Is my UMBP battery fail?!

[n8236]

My UMBP is a little over a year old and I just noticed a strange battery life phenomenon.

I left work at 5pm with battery fully charged. I returned to work 15 hours later and its lost over 83% of its charge (2:05 to recharge to full). According to System Profiler, it has about 74 cycle counts.

I have yet to run calibration on the battery, but I will do that tonight and post my results. Even then, the pre-calibration numbers are dismal...

 

[Pax]

your post is a bit confusing. Do you mean you left it connected to the charger and even so the battery discharged?
Or did you leave it NOT attached to the charger

The most likely explanation is that the Mac did not go to sleep properly eg when you closed the lid. I bet that if you look in System Preferences you have set it to go to sleep after being on for 2-3 hours.

So you left work, you thought it was asleep but actually it was still awake, it stayed awake for 3 hours and then went to sleep on its own.

I doubt this problem is anything to do with the battery

 

[n8236]

Sorry my post was confusing.

Essentially, I am at work from 8-5pm w/ it being charged via adapter. So, by the time 5pm rolls around, I placed the laptop back in my bag. And when I returned back to work the next morning at 8am, it has lost that 83% charge I was telling you about.

My power settings are fine, so it's not that.

 

[Jaro65]

Do you see the heartbeat after you close the lid?

 

[Patriks7]

2 questions:
What's your hibernation setting?
Has something like this ever happened before?
If your hibernation setting is 3, then this should be "normal" on the version of the MBP you have, because the RAM uses too much power or something like that (I have the same problem).

 

[Pax]

Sorry my post was confusing.

Essentially, I am at work from 8-5pm w/ it being charged via adapter. So, by the time 5pm rolls around, I placed the laptop back in my bag. And when I returned back to work the next morning at 8am, it has lost that 83% charge I was telling you about.

My power settings are fine, so it's not that.

I bet it is. Very occasionally Macs can fail to sleep properly. I bet you closed the lid, but it didn't detect the "lid closed" event and so did not go to sleep. So you put it in your bag still awake. It stayed awake but idle for about 2-3 hours then went to sleep on the idle timer.

Keep an eye on the white heartbeat LED - just check it starts beating before you put it in your bag.

It's hard to replicate sleep events like this, they tend to happen very rarely. I had a few with Leopard, I haven't had any with Snow Leopard yet. I bet getting a really reliable sleep mode makes operating system manufacturers tear their hair out.

 

[n8236]

I suppose it is possible that the computer goes in and out of sleep mode. But I find that hard to believe because when I place the laptop in my bag, it has a thick/tight velcro strap that I know for sure keeps the lid sealed. I make sure that it is.

I'll keep an eye out on that whole heartbeat thing as I always 'assume' it turns on the second I shut the lid.

My hibernation settings for battery are 5 minutes display and 10 minutes system.