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Brand new mid-2015 MBP 15" retina, not entirely happy

H

HotPopsicle

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 10, 2010
30
5
Hi,

Just wondering what the experience has been for other people who have gotten the latest 15" retina.

So far it's been a mixed bag for me which is honestly a little disappointing for such an expensive machine. Here are the two things I've hit so far:

1. When doing the initial setup, straight out of the box, something went wrong during the wifi setup and the setup screens got into a weird state where they didn't refresh properly. Going back and forth between the screens after that caused weird drawing problems (looked like software issue not video card issue). Eventually, I was able to get through the screens but this problem definitely didn't give me a lot of confidence in the machine/OS X.

2. The machine, and remember this is brand new out of the box, doesn't seem to do standby correctly or at least it's burning WAY more battery when sleeping than apple advertises. Apple says up to 30 days of standby, but I'm seeing 10% battery drop over 24 hours of sleep which is no where near the 3%-ish I would expect to see to get somewhere near 30 days of standby. Are other people seeing the same thing with mid-2015 MBPs?

What is going on with apple QA?

Thanks!
 
HotPopsicle said:
Hi,

Just wondering what the experience has been for other people who have gotten the latest 15" retina.

So far it's been a mixed bag for me which is honestly a little disappointing for such an expensive machine. Here are the two things I've hit so far:

1. When doing the initial setup, straight out of the box, something went wrong during the wifi setup and the setup screens got into a weird state where they didn't refresh properly. Going back and forth between the screens after that caused weird drawing problems (looked like software issue not video card issue). Eventually, I was able to get through the screens but this problem definitely didn't give me a lot of confidence in the machine/OS X.

2. The machine, and remember this is brand new out of the box, doesn't seem to do standby correctly or at least it's burning WAY more battery when sleeping than apple advertises. Apple says up to 30 days of standby, but I'm seeing 10% battery drop over 24 hours of sleep which is no where near the 3%-ish I would expect to see to get somewhere near 30 days of standby. Are other people seeing the same thing with mid-2015 MBPs?

What is going on with apple QA?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

1. The odd software glitch is computing, and not to be worried about.

2. Have you tried fiddling with the sleep settings in the energy saver section of your preferences?? Do you have any external things connected while it sleeps?? Hard drives, USB sticks, bluetooth devices (mice etc) these can all cause battery loss while sleeping.

3. If you aren't happy return it for a new one Apple have a 14 day return period.
 
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I agree #1 is probably not a big deal.

For #2, I have just the default OS X Yosemite and nothing else installed and nothing else attached to the machine. I just close the lid and let it sit on a table and saw 10% of battery life disappear over roughly 24 hours.

I'd hate to get into multiple exchanges if #2 is a common thing and not specific to this machine.
 
I always do a clean install when I get a new machine.
 
The way they can say 30 days standby is by using hibernation. It will after a couple of hours normal sleeping completely shut down and only wake up occasionally if connected standby is activated. The wakeup takes longer if it is in hibernation but it basically draws no battery life.
I never really tested and am not sure if 10% is normal. In theory you can make it enter hibernation sooner if you like. I think default is 3h which shouldn't draw 10%. It sounds like a lot. The theory is though the longer it sleeps the less power it will use on average. You can disable connected standby if you want max standby battery life.
 
dusk007 said:
The way they can say 30 days standby is by using hibernation. It will after a couple of hours normal sleeping completely shut down and only wake up occasionally if connected standby is activated. The wakeup takes longer if it is in hibernation but it basically draws no battery life.
I never really tested and am not sure if 10% is normal. In theory you can make it enter hibernation sooner if you like. I think default is 3h which shouldn't draw 10%. It sounds like a lot. The theory is though the longer it sleeps the less power it will use on average. You can disable connected standby if you want max standby battery life.
Click to expand...

To answer a message above, I did do a clean install after getting the machine.

I don't see any controls in the settings panel for changing connected standby or hibernation settings. Everything is set to the defaults and the setting for allowing time-machine and other things to run (I forget the exact wording they use) is set to OFF (the default) when on battery. Where would I possibly adjust the hibernation/connected-standby settings?
 
I don't know what it is called. I currently am not using the right notebook to check. But it is something about doing background tasks while sleeping.
Hibernation you can only change via terminal using the 'pmset' program.
 
Yeah that is it. Intel called it connected standby. But it is the same thing.
 
I am having the same sleep issues with my rMBP 15" Mid 2015. During sleep my MBP usually looses 1% of battery life per hour. Power NAP is definitely turned off but nevertheless my MBP constantly wakes up from sleep (approx. every 20 minutes). The only way to get rid of this behaviour is to switch off WiFi before closing the lid.

I have found quite some posts mentioning the issue in this forum here as well as at the Apple discussion forum. But unfortunately there seems to be no fix yet.
 
Ok thanks, that's at least one other confirmation of the problem. I don't know what's going on with apple QA lately, they are letting what I would consider to be major bugs out the door. I guess I can try contacting Apple support and see what they say.
 
Thank you for that link. It appears to be a common problem. Apple support told me to bring in the machine because it's a hardware problem, but absolutely nothing in the analysis of the problem points to anything other than software.

I'm really unimpressed by Apple QA at this point. Power management is a fundamental feature of a laptop. How could they possibly miss a problem as big as this? "Up to 30-day standby" is specifically called out in the specifications!

So far it sounds like ElCapitan might fix the issue or turning off the wifi, but those are both ridiculous solutions.
 
HotPopsicle said:
"Up to 30-day standby" is specifically called out in the specifications!
Click to expand...

I bolded the Catch 22 of the situation. Like it or not your machine meets the spec. I've got a mid 2015 and wouldn't have even considered doing a stopwatch test of what happens to the battery on standby. I wouldn't worry about it, go forth and compute.

-jeff
 
Uh..clearly "up to 30-day" would be reasonably interpreted (in a court of law if it came to that) as "you will get something around 30-days could be a little less, could be a little more" NOT "you will consume the battery to 0 in less than 10 days every time."

If Ford said "up to 400 highway miles on one tank of gas" and the car actually got 120 highway miles for everyone, do you think they'd get away with it because technically they said "up to"? No, obviously not. The fudge wording of "up to" does not get you out of the liability of a reasonable interpretation of the stated promise.

Anyway, this is clearly a bug (as the linked discussion above shows). Turning off wifi before closing the lid seems to reliably prevent the machine from waking up every 15 minutes.
 
HotPopsicle said:
Uh..clearly "up to 30-day" would be reasonably interpreted (in a court of law if it came to that) as "you will get something around 30-days could be a little less, could be a little more" NOT "you will consume the battery to 0 in less than 10 days every time."

If Ford said "up to 400 highway miles on one tank of gas" and the car actually got 120 highway miles for everyone, do you think they'd get away with it because technically they said "up to"? No, obviously not. The fudge wording of "up to" does not get you out of the liability of a reasonable interpretation of the stated promise.

Anyway, this is clearly a bug (as the linked discussion above shows). Turning off wifi before closing the lid seems to reliably prevent the machine from waking up every 15 minutes.
Click to expand...

I agree, as advertised with 'up to 30 days', 10 is too less.

But on the other side, 'up to 30 days' means up to 30 days. Not a bit more or a bit less. Apple has tested the MacBook Pro in optimal conditions, and got 30 days. You may get something like 25 depending on your configuration and usage.

The best you can do, return the MacBook Pro and get a new one. Like Apple Support said its likely a hardware problem.
 
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