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Thanks all for your replies. I'll try what you said Queen6 tonight. Failing that, I'll check my battery during the day with films etc to see if it is near Apples claims to check mine isn't faulty.
 
Thanks all for your replies. I'll try what you said Queen6 tonight. Failing that, I'll check my battery during the day with films etc to see if it is near Apples claims to check mine isn't faulty.

If your going to test the battery with video playback it will need to be hardware accelerated same as Apple. As you Mac is waking up to complete a task, yet it is seemingly unable to, try to leave it running for 24 hours, and prevent it from sleeping in Energy Saver, it may just be as simple as this, as once the task is complete, normal behaviour will resume.

Q-6
 
If your going to test the battery with video playback it will need to be hardware accelerated same as Apple. As you Mac is waking up to complete a task, yet it is seemingly unable to, try to leave it running for 24 hours, and prevent it from sleeping in Energy Saver, it may just be as simple as this, as once the task is complete, normal behaviour will resume.

Q-6

Could you explain what you mean by hardware accelerated and why I need to leave it 24 hours (plugged in I guess or the battery will die)? Not quite sure what you're trying to say, sorry.
 
Could you explain what you mean by hardware accelerated and why I need to leave it 24 hours (plugged in I guess or the battery will die)? Not quite sure what you're trying to say, sorry.

Using an application like VLC will drain the battery far faster as it`s far more CPU intensive, Apple uses QT/IT, any test would need to be comparative. As for 24 hours it give you Mac the opportunity to do what it needs to do, as it may well only be conducted under idle conditions. Your system is waking up for a reason give it the chance to resolve.

OS X is pretty good, equally it`s not perfect, and like it or not OS`s are far more connected and reliant in the internet, than previous iterations.

Q-6
 
I doubt it. The settings were transferred with migration assistant from my MBA, and the MBA did not have this problem. No new software installed.

But is there anyway I can check if something is going on in networks while asleep?

This is probably playing a large part in your issues. I set my rMB up as new, and migrated data manually using a hard drive and network transfers. Migrating everything from one system to another using migration assistant can cause issues like this. It transfers settings from one mac to another, and in your case, a different model with different capabilities. I'd restore, set up as new, and manually transfer the data from a backup by navigating your backup folders in finder, and dragging what you want back.
 
This is probably playing a large part in your issues. I set my rMB up as new, and migrated data manually using a hard drive and network transfers. Migrating everything from one system to another using migration assistant can cause issues like this. It transfers settings from one mac to another, and in your case, a different model with different capabilities. I'd restore, set up as new, and manually transfer the data from a backup by navigating your backup folders in finder, and dragging what you want back.
Well, one of the reasons I use OSX rather than Windows is Migration assistant. Sure, if you're not a busy person, and have all day to play around, yes, please go ahead and do everything manually.
 
Leave it to sleep overnight and then run this command in Terminal, if the issue persists. OS X does perform tasks when the user is offline.

cat /var/log/system.log | grep -i "wake reason"


Q-6
I't says its waking up like 10-15 times during the night, the most common being ARPT (network).
I've attached it below.

Screen Shot 2015-08-19 at 08.28.56.png
 
and leave it like that for how long, over night?

Yes, this will allow any maintenance, communication with Apple`a servers to complete. You have nothing to loose, one of my Mac`s had a similar issue this resolved it. Remember you to manually set the system not to sleep in System Preferences - Energy Saver. More and more the OS is communicating externally, like it or loath it...

Q-6
 
Yes, this will allow any maintenance, communication with Apple`a servers to complete. You have nothing to loose, one of my Mac`s had a similar issue this resolved it. Remember you to manually set the system not to sleep in System Preferences - Energy Saver. More and more the OS is communicating externally, like it or loath it...

Q-6
How do I make my mac not sleep? I've changed loads in the Energy Saver preferences yet after 30mins or so the screen still locks and i need to enter my password again. Also, what does EC.SleepTimer mean in terminal? That seems to cause my mac to wake up more than network reasons now.
 
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How do I make my mac not sleep? I've changed loads in the Energy Saver preferences yet after 30mins or so the screen still locks and i need to enter my password again. Also, what does EC.SleepTimer mean in terminal? That seems to cause my mac to wake up more than network reasons now.

Select do not sleep in preferences, the display will turn off, however the system will remain powered up. EC.SleepTimer is part of the Sleep preferences and can cause some users Mac`s to prematurely wake up to change system sleeps states. The system should transit to a deeper level, clearly yours is not. Rather more a vicious circle as it`s being woken prior to fully hibernating with the timers resetting, likely by network access and or an application that will prevent the system sleeping.

Q-6
 
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Select do not sleep in preferences, the display will turn off, however the system will remain powered up. EC.SleepTimer is part of the Sleep preferences and can cause some users Mac`s to prematurely wake up to change system sleeps states. The system should transit to a deeper level, clearly yours is not. Rather more a vicious circle as it`s being woken prior to fully hibernating with the timers resetting, likely by network access and or an application that will prevent the system sleeping.

Q-6
Ok, i'll try that this afternoon. I just played a 2 and a half hour film and lost 35% charge (77-42%) yet Apple claim 10hours video playback. They test using itunes whereas i used quicktime which i thought would be less power intensive anyway....
 
Ok, i'll try that this afternoon. I just played a 2 and a half hour film and lost 35% charge (77-42%) yet Apple claim 10hours video playback. They test using itunes whereas i used quicktime which i thought would be less power intensive anyway....

Look at Apple`s conditions for making these statements, to achieve the stated battery runtime. From any Apple Notebook you need to use a player that takes advantage of hardware playback. I use iTunes or Movist and the impact of video playback on the battery is generally negligible, much is also dependant on the source file, display brightness and what`s running in the background.

Currently playing a film in iTunes, projection after 60 minutes is 9% battery drop per hour. Switched to Movist playing a 11GB+ MKV 12% drop after 60 minutes, which is fair even the complexity of the file.

Q-6
 
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In that case, it's probably not the wifi directly causing the problem, but rather some program keeping the network connection alive and preventing the computer from going fully to sleep.
I still think it's the router. I took the rMB to my office, and the experience was completely different
1. It was always correctly connected to WiFi when waking from sleep (and I don't think it reconnects, it's already connected). On my home WiFi, often when it wakes from sleep, it claims it's connected (4 bars), but there is no internet, and I have to turn off WiFi and turn it on again to make it correctly connect.
2. It did not loss charge while asleep. At home it looses about 1% per hour.

So, a hypothesis is that on some WiFi networks, it tries unsuccessfully to connect, and then it uses battery on trying again and again.

But it seems El Capitain solves the WiFi problem for a lot of people, and then the discharge while asleep problem may also be solved.
 
System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Wake for Wi-Fi network access

Your router (or something else, but most likely your router) is checking in on your MacBook to see if it's still available, etc. This can be done for thing like verifying bonjour services and names, and to let other devices know that your Mac is available for file sharing, Back to My Mac, and Find My Mac, as well as iCloud related services (like iMessage).
 
System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Wake for Wi-Fi network access

Your router (or something else, but most likely your router) is checking in on your MacBook to see if it's still available, etc. This can be done for thing like verifying bonjour services and names, and to let other devices know that your Mac is available for file sharing, Back to My Mac, and Find My Mac, as well as iCloud related services (like iMessage).
That option is only available for Power Adapter, not for Battery. And I already put it off for Power Adapter, not that it should matter when it's on battery.

I feel convinced that 1) the rMB stays connected to WiFi even when asleep 2) because it fails to connect properly, it uses power, perhaps trying to reconnect.
 
I am having similar issues. Put my macbook in my bag today at 7am with a 100% charge, at 6pm took it out to do some light work and it was at 46%. Major drain... Yesterday it lost 20% or so in 4 hours. There are no apps preventing it from sleeping in the system monitor. Only stock apps and Microsoft office and geek tool are installed. Deleted these apps tonight and turning wifi off before putting it to sleep; we will see how it looks in the morning. If that does not resolve the issue I may have to bring it into apple to see what they think.
 
Last night I went from 100 - 93% so that's a small improvement.
 
Last night I went from 100 - 93% so that's a small improvement.

Did you check the "wake ups" as that will help to narrow down the occurrences.
Screen Shot 2015-08-21 at 16.49.06.jpg
As you can see my rMB rarely wakes, barring shifting "sleep states" and occasional OS requests. Admittedly "Wake ups" plague many peoples Mac`s and are never straight forward to diagnose. If the wake up`s are related to the Network turning off WiFi is a workaround, same applies for Bluetooth devices. Other options include forcing the Notebook to fully hibernate far sooner than Apples default of 3 hours, which can work, equally it does not resolve the root cause for obvious reason.


Q-6
 
I know this doesn't apply to most, but as a Windows user via Boot Camp I put the rMB into Hibernate instead of Sleep and it solved my overnight battery drain issue.

BJ
 
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