IMO:(
 
phame said:
I'm not watching any heavy flash videos...Just surfing the web (Normal sites) like Macrumors...etc

Some emails...Skype....Excel...Vuze on in the background Downloading a movie

Just light jobs....

Doing a test right now...

Been on full Brightness w/ GFXCardStatus set to use ONLY the Intel Graphics card...Computer temperature running cool at 44 C / Fan 2000 RPM (Using SMCFan Control)

So far its been on 2 Hours & 40 mins...So far the battery meter at the top is showing 36% left and 1Hour 33 mins...Ill see if its accurate and post an update...

If it is accurate that means i got a little over 4 hours...Still seems a bit weak...IMO:(
Click to expand...

I have the same problem.
 
reduce whatever you could.

keyboard light / screen to 30-40% ( as long as you can see it).

3hrs is seems abit low.

my MBP 13 can able to have 5.5 -7hrs and if only full time flash or youtube alike it will be slightly above 4hrs

every 1% = 2.5 -4min.
 
phame said:
Some emails...Skype....Excel...Vuze on in the background Downloading a movie
Click to expand...

Vuze uses a lot of cpu cycles, and if you're not forcing your gpu via gfxCardStatus, Skype will make your mac switch to the nVidia GPU.
 
I got a 2010 13" MBP on Friday and am also noticing issues with the battery. I had it jump from 100% (fully charged) to 46% when the MagSafe got pulled out and promptly returned to the port (about 5-10 seconds in all). Apple Care recommended a PRAM reset followed by a battery calibration (have to wait until after work to see if it worked since it is recharging from 0%). The drain required in calibration was done with screen at 50% brightness, wireless and bluetooth on, Firefox open (no Flash video), and iTunes going through my music. My MBP lasted just over two and a half hours before sleeping.
 
Skype is probably using a lot. But 3-4 is not normal. Is 3-4 what your computer said? Or what you timed? Because the computer is never right. (usually)
 
Ok I tested it today:

I got EXACTLY 3 Hours and 54 Minutes with the following settings:

Vuze On (Downloading 2 movies)
Skype Online (Didnt make any calls just few chats open)
Safari open 2-3 tabs browsing / surfing web
Excel On (1 document Open)
Wifi ON
Blue Tooth Off
GFXCard Status ON (Forced Intel ONLY)
SMCFanControl On 2000 RPM CPU Temp : 40-50 C
Lil Snitch (Running whole time in the background)
Screen Brightness MAX the whole time
BackLit Keyboard OFF the whole time

So is that decent? Seems a bit short to me...I expected at least 6-7 hours...But as mentioned in the end only got 3 hours and 54 Minutes...

Overall the battery meter was quite accurate and displayed more or less the correct time left...

Should i bring it to Apple? And complain abt the battery or is this acceptable?
 
phame said:
Ok I tested it today:

I got EXACTLY 3 Hours and 54 Minutes with the following settings:

Vuze On (Downloading 2 movies)
Skype Online (Didnt make any calls just few chats open)
Safari open 2-3 tabs browsing / surfing web
Excel On (1 document Open)
Wifi ON
Blue Tooth Off
GFXCard Status ON (Forced Intel ONLY)
SMCFanControl On 2000 RPM CPU Temp : 40-50 C
Lil Snitch (Running whole time in the background)
Screen Brightness MAX the whole time
BackLit Keyboard OFF the whole time

So is that decent? Seems a bit short to me...I expected at least 6-7 hours...But as mentioned in the end only got 3 hours and 54 Minutes...

Overall the battery meter was quite accurate and displayed more or less the correct time left...

Should i bring it to Apple? And complain abt the battery or is this acceptable?
Click to expand...

You know that apple tests their computers with a lot less stuff going on right?

Wi-fi on, bluetooth,TM, and all over services off, refreshing a page every 30 seconds while playing an mp3 in itunes on repeat, 50% brightness.

Your time seems normal to me, skype is a big drainer, so is vuze.
 
phame said:
Ok I tested it today:
I got EXACTLY 3 Hours and 54 Minutes with the following settings:

So is that decent? Seems a bit short to me...I expected at least 6-7 hours...But as mentioned in the end only got 3 hours and 54 Minutes...
Click to expand...
You're putting a MUCH greater load on the battery than Apple does to reach their numbers:

From Apple:

The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processor document with display brightness set to the middle setting.
Click to expand...
The websites most likely had no Flash. The display brightness at 50% has a lot to do with battery life.
 
Whilst 3-4 hours is a bit of a crappy time, I will say that Vuze is probably your main cause for concern, might be worth looking into one of the light weight torrent clients like Transmission or uTorrent. Give either of those a shot and come back with the results.

Also full brightness is a big drainer, on my old 15" MBP I do often have to keep the brightness at 50% to get 3 hours use (with Wifi & BT off, only running Pages for note taking), when Apple states I'm supposed to get 5 hours with Wifi & BT on...

The times they give are often the best possible times you will ever see, not what the average user will see. It's sneaky, but sadly all laptop vendors do it.
 
Anytime I have the display up all the way while using the battery, my time is cut in half. 4 hours with a max screen + skype + plus everything else is pretty impressive IMO. I bet the nVidia is churning the whole the time.

Schtumple said:
Whilst 3-4 hours is a bit of a crappy time, I will say that Vuze is probably your main cause for concern, might be worth looking into one of the light weight torrent clients like Transmission or uTorrent. Give either of those a shot and come back with the results. Also full brightness is a big drainer, on my old 15" MBP I do often have to keep the brightness at 50% to get 3 hours use (with Wifi & BT off, only running Pages for note taking), when Apple states I'm supposed to get 5 hours with Wifi & BT on...

The times they give are often the best possible times you will ever see, not what the average user will see. It's sneaky, but sadly all laptop vendors do it.
Click to expand...

Vuze was written with Java so it's extremely heavy and RAM hungry so this would explain extra decreased battery life. I like transmission the best personally. It's simple and relatively light weight and uses the native cocoa environment.
 
shadygrove said:
Vuze was written with Java so it's extremely heavy and RAM hungry so this would explain extra decreased battery life. I like transmission the best personally. It's simple and relatively light weight and uses the native cocoa environment.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I am unsure of uTorrent as I've barely used it, but I've heard the performance is good, but FWIW I've used Transmission since switching from Vuze and have found it to really help if it's on for hours and hours.
 
Schtumple said:
have found it to really help if it's on for hours and hours.
Click to expand...

What do you mean? How does it help? I just notice my dl/ul speeds are better after it's been on for a while but I thought this was the case with all torrents. I don't really know that much about how technically torrents work though.
 
I just got the 15 inch i7 and put in a 256 gig SSD in there. I have been using it on battery for 2.5 hours and have 33% left. Battery seems worse than my 13 inch core 2 duo.
 
shadygrove said:
What do you mean? How does it help? I just notice my dl/ul speeds are better after it's been on for a while but I thought this was the case with all torrents. I don't really know that much about how technically torrents work though.
Click to expand...

Transmission isn't written in java which quite heavy code language. Thus transmission uses less CPU cycles, n ram than alot of the other clients such as vuze. :)

I personally can get only about 2 hours on my mac these days. It's old 08 model. I should probably start saving up for a new battery this one is at 67% health haha :).

Would definitely advise turnin off skype when you not usin it. N keeping the brightness down if you can :)

PTP
 
I can get 7-8 hrs but using conservative settings. Keyboard light off, screen brightness at 50%, and just music and web pages, and word.

Unfortunately laptops power is still conservative
 
Why don't you just turn everything else off, set screen to 50% brightness, and start playing your itunes library on shuffle? If you get the life Apple claims then you know it's not a defective battery; if you still get 4 hours then take it in and complain. Turning on a bunch of variables and then trying to decide if the result is normal is not the way to go about testing it.
 
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