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Macbook Airbook M2

D

dak46cmai

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 28, 2021
44
17
Hi

I have now had my m2 macbook air for a couple of weeks.

But I am confused as to why, having fully charged it, it is showing in activity monitor, only 5 hours and 19 minutes remaining.

If I go to battery settings and enable low power on battery mode, it only goes up to 5 hours and 27 minutes.

In clean my mac from top menu bar, it shows exactly the same battery time left.

There are no processes running in the background.

Could someone advise me if this is normal, or is the info on activity monitor and clean my mac faulty.

So, to test this out, I have turned the mac on with no process running, to see how long the battery actually lasts.

The only thing I have done is, to set screensaver to 10 minutes and in battery settings, turn screen off after 15 minutes of inactivity.

Thank you.
 
  1. Turn OFF the screensaver COMPLETELY (screensavers are old-fashioned and useless)
  2. Turn down to half-brightness, unless you're working outside
  3. Don't have too many energy-sucking apps open
Go to System Information (hold Option while clicking the Apple logo, and click "System Information.") Go down to Power, and check the health. You might have a faulty battery and you should return it if that's the case.
 
Here's a screenshot of what I'm talking about. I've had my M1 Air ever since it was announced (so getting on 2 years), so I've used the battery more and it's starting to become worse than when I first bought it.

Screen Shot 2022-09-03 at 6.34.31 PM.png
 

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My apologies. I am new to this. I clicked attach files, added an image from my phone. So slightly puzzled that it didn't go through.

Just an aside, when I use my mac to view your reply by email, all I get is a grey page in the middle of my screen with my original question.

I cannot find a way to reply with that. Hence I could not attach a screenshot. Thus I used my phone. It shows a screen with following red writing.. extensions are allowed etcetc
 
dak46cmai said:
My apologies. I am new to this. I clicked attach files, added an image from my phone. So slightly puzzled that it didn't go through.

Just an aside, when I use my mac to view your reply by email, all I get is a grey page in the middle of my screen with my original question.

I cannot find a way to reply with that. Hence I could not attach a screenshot. Thus I used my phone. It shows a screen with following red writing.. extensions are allowed etcetc
Click to expand...
PM sent with images.
 
You might try turning off the machine completely (shut it down), wait a few minutes, and then turn it back on again and check.

If you have menu-bar applications like Stats, Avid Link, SINE Player, etc., those also consume battery power.
 
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rm5 said:
You might try turning off the machine completely (shut it down), wait a few minutes, and then turn it back on again and check.

If you have menu-bar applications like Stats, Avid Link, SINE Player, etc., those also consume battery power.
Click to expand...
I have none of those. But I added an icon/folder to the bottom menu bar showing applications and also download folders.

Got that by watching macmost as I am learning how to use macbook.

Perhaps I should remove those folders.
 
No, that won't do anything. This is interesting. Even my nearly 2 year-old MacBook Air M1 is getting 12 hours of battery life, 5 hours decreased from when I first got it (originally got nearly 17 hours). It could be that Activity Monitor is wrong.

Let's see if any people more knowledgable than me reply to this thread — maybe they have ideas about that could be wrong.
 
rm5 said:
No, that won't do anything. This is interesting. Even my nearly 2 year-old MacBook Air M1 is getting 12 hours of battery life, 5 hours decreased from when I first got it (originally got nearly 17 hours). It could be that Activity Monitor is wrong.

Let's see if any people more knowledgable than me reply to this thread — maybe they have ideas about that could be wrong.
Click to expand...
Ok. Thks for all your help.
Did you check out the personal message with image I sent you?
 
Have you tried to do a run down test regardless of activity monitor? Like just see how many hours you can run between charging?

If you get the average time like 13-15 hours or more between charging then you are good.

If you are only getting 5 hours then you may have a bad battery that is defective?

I am no expert and I am sure there are others with better advice but I would first determine the actual battery life.

If it was really bad I would do backup of everything then go into recovery and wipe the drive and reinstall MacOS. If I still had the same problem I would call Apple and either return and get a replacement or have them run diagnostics. You can chat with Apple support and have them run hardware diagnostics remotely just to see if you have a hardware issue?
 
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Technerd108 said:
Have you tried to do a run down test regardless of activity monitor? Like just see how many hours you can run between charging?

If you get the average time like 13-15 hours or more between charging then you are good.

If you are only getting 5 hours then you may have a bad battery that is defective?

I am no expert and I am sure there are others with better advice but I would first determine the actual battery life.

If it was really bad I would do backup of everything then go into recovery and wipe the drive and reinstall MacOS. If I still had the same problem I would call Apple and either return and get a replacement or have them run diagnostics. You can chat with Apple support and have them run hardware diagnostics remotely just to see if you have a hardware issue?
Click to expand...
Many thks. It has been running for 2 hours now and is showing 66% and 3hrs 20 remaining.

I will wait and see how long it lasts on this charge.

If it is only around 5 hours or so, I will take it back to Apple store.

Thank you
 
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@technand @rm5

Thank you both for all your advice.
1hour on apple support, didn't really help, despite all their kindness and efforts.

So,
1. Checked disk utility.....all good.
2. Checked time machine on disc utility. Failed on hdd and software.
3. Removed time machine
4. Recharged macbook

And now showing 20 hours battery left.

Added brand new time machine and all good.😁👍

Regards🙏
 
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Just one more thing for those experiencing the same issues.

I purchased the single apple usb adaptor with my mac.

During the process of trying to eliminate the battery charge anomaly, I discovered something else.

Having fully charged it without any peripherals attached, I got 20 hours.

Then I attached my mouse with dongle, a fan and printer to a 4 way usb fro Ugreen.

Restarted the mac and found only 7 hours remaining,despite 100% battery showing.

One by one I removed each peripheral from the usb hub.
Restarted the mac and every time I received 7 hours remaining.

Finally removed the USB hub and connected the apple usb single connection with my mouse, restarted and " bingo" back to 20 hours battery life left.

I then removed the mouse dongle, attached the previous time machine to the apple usb connector and ran disc utility. Absolutely, NO errors

So, I hope this helps anyone else with similar issues whilst using a non apple USB hub.

Regards
 
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Lloigorr said:
Do yourself a favour and uninstall Clean my Mac. You won’t need such an app. It doesn’t clean your Mac anyway.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your thoughts. But, could you explain a little bit more as to why you say that. I welcome any advice.
 
It doesn’t do anything your Mac couldn’t do without it. Plus your Mac seems to be quite new so you shouldn’t have it loaded with old files that get problematic
 
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Lloigorr said:
It doesn’t do anything your Mac couldn’t do without it. Plus your Mac seems to be quite new so you shouldn’t have it loaded with old files that get problematic
Click to expand...
Many thanks. I have read so many reviews for and against it. But have just read reports by experienced mac users as to why you should never install it, and how it can damage your mac.

I really appreciate your reply and thank you for taking the time to help a fellow mac user.
 
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Booting in Safe Mode is another way to test the battery life; since it only installs a few needed items.
 
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Adding to @jlc1978 's point, to boot into Safe Mode, shut down COMPLETELY, then hold down the power button till you see "Loading Startup Options." Make sure the startup volume is selected, then hold Shift, and click "Continue to Safe Mode."
 
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