I recently replaced the memory that came with my MBP with this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...e=10&IsFeedbackTab=true&rdm=35#scrollHelpful1 , and battery life has been almost halved. Any ideas as to the reason for this and how I can fix it?
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Battery life significantly worsened after 8 GB RAM upgrade - 2011 15" MBP
- Thread starter Starfox
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no clue, but heres a list I suggest you can check :
1. Activity monitor, check for apps thats hogging your system
2. have you upgraded your hard drive too?
3. maybe do a reset (im not sure maybe a PRAM?) or one of those power reset option.
Activity Monitor was the first thing I tried, CPU usage seems to be normal - it's at near-idle most of the time I'm using it for browsing / email / typing, and I always keep the Intel GPU running all the time so it's not an app switching to discrete graphics. I'm flummoxed.
PRAM/NVRAM has nothing to do with battery/power/charging issues. Resetting it will not help. Increasing your RAM should not have a significant effect on battery life. If anything, it should improve battery life, if you were experiencing significant paging activity before the upgrade. Battery life is dependent on many factors, such as screen brightness, WiFi, bluetooth, apps/widgets/processes you have running. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:
Turn computer off. Hold down command + option + p + r and hit the power button. Keep holding until second chime.
As I already said, that won't help, as PRAM/NVRAM has nothing to do with battery/power/charging issues.
thats very interesting! as i was planning on getting the hyperX line as well but ultimately settled for normal 1333 kingston due to cost differences. would love to know why if u do find out.
My usage pattern hasn't changed - and yes, there was heavy paging before the upgrade. I set the brightness to 50% and used it solely for browsing / email (catching up on RSS / inbox) and used activity monitor to check CPU usage by other processes, nothing was out of the ordinary, yet the battery life was halved.
It sounds like your RAM may be defective, as that's definitely not normal. Do you still have the old RAM that you can go back and test? Also, are you measuring battery life by the time until it shuts down? Or are you using the battery indicator to determine how much time you have left?
That's not good! I'm tempted to install the G.Skill 8gb 1333 I purchased from Newegg for $60 instead of the HyperX for I bought for $101. I'm not sure it's worth the extra $41 for slight increase.
Usage time it takes to hit 10%, basically. Is there some unattended battery test tool that I can use?
I don't see how faulty RAM would increase power consumption. You would be experiencing instability and crashing instead.
Nah, I don't *READ* the usage time, I time how much usage I get from a full charge to ~10%.
But you're reading the 10% from the battery indicator. That's not as accurate as measuring the time until your Mac sleeps or shuts down from the battery draining. The indicator can change as your power demands change, and while calibration makes it as accurate as possible, it's still only an estimate.
if his computer is going to 10% in half the time it normally does, YES, he is having battery problems. His mac isn't estimating 10% left when the battery really still has ~50%, let's be real here.
I can't count the number of threads that have been posted about Macs shutting down when the battery indicator still had 30% or 40% showing, or other variations. Unless the battery is properly calibrated, that display can be extremely inaccurate. Even if it is calibrated, it's still not as accurate as measuring actual time until shutdown.
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Are you sure it's the memory? It doesn't seem like it. I just think as you are using your MBP the percentage is changing as your doing different task or different websites you view. Maybe more flash based websites? If it were the memory you would see kernel panics. Run a hard ware test to see if it's faulty. I've yet to have a problem with my memory and I'm not even running i7. If your that concerned, try a RMA. I'm sure they will let you.