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BigSir96

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 12, 2021
4
0
My 2017 Macbook Pro 13" with Retina display was having battery issues where it would drain battery very fast not plugged in and even drained battery while it was plugged in. The battery was showing service recommended and I thought replacing the battery would solve the issue and I just got my laptop back with a new battery and it literally changed nothing it is still draining while plugged in. I have reset/wiped my macbook, updated it to Big Sur, done SMC and PRAM resets and still nothing helped. If I charge it all the way up while it's closed it will go to 100% with the charging symbol but once I open it and start using it after like 5-10 minutes it will show the battery with the plug symbol and drain. This is very aggravating as I just paid $215 to fix the almost $1,300 laptop battery and it didn't help the problem one bit. The Expercom Apple affiliate store I picked it up from is closed now though they didn't say anything about it working better. I just assumed they made sure it was working like new again so I think they just replaced the battery and didn't bother to check if it actually fixed the problem but I will call in the morning. Any idea what might be happening here?


Screen Shot 2021-10-13 at 12.04.07 AM.png
 
If you have optimised charging turned on, the battery drain while plugged in is to use the battery for a while to take care of its health. And then it stays at a certain percentage for a longer period before starting to charge to 100 again.
 
I suggest you "debug" systematically. First check what is the current full charge capacity of the battery compared to the design capacity. If the battery is new full charge should be equal to design capacity. If it is considerably less the battery is faulty.

Secondly I recommend something like iStat menus that will show you the instantaneous power draw as you work. That will help you understand how much power is drawn based on what you are doing. Chrome is generally bad from that perspective.

With regard to brightness the power draw I very non-linear. Up to 50 - 60% brightness there is almost no effect on power draw but after that point you rapidly start to consume power.
 
Hey thanks for the suggestions I figured out my power adapter was having issues and a new one solved that which was odd because it wasn't very old.
 
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