Yeah if you turn it on and don't let it sleep and just let it sit it'll say 20 hours sometimes. If you're just looking for a paper weight there are many cheaper options though.
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I just can't get the expected battery life
- Thread starter nalbagli
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Yeah if you turn it on and don't let it sleep and just let it sit it'll say 20 hours sometimes. If you're just looking for a paper weight there are many cheaper options though.
Ah, so this is what the mystical paperweight is! I never bought one before so I had no idea it was so functional! Man, I've really been missing out for all these years.
I found that selecting the first two options but unticking the Power Nap option in System Preferences-Energy Saver-Battery improved my battery life markedly.
But that does depend on having periods where you are not using the MacBook so it can go to sleep.
But that does depend on having periods where you are not using the MacBook so it can go to sleep.
I've had the macbook 1.3 for a few months now. Absolutely LOVE the computer except for the battery life. Am very disappointed as I can barely get 5 hours of web browsing with brightness set 50-75%. If there weren't tons of other people saying they were getting 8-9 hours plus i wouldn't be so surprised/disappointed. Have been waiting for availability of new stock to increase so I won't be without computer for weeks waiting for a replacement. I should also mention that my battery health was 92% out of the box.
I don't know if it matters that your machine was at 92% out of the box. I mean, it gets tested, boxed and then shipped, so the time elapsed between then and when you finally receive it and open it means there will obviously be some loss of charge.
Re the battery life you're getting, have you gone through the usual checklist of things to shut off? For example, I've always found that bluetooth can suck the life out of a battery and since I don't use (or hardly ever use) anything connected via Bluetooth, I always make sure it's off and stays off. Also I could be totally wrong here, but it's possible that wifi range might play a role too. If you tend to be far from the router and the wifi signal isn't optimal, maybe the computer is wasting power trying to compensate for lost bits or polling more frequently to maintain a locked signal. This is out of my area of expertise so maybe someone else could comment on whether this influences things or not?
I've found the best time estimates I've seen with my rMB have been when I've settled back to watch a movie with the display brightness around or below 75%. In those uses I saw estimates of remaining time up in the 12 hour range or more. This was with wifi still on and safari open with tabs open in the background. But currently, as I am typing this and doing some browsing, the remaining time estimate is 9 hours 45 minutes with a 100% charge and brightness at around 80%. A while ago I followed some advice to install u-block (to remove ads from websites) and got rid of flash. Don't know if this has contributed to better battery life because I didn't really pay much attention to it before. But you could try doing this as well and see if it helps? I have a 1.3 machine as well so you should be able to get the same results as I do.
Re the battery life you're getting, have you gone through the usual checklist of things to shut off? For example, I've always found that bluetooth can suck the life out of a battery and since I don't use (or hardly ever use) anything connected via Bluetooth, I always make sure it's off and stays off. Also I could be totally wrong here, but it's possible that wifi range might play a role too. If you tend to be far from the router and the wifi signal isn't optimal, maybe the computer is wasting power trying to compensate for lost bits or polling more frequently to maintain a locked signal. This is out of my area of expertise so maybe someone else could comment on whether this influences things or not?
I've found the best time estimates I've seen with my rMB have been when I've settled back to watch a movie with the display brightness around or below 75%. In those uses I saw estimates of remaining time up in the 12 hour range or more. This was with wifi still on and safari open with tabs open in the background. But currently, as I am typing this and doing some browsing, the remaining time estimate is 9 hours 45 minutes with a 100% charge and brightness at around 80%. A while ago I followed some advice to install u-block (to remove ads from websites) and got rid of flash. Don't know if this has contributed to better battery life because I didn't really pay much attention to it before. But you could try doing this as well and see if it helps? I have a 1.3 machine as well so you should be able to get the same results as I do.
As a semi-aside, I just downloaded Coconut Battery for the first time, and one of the useful things it displays is the amount of power being used in real-time in watts. This makes it pretty easy to see what's going on with your energy consumption and calculate your own battery life in real time. The numbers it displays echo exactly what I've been seeing. Inside, under 50% brightness, I seem to be using 3-4 watts. The battery is 39.7wHR so 39.7/4= 9.9 hours battery life. Outside, with the display at full brightness, it's at about 6-7.5 watts, so 39.7/7= 5.3 hours battery on the low end. Doing something CPU intensive on top of that would surely drive the power up further and the battery life down.
If you aren't sure where your battery draw is coming from, open up Coconut Battery and start closing down programs or browser tabs one at a time until you see the power consumption drop.
If you aren't sure where your battery draw is coming from, open up Coconut Battery and start closing down programs or browser tabs one at a time until you see the power consumption drop.
In the advanced settings of Coconut Battery you can also opt to display a myriad of information in the menu bar regarding the battery state etc. Personally I don't bother, however it`s useful to help if you feel the battery is discharging rapidly.
Q-6
UPDATE: I just received my replacement Macbook yesterday. So far i have noticed an improvement in Battery life. Whereas my previous Macbook came out of the box with 91% MAX Battery Capacity, this one had 101%. The estimates and power usage are also suggesting 7-8 hours battery life doing the same things I was lucky to get 3-4 hours on before. Lets hope it holds up. But so far looking much better.
I am getting really frustrated with battery life, my 1.2 does not last more than 5-6 hours, even with 50-55% screen brightness and only safari open, I also have selected the option that flash only activates when I choose, but battery doesn't get better, for me a key feature of this laptop was getting at least 8 hours,so I don't have to be carrying my charger everywhere
That sounds pretty unreasonable. If I were you I would probably be getting ready to make a case for a return and exchange at an Apple Store.. I'm a bit of a perfectionist about this kind of thing, I hate leaving it to chance and going in to talk to some idiot who will give me the usual "you're holding it wrong" spiel and send me home. So what I would do is find on the Apple site the exact specs they list for how they conduct their battery tests to get their approximate durations for each model. I would then replicate exactly what they do (for example, if it says 9 hours Quicktime playback at 75% brightness and so on), I would set up a test like that and record it.. in fact if you have a recent iPhone you should even be able to set it up to shoot in stop frame mode so as to get an accelerated video. In any case, I'd find some way to demonstrate that I have exhaustively made efforts to show that it's not delivering what it should. In my experience, if you make an appointment and go in with a good case, and they start seeing you've amassed some evidence, they take you more seriously if not outright just capitulate and say OK we'll replace the machine.
But before doing this, I'd investigate their actual battery claims again for the rMB. I don't remember what the approximate figure is supposed to be for safari browsing - it may well be only around 6 hours anyway?
But before doing this, I'd investigate their actual battery claims again for the rMB. I don't remember what the approximate figure is supposed to be for safari browsing - it may well be only around 6 hours anyway?
“Up to 9 hours wireless web.
- Testing conducted by Apple in February 2015 using preproduction 1.2GHz Intel Core M-based 12-inch MacBook systems (wireless web test and HD movie playback test) as well as preproduction 1.2GHz Intel Core M-based 12-inch MacBook systems and preproduction 1.3GHz Intel Core M-based 12-inch MacBook systems (standby test), all configured with 512GB of flash storage and 8GB of RAM. The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%. The HD movie playback test measures battery life by playing back HD 1080p content with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%. The standby test measures battery life by allowing a system, connected to a wireless network and signed in to an iCloud account, to enter standby mode with Safari and Mail applications launched and all system settings left at default. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See www.apple.com/hk/en/batteries for more information."
I usually do regular browsing on forums or news sites, with occasional videos from youtube or other site, nothing out of the ordinary. For example if I check for the battery time estimate while watching a video at NFL.com with 60% battery estimate shows me 2:40 hours left of battery or something like that, I really don't get it.
Unfortunately I am not from the US and here there are only Apple resellers, I'll just have to take it to a genius in december that I'll be traveling to the US. I am not all that confident on getting the computer replaced though. Really disappointing
Earlier in the thread you posted a screenshot of your energy usage which showed that Safari was using energy at a rate that would undoubtedly give you the battery life you are getting. If you haven't changed your routine, and Safari is still showing an energy impact near or over 100, then you cannot expect better battery life.
I suggested earlier you download coconut battery and tell us what the power draw in Watts is while you are doing various things, and suggested how to use it to narrow in on the specific program using the most energy. Especially without an Apple Store nearby to assist, that's your best bet for getting to the root of the problem.
I suggested earlier you download coconut battery and tell us what the power draw in Watts is while you are doing various things, and suggested how to use it to narrow in on the specific program using the most energy. Especially without an Apple Store nearby to assist, that's your best bet for getting to the root of the problem.
Thanks for the suggestion I had forgotten about it, I downloaded Coconut Battery and this is the info I get. What would you suggest I do on the program to show me what is drawing the energy? Sorry but I don't know how to do it.
Usually Safari is draining close to 100 of energy impact so that's why am getting such a poor battery life. Even my Surface Pro 3, gives me better battery times under similar use.
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And that's only with Safari open? The energy consumption seems a bit high. Just to test it out I turned on my rMB, have only Safari open with around 6 tabs and am downloading a video file. Even then, my energy consumption is around 1 watt less than yours...
I do have Ublock installed on Safari and did not install Flash on my machine though... not sure if that might be contributing to the overall lower power draw...
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Yeah only Safari, definitely there's a problem with my Safari consuming too much energy. I don't know what to do to fix it
Do you have a lot of extensions installed or allowing any/all plug-ins to run? That can definitely contribute to the energy drain. Again, I'm running pretty lean on all of that stuff personally, which works fine for me but I can understand how that might not be a workable scenario for a lot of other people...
yeah I'm getting about 6 hours....would prefer the claimed 9 but then again i always have my screen near max brightness and i tend to use quite a few apps at once to not really surprised....still, way more than my 11" mba had towards the end so its still an increase for me...
Check Console for any warnings or errors. OS X is usually very forgiving (arguably to a fault) with problems that way ... rather than throw out an error to the GUI that would make the average user most likely panic, they instead put them silently to the console. So I would look there to see if something could be causing a problem.
Also, have you checked disk activity at all? If there's something Safari-related constantly trying to read/write from/to something, then that would have an impact on battery life.
Actively Monitor is your "friend" here;
Use the computer as normal, Safari running etc, Open Activity Monitor, select "Energy" and sort by Avg Energy Impact. Safari will likely be at the top of the list, expand Safari by clicking on the arrow/triangle and you will see a list of web pages and their "Energy Impact" in realtime, likely one or two will be high impact and be the culprit for the heavy battery usage. Also note that some web pages prevent "App Nap" which basically means if you switch to another Safari Tab or another application that web page will remain active and potentially drain battery power.
As you can see in the attachment, one website has a high Energy Impact and App Nap and Sleep are effected...
If you have Flash and or Microsoft Silverlight installed this are very CPU intensive and will rapidly impact battery life, you should also install Ublock or similar to kill the Ad`s as they only burn up more CPU, bandwidth, resources etc.
Q-6
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