Battery Dying Because of My Apps!?!

[Michael73]

I have a 2011 MBP 15" and my battery won't last more than 2-3 hours. The original battery had ~100 charge cycles and showed around 95% health. Nevertheless since it was under AppleCare, Apple decided to replace it, but the problem still persists. Apple says it must be software related...

The use case is usually the same, I have Mail and Calendar open and I'm usually conducting a WebEx so I open Safari and log into my WebEx account, then open a new tab and I log into my GoToMyPC account which launches GoToMyPC Viewer where I can interact with my virtual machine that my client has made available to me.

In the span of 2-3 hours starting with a 100% full battery my machine dies. I've made sure the backlight on my keyboard is off and my screen brightness is under 50%. I've tried keeping Activity Monitor open to see if there's an abnormal amount of disk activity but everything looks fine. Apple has run multiple diagnostics both hardware and software related and everything checks out.

Has anyone experienced severe battery drain using WebEx and / or GoToMyPC?

 

[GGJstudios]

I have a 2011 MBP 15" and my battery won't last more than 2-3 hours. The original battery had ~100 charge cycles and showed around 95% health. Nevertheless since it was under AppleCare, Apple decided to replace it, but the problem still persists. Apple says it must be software related...

The use case is usually the same, I have Mail and Calendar open and I'm usually conducting a WebEx so I open Safari and log into my WebEx account, then open a new tab and I log into my GoToMyPC account which launches GoToMyPC Viewer where I can interact with my virtual machine that my client has made available to me.

In the span of 2-3 hours starting with a 100% full battery my machine dies. I've made sure the backlight on my keyboard is off and my screen brightness is under 50%. I've tried keeping Activity Monitor open to see if there's an abnormal amount of disk activity but everything looks fine. Apple has run multiple diagnostics both hardware and software related and everything checks out.

Has anyone experienced severe battery drain using WebEx and / or GoToMyPC?

1. Launch Activity Monitor
2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
3. Click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
5. Take a screen shot of the whole Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
6. Post your screenshots.

There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[Michael73]

Thanks for your reply. I'm keeping an eye on the situation.

Here's an interesting bit of information I've found...

When I log into my GoToMyPC account through FireFox (v11.0) it uses the battery up much more rapidly than Safari. In several different tries with Firefox the battery went from 100% to shutdown in about 2:15 - 2:30. Using Safari I'm getting a good 3:15 - 3:45 before the machine dies.

Does anyone know why this happens? Is there a memory leak when the GoToMyPC viewer opens up through FireFox?

My next experiment is to try using GoToMyPC with Chrome and see what happens.

 

[GGJstudios]

When I log into my GoToMyPC account through FireFox (v11.0) it uses the battery up much more rapidly than Safari.

As an alternative, you may want to try TeamViewer, which is free for personal use and works with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Ubuntu, iPhone, iPad, etc.

 

[Michael73]

As an alternative, you may want to try TeamViewer, which is free for personal use and works with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Ubuntu, iPhone, iPad, etc.

I've used TeamViewer but prefer JoinMe. I like that I can not both share my screen and view other people's screens but I can also take control of their screen or them.

To be clear, I don't think the issue is with WebEx, I think it resides with the GoT0MyPC view app that downloads and launches. I cannot get around using this app no matter which browser I use because it's the only way my client allows me to access my virtual machine on their system.

 

[GGJstudios]

I like that I can not both share my screen and view other people's screens but I can also take control of their screen or them.

TV does this, as well.