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Kinda shocked by Battery Life

M

Motawa

Suspended
Original poster
Jun 24, 2012
710
1,706
So, i just got a macbook air. Its in good condition.

But the battery life is kinda really bad.. When i do nothing it says 5hours(100% charged, display on 60-70%, wifi connected)

And when i play starcraft 2 it says 1:45? wth?(i know gaming is demanding but 1:44h??)

battery health says 91% condition=good
 
Normal every day tasks like browsing or checking mail or even watching video or listening to music are not CPU intensive, playing a game like Starcraft is, thus the hit in battery life.

______________________________________________________
This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:
Apple Notebook Battery FAQ by GGJstudios
The F.A.Q. includes the following topics:
  • BATTERY INFORMATION
  • BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE
  • AC POWER
  • CALIBRATION
  • BATTERY LIFESPAN
  • CHECKING STATUS AND HEALTH
  • CHARGING
  • WHAT IS A CYCLE?
  • BATTERIES ARE NOT COVERED
  • BULGING OR SWELLING BATTERY

______________________________________________________​
 
Like I said. It says 5 hours when i do nothing

I read some reviews where people get 6+ hours when turning brightness to 100% and cpu 100% usage
 
Motawa said:
Like I said. It says 5 hours when i do nothing

I read some reviews where people get 6+ hours when turning brightness to 100% and cpu 100% usage
Click to expand...

What model/year MBA is this? Also try downloading Coconut Battery and report back with the number of cycles on the battery.

Is it still under warranty?

Normal use aside, playing a game like StarCraft, 1-2 hours sounds about right. Batteries simply don't hold up under sustained CPU/GPU load.
 
late 2013. It has 300 cycles. Whats weird is that it charges really fast. 5 minutes for 7 percent.
 
Motawa said:
I read some reviews where people get 6+ hours when turning brightness to 100% and cpu 100% usage
Click to expand...

Please link to those reviews, as that sounds ridiculous. 100 % CPU usage does not get you 6 hours of battery life.

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Motawa said:
late 2013. It has 300 cycles.
Click to expand...

300 cycles in less than one year?
How do you use it?
Charge it until it is fully loaded, disconnect when fully charged and let the battery drain until it is almost at zero and charge again?

If so, please read the FAQ I linked to.

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Motawa said:
Whats weird is that it charges really fast. 5 minutes for 7 percent.
Click to expand...

It may load fast with the first 75% to 80% of the battery, but the rest to 100% will take longer.
 
its a used one. Battery Health says its 1.1 years old. Whats strange is that when i first checked the battery left time (i just got this macbook today) it said 9h left at 90% battery. Could it be because of WLAN?

Maybe i will charge it to 100 and then let it die out.

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[/COLOR]

It may load fast with the first 75% to 80% of the battery, but the rest to 100% will take longer.[/QUOTE]

Well it didn't. It went from 93-100 in like 10 minutes.


something must be wrong. It says time till fully charged 25 minutes at 99% and then 1 minute later it was 100%
 
9h on 90% sounds fine to me.

Like simsaladimbamba wrote, I doubt people get 6+h on 100%cpu and brightness.

For webbrowsing and some word editing on full brightness you might get approx 7 1/2.
Playing video games will suck your battery pretty much instantely.
 
all i am doing is downloading a file in safari.
 

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Motawa said:
60%

oh yeah, and i am using a bluetooth mouse. I Guess thats killing the 7-12 hour battery life then...
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you should get better battery life.
Use tha mba and see how long it lasts on 75%. Thats :apple: test brightness.
 
I found it

as soon as i turn my wifi and connect to my router kernel_task kicks up.
 
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Motawa said:
Only thing that sticks out is that kernel task is always at 20-30% but thats normal i guess
Click to expand...

Backup and clean install Mac OS. Don't restore, just manually backup and perform a clean installation.

OS install might be borked.
 
fresh install. Nothing open except activity monitor. Says 6 hours on a full charge...
 

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I don't know why but now it says 9hours.

Yesterday it ran only about 4 hours(like it was displayed)

edit: now its back to 6 hours
 

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Motawa said:
I don't know why but now it says 9hours.

Yesterday it ran only about 4 hours(like it was displayed)
Click to expand...

It says 9 hours now due to 98% of the CPU being unused, and the previous screenshot saw only 36% of the CPU being unused, thus my advice to show ALL PROCESSES. But know that CPU hungry process has calmed down as it seems.

Maybe it was Spotlight indexing or something else.

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Motawa said:
edit: now its back to 6 hours
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What does Activity Monitor say now?

You also should know, that that time indicator is calculated all the time due to the current CPU usage and all that goes into battery life.
 
This is using the current Yosemite public beta? Why would you be shocked at the battery life of an OS that isn't even released yet? Whatever battery life you are getting on the beta will surely be different on final release and I am sure it may even take a few releases after that to tweak it.
 
ashman70 said:
This is using the current Yosemite public beta? Why would you be shocked at the battery life of an OS that isn't even released yet? Whatever battery life you are getting on the beta will surely be different on final release and I am sure it may even take a few releases after that to tweak it.
Click to expand...

+1

OP>> Battery life is going to be all over the place on the Yosemite beta. Just erase it and go back to Mavericks if you want good battery life.
 
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