Checking if MBP battery is original OEM

[dem466]

I bought a 15" mid-2012 Macbook Pro second hand earlier this year. It's in great condition and everything works perfectly.

However, I've noticed that the batter seems to drain pretty quickly - after constant use for 2.5 hours, even when screen brightness is minimal. it'll be dead and I have to recharge it. I've done some research and found that the battery should be expected to last up to five and a half hours.

I know that this would be based on a specific way of using the macbook, but 2.5 hours seems a bit short regardless.

Basically i'm wondering if the previous owner has switched out the original battery for an aftermarket version that isn't as good, or if it was because the CPU is using too much power due to too many programs being open, etc. Is there a way to check for serial numbers or anything if I open up the back panel and take a look inside?

 

[chevelleguy3]

Go to System Information/System Profiler (depending on what OS you have) and click on Power on the left hand side and see how many charge cycles that battery has gone through. If it has had a lot of charge cycles, then the battery life has been depleted from the battery. This is where you will find detailed info on the battery.

Hope that helps.

 

[dem466]

Just thought of that then too, it's only been through 108 cycles. I'll post all the power info below:

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Serial Number: D862316Z05MDGDMBW
Manufacturer: SMP
Device Name: bq20z451
Pack Lot Code: 0
PCB Lot Code: 0
Firmware Version: 406
Hardware Revision: 2
Cell Revision: 157
Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 6557
Fully Charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 6557
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 108
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12501

System Power Settings:

AC Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 15
Wake on AC Change: No
Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes
Wake on LAN: Yes
AutoPowerOff Delay: 14400
AutoPowerOff Enabled: 1
Current Power Source: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
GPUSwitch: 2
PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep: 0
Standby Delay: 86400
Standby Enabled: 1
Battery Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 60
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Wake on AC Change: No
Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes
AutoPowerOff Delay: 14400
AutoPowerOff Enabled: 1
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
GPUSwitch: 2
Reduce Brightness: Yes
Standby Delay: 86400
Standby Enabled: 1

 

[chevelleguy3]

That should be a healthy battery, I'd be checking Activity Monitor to see if anything is using excessive amounts of CPU% What type of activity are you doing on it? How many open applications? What types of applications?

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That appears to be the exact battery I have so it should be OEM as long as it is reporting to the computer correctly.

 

[dem466]

I'll keep activity monitor open for a while. What should I look for?

The biggest thing is probably Chrome. I usually have two windows open with ~12 tabs in each window.

Other than that, Mail, iTunes, iMessage, Textedit, and a couple of minimal-usage third party apps are open. (Notes-type apps, etc).

I do have a few extra things going on in the status bar - a weather app, dropbox, something called Butler (basically ads app shortcuts into the status bar), Memory Clean, smc Fan Control, and a calendar app. Would these contribute to too much CPU usage?

EDIT: After opening all the usual apps I have going, i'm still getting a %Idle of ~95-97%

 

[chevelleguy3]

I would start off by shutting down some of the items running in the menu bar. They could be hogging resources in the background. Try to run it with less things open and see how it runs for you.

BTW: What OS are you running?

I have the same machine I use for work and even under a very heavy load (3+ Disk Utility windows pulling/pushing images to other machines and running ARD with a few remote sessions open, I can still pull 3-4 hours or so. Under a lighter load I get 5-6 hours.

 

[dem466]

I would start off by shutting down some of the items running in the menu bar. They could be hogging resources in the background. Try to run it with less things open and see how it runs for you.

BTW: What OS are you running?

I have the same machine I use for work and even under a very heavy load (3+ Disk Utility windows pulling/pushing images to other machines and running ARD with a few remote sessions open, I can still pull 3-4 hours or so. Under a lighter load I get 5-6 hours.

I'm running ML. Just updated to 10.8.5 today.

Those menu processes don't show up in Activity Monitor as using much CPU at all - nevertheless I'll quit everything that isn't essential for one battery cycle and see if it makes a difference.

 

[dem466]

So after a cycle of testing, turns out the main issue is probably Chrome. Running a cycle with just safari, messages and mail open got me about 20% an hour, which is pretty good. Once I started Chrome, it went down to about 30% an hour. Having a lot of tabs really chews up the CPU.

All in all though, probably a mixture of all the situations mentioned before.