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I have the exactly same problem and asked about it couple of days ago.
Intrested to hear what peeps come up with. I installed a new HDD on mine and now the computer eats the battery during the night time...
My old iBook lost maybe 5% during the night, alubook looses about 60%...

Hmm.
 
I use the sleep function all the time and I use it when I go to bed, after about 8 hours of sleep, it'll have gone down about 5-8%

Yeah you were unlucky and got a lemon. That much battery drain during sleep is not normal. You should expect about 1% per hour of battery drain on a normal machine. Make sure you get yours fixed with Applecare.

The rule of thumb that I use is that sleep power usage should be < 1%/hr. Anything more than that and I know that the machine's either got a bum battery or isn't sleeping properly. I've never actually measured power drain (and the software percentage reading is just estimation anyways), but the rough 1%/hr rule's a pretty conservative one that has served me well in the past.


Ya, I was expecting to go down probably around that rate per hour... This just blew my happiness bubble away :mad: I am on the phone right now trying to talk to the Apple Care Customer Service right now...:p
The lady I am talking to is super...I mean extremely quite... I am almost having hard time following her instructions..

She asked me some bunch of questions on battery version, max capacity, and the serial number of the product etc.
I will be keep updating as I talk to her...;)

Update: After talking to her on the phone for about 30 mins (she had to put me on hold after 15mins). She asked me if I did the right procedure on battery calibration. I told her step-by-step how I calibrated the battery and she told me try it again but this time when the battery is dead or pretty much unusable, take the battery out and leave it for 8~10 hours.:C (I never heard of doing this part xD) Anyways... So as I drain the battery out today, I will remove the battery and try out "calibration procedure from Apple Specialist" and let you guys know what's up.
Thanks to all for replying and helping me out ;D
-Chris-
p.s. I wonder what would of happened if I just took it to the Apple store and complain about it...Maybe a new Macbook?o_O
 
Any news,CSilver?

Damn.
Tested last night with the computer = the battery had 40% left when going to sleep and 7 hours later it was dead.
And I mean restart with the powercable and boot again dead.
I mean,start with the alt button pressed and it still boots into windows first dead.

Time to call applecare.
 
It should be 1% every 1-2 hours, or at least, that's what I've been getting.
Yeah, my iBook gets about 1% every hour. And that I believe was when I had 3-4 hours battery life, lower than the original 6.

Recently when my battery was practically dead (it was so weak that my iBook would shut off after a few minutes of video playing, even at close to full charge), I left it on sleep in school for the better part of a week and the battery went down from close to 100% to 1% or so. Looks like I got back just in time. :D
 
Sorry for the late update~:p

Last night I have drained my Alum Macbook all the way down till the Macbook shutdown.

I removed the Battery from the Macbook and left it in my room for about 10 Hours. (I didn't use my Macbook with charger only plugged in.Yes, It felt like hell not to use it)

After 10 Hours I replaced the Battery in the Macbook and DIDN'T turn it on while charging overnight.

This morning I turned it on and let it sleep for 1 hour and 15 mins.

Result 99% to 98% :eek: No way~ it worked~
However, I have been typing this up for 4 mins and the battery went down from 98% to 96%... I ain't doing anything special here...Is that normal?
Anyways... Whoever has the similar problem as what I did for sleep mode battery drain just calibrate your battery and let it sit in your room for 10 hours or so then recharge.~

I am going to keep testing this sleep mode throughout today to let you guys know whats up ;) thanks for replying guys ;D
 
Macbook sleep problem

There seems to be a problem with 10.5.6 and the Macbook/MBP and sleep.
The default of sleep/hibernate seems to drain the battery a lot faster than previously.

I have found that the SmartSleep preference pane http://www.jinx.de/SmartSleep.htmlhttp://www.jinx.de/SmartSleep.html
helps prevent thebattery from draining too quickly. I have set the pref to "sleep only" and that seems to have solved the problem for me.
 
I was going to post SmartSleep, but somebody beat me to it.

It works as advertised. I lose 1%/hour on average.
 
Agree with previous posters about 5% or so during the night. Battery
behavior corresponds with age, number of charge cycles and whether
you let it run down every month or so as Apple recommends. They believe
your battery should maintain at least a 80% charge up to 300 cycles..
 
I was very surprised to see the battery drain on my MBP compared to that of my ibook.
I even have the problem that it suddenly shuts down completly even if it´s like 20% left.
I have to plug it and start it up all over again, everything i had up lost
 
There seems to be a problem with 10.5.6 and the Macbook/MBP and sleep.
The default of sleep/hibernate seems to drain the battery a lot faster than previously.

I have found that the SmartSleep preference pane http://www.jinx.de/SmartSleep.htmlhttp://www.jinx.de/SmartSleep.html
helps prevent thebattery from draining too quickly. I have set the pref to "sleep only" and that seems to have solved the problem for me.

Be careful, this is great until for some random reason the Macbook freezes on waking up and you lose everything. Sleep/hibernate at least guarantees you won't lose data if something happens.
 
Thank you every for helping me out here ;)
I was very sick with the flue that my little sister brought back from her school:mad:, although I could test couple of times for the battery drain % after I updated last time.

Result: So far so good actually, as the people posted it should be 1% per hour or so and the Apple lady told me it shouldn't be more than 5%. My new Refurb Alum Macbook is doing alright now ;D

Only thing that makes me kind of worry is that I can see my battery drain like crazy when I am using it... I even turned off the blue tooth and such.. Only using firefox 2 tabs at a time....

Anyways...~ Have a great day everyone and be careful not to get sick ;)
 
After reading this I took my MBP to an Apple shop here in Norway, the rep had one look at it and just handed over a new battery. Now it performs great. I get 4,5 hours out of it and it only lost 7% of the charge.
Just under 1% pr hour.

So if your Mac is fairly new and performs badly, take it back and let them look at it.
(Mine was even an ex-demo, so I thought maybe they had let it run on battery in the shop quite often and worn out the battery somehow)
 
reply

I have the same macbook as you and i think your battery is kind of messed up because my macbook only uses 1% per day.
 
I have the same macbook as you and i think your battery is kind of messed up because my macbook only uses 1% per day.

No way is that possible. 1% total battery drain while sleeping for an entire day (ie: 24 hours) is just not going to happen on an aluminum Macbook, no matter how good your battery is.
 
No way is that possible. 1% total battery drain while sleeping for an entire day (ie: 24 hours) is just not going to happen on an aluminum Macbook, no matter how good your battery is.

Well, if you look at his signature you will see he has a very special 14" alu Macbook. Maybe that model can pull it off;)
 
Well, if you look at his signature you will see he has a very special 14" alu Macbook. Maybe that model can pull it off;)

Hehe... :cool:
The 14" screen probably has a little more room for some extra battery so there's your explanation for 1% per day!
 
Only thing that makes me kind of worry is that I can see my battery drain like crazy when I am using it... I even turned off the blue tooth and such.. Only using firefox 2 tabs at a time....

I am experiencing the same thing in a 2.0 aluminum that I bought new on new year's day - surfing over wifi with Safari, and an hour or two of use drains about half the battery life. I know that the harder the machine works the more power it will consume, but what is really to be expected? Screen brightness is around 35%, btw.
 
I am experiencing the same thing in a 2.0 aluminum that I bought new on new year's day - surfing over wifi with Safari, and an hour or two of use drains about half the battery life. I know that the harder the machine works the more power it will consume, but what is really to be expected? Screen brightness is around 35%, btw.

I am really not sure... Right now I am fighting the stupid cold flue that is taking over my life. :mad: For now, I have left my Macbook plugged in at 99% battery and just using it normally. This coming up Tuesday will be my 14days from the purchase date so I will try to play with it just using battery power and let you know.
-Chris-
 
After reading this I took my MBP to an Apple shop here in Norway, the rep had one look at it and just handed over a new battery. Now it performs great. I get 4,5 hours out of it and it only lost 7% of the charge.
Just under 1% pr hour.

So if your Mac is fairly new and performs badly, take it back and let them look at it.
(Mine was even an ex-demo, so I thought maybe they had let it run on battery in the shop quite often and worn out the battery somehow)


Alright, that sounds very promising. Did you have to make an appointment or anything? I purchased mine from Refurb store if that makes anything different situation when I am at the Apple store?:confused:
 
I don't think that's right. I left my MB in sleep mode for about two hours... and the battery was still the same... w/o the charger.
 
i left my Alu macbook over night in sleep mode, went from 78% to 16% :/....
 
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