I always get 20-30W discharging. I thought it was normal - can you verify that even after some time, you're still getting this lower discharge? And is this on a 15"?
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MacBook Pro Users Express Concerns About Limited Battery Life
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I always get 20-30W discharging. I thought it was normal - can you verify that even after some time, you're still getting this lower discharge? And is this on a 15"?
And you say that reinstalling Sierra from recovery kept everything? Even apps?
I did use super duper to make up a back up first just in case.. but everything seems as I left it. Files and Apps ect.
I was just about to do it, but first I tried a SMC reset. After the SMC reset, normal usage of safari + Messages, and it's around 8-12W usage. Maybe it wasn't the reinstall, but a side effect.
Could be. I'd tried that. but had no idea if I did it right as there's no obvious feedback? In any case good news 
Could be. I'd tried that. but had no idea if I did it right as there's no obvious feedback? In any case good news
Yes, coconutBattery now reports 7-12W as I'm writing this (it varies), my screen is around 75% brightness, and surfing the web it jumps to around 12W when I load the page, and comes down to 8, when I'm just tryping here.
If I recall correctly, it used to be around 30 Watts before, even with nothing running. Currently I have Safari, Fantastical, and several background processes running in the background.
Also, my estimate (in Activity Monitor) now shows 8:29 instead of 2-3 hours like before
It's a bit early to tell, but seems promising. I'll keep an eye on it and report if something changes.BTW, activating Photoshop and using it makes this jump to 25W, but it drops down when I turn it off.
Also, yes, there is no obvious feedback when you do a SMC reset. I just kept the ctrl, option, shif + power button pressed for 10 seconds.
Spotlight is the culprit, it doesn't show up in energy activity monitor which is strange, also you can't kill it but you can stop indexing by adding all the hard disk in privacy of spotlight to the exclusion list. I stopped using coconut because its very slow to reflect the actual energy consumption, instead, there is a hidden gem in Istat menus called total system consumption which updates almost instantly, indexing alone consumes up to 10 extra watts, the good news is that it will ultimately finishes.
[doublepost=1483758206][/doublepost]BATTERY ISSUE SOLVED!
A subset of users who purchased a new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar claim to be experiencing shorter than expected battery life.
In particular, some users claim to be getting as little as 3 to 6 hours of battery life on a single charge, or between 30% and 60% of the up to 10 hours advertised.
MacRumors forum member SRTM said:MacRumors forum member Aioriya said:Reddit user Azr-79 yesterday claimed his new base model 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar received only 3 hours and 45 minutes of battery life on a single charge, despite what he described as "normal usage" in the form of web browsing, watching YouTube videos, and software development.
MacRumors forum member Scott claimed he experienced a 5 percentage point drop in battery life, from 10% to 5%, in just 12 minutes. Google Chrome, a known battery hog, was listed as the only app drawing significant power. The discussion topic he posted in and others are littered with similar claims of sizeable percentage drops in mere minutes.
Other claims on Reddit include anywhere from 3 hours to 5 hours to 6 hours -- sometimes more, and sometimes less.
Conversely, some users report battery life exactly in line with Apple's advertised figures. Reddit user Andrew J., for example, said he was working on non-intensive tasks on his new MacBook Pro for 90 straight minutes, and still had 92% battery life with an estimated 10 hours and 35 minutes of usage remaining.Estimates unsurprisingly vary widely based on screen brightness, background processes, and other factors, so user reports are only anecdotal evidence and your mileage may vary. It is also important to note battery life could be initially reduced until Spotlight finishes indexing your new MacBook Pro.
Battery life complaints are nothing new following the launch of a new Apple product. However, some users speculate battery life could be impacted by the new MacBook Pro switching from more efficient integrated Intel graphics to the power-hungrier dedicated AMD Radeon Pro GPU for unnecessary tasks.
Once again, however, there are always claims to suggest otherwise. Reddit user Lebron Hubbard claims he received 5 hours and 48 minutes of battery life on his high-end built-to-order 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar when forcing only the dedicated AMD Radeon Pro 460 graphics to run using gfxCardStatus:Apple's built-in Activity Monitor and third-party app coconutBattery are useful tools for tracking system processes and detailed battery information.
Apple officially says the new MacBook Pro is rated for up to 10 hours of battery life. Specifically, its tech specs page says all new 13-inch and 15-inch models are capable of up to 10 hours of wireless web browsing, up to 10 hours of iTunes movie playback, and up to 30 days of standby time on a single charge.
TechCrunch placed battery life at 9 hours and 35 minutes for the 13-inch model. Mashable said 10 hours is a fair estimate overall. The Wall Street Journal got 9.5 hours on the 13-inch model. Engadget gauged between 9 and 10 hours of video playback on the 15-inch model. Nilay Patel got 5.5 hours on the 13" in real-world use.
Apple explains how it performs its battery tests on its website:Apple's website also provides tips for maximizing battery life on the MacBook Pro, including updating to the latest version of macOS, optimizing Energy Saver settings in System Preferences, dimming the screen's brightness to the lowest comfortable level, and turning off Wi-Fi while not connected to a network.
Additional battery optimization advice provided by users includes performing a fresh install of macOS Sierra and resetting the SMC.
Article Link: MacBook Pro Users Express Concerns About Limited Battery Life
I just received the new MacBook Pro 2016 with Radeon 460 Pro, cpu at 2,9 Mhz, 1TB SSD.
After testing it for about 10 minutes it became strangely warm and sluggish... battery started to drain...
After a 3 hours of testing I finally found the reason for it thanks to the Activity Monitor. It showed that the kernel_task process was operating between 120 to 250 CPU load !! That situation occured only after I switched on Wifi and connected to one of my two routers. Once I did that it took the laptop about a minute to attain those high cpu loads.
I read in a forum that some rare old routers could cause problems in the MacBook Pro, so I connected to my second more modern router. And voila ! The Kernel_task process now hovers between 2.8% to 5% cpu load. From a 91% battery charge it says I have about 9:10 hours left.
All works fine here, no battery problem whats so ever.
The issues some have are NOT batterie related, its evidently a software issue that I easily managed to eradicate.
All the best,
AntiBug
The battery life of my iPhone 6s was terrible and it was an issue Apple wouldn't acknowledge for many months. Finally, they confirmed what many owners knew and have offered to replace the batteries. I wonder if there are issues with some of the new MacBook Pro computers since some have such poor battery life. My computer is 2 months old and has a battery life of 3 hours.
It's possible that some of the new MacBook Pros have faulty batteries, but I don't think that's the only explanation for widely variable runtime that people are reporting. Three hours seems very low unless you're doing a lot of heavy lifting with your computer (gaming, video rendering, and the like). I'm getting around 9 hours on my 13" TB running the mix of apps that I usually do.
While I agree there may be other reasons; I do not know what they may be. I have updated my software which may make a difference - but I do feel that Apple has not been as forthcoming with these situations as they were several years ago - and this is a problem for me - give the fact that their honest and helpful customer service is one of the main reasons for my loyalty to the brand.
If you're only getting three hours with a light/moderate workload, there clearly is something wrong. Aside from problems with your battery, there may be issues with macOS and/or firmware. Have you brought this to Apple's attention, if only to get on the record?
Though it may seem otherwise, I don't think that Apple has ever been terribly forthcoming in situations like this. I suspect that Apple will eventually have something to say about variable battery life for the new MBPs, in part because Consumer Reports' failure to recommend them garnered considerable publicity.
Hello all,
I've registered for this forum because I've come across some information that will be of use to those of you having trouble with battery life.
After digging for quite a while, I realized that Chrome and Adobe Acrobat reader, among other apps, force use of the discrete GPU (even if these apps are idle in the background), thereby greatly reducing battery life. As soon as those apps are shutdown, the system defaults to the Intel GPU and battery life goes way up. In my case, it meant a difference between about 5 to 6 hours on the Radeon GPU vs. about 11 hours on the Intel GPU.
It turns out this is not a new problem and so I was surprised to find little discussion of it so far. It is one of the reasons the gfxCardStatus project was created:
https://gfx.io
Now, gfxCardStatus does not explicitly support the most recent versions of Mac OS nor the most recent generation of MacBook Pros, but it has been reasonably well behaved for me so far.
To check this out for yourself, download either istat menus 5 (you have a couple of weeks of fully functional trial, besides which it is a very good buy) or install gfxCardStatus and you'll be able to monitor the changeover between integrated and discrete GPUs. For instance, leave gfxCardStatus on "Dynamic Switching" and you'll see it go from "i" to "d" when you launch Chrome. If, on the other hand, you launch Chrome with this switch:
open '/Applications/Google Chrome.app' --args --force_integrated_gpu
you'll see that it stays on integrated graphics with no special hit to your battery life.
Be forcing my system to stay on the Intel GPU with gfxCardStatus, I average above 10 hours of battery life while doing mostly browsing, text editing, and terminal work. I hope this helps spread the word. Enjoy.
Patrick
I've registered for this forum because I've come across some information that will be of use to those of you having trouble with battery life.
After digging for quite a while, I realized that Chrome and Adobe Acrobat reader, among other apps, force use of the discrete GPU (even if these apps are idle in the background), thereby greatly reducing battery life. As soon as those apps are shutdown, the system defaults to the Intel GPU and battery life goes way up. In my case, it meant a difference between about 5 to 6 hours on the Radeon GPU vs. about 11 hours on the Intel GPU.
It turns out this is not a new problem and so I was surprised to find little discussion of it so far. It is one of the reasons the gfxCardStatus project was created:
https://gfx.io
Now, gfxCardStatus does not explicitly support the most recent versions of Mac OS nor the most recent generation of MacBook Pros, but it has been reasonably well behaved for me so far.
To check this out for yourself, download either istat menus 5 (you have a couple of weeks of fully functional trial, besides which it is a very good buy) or install gfxCardStatus and you'll be able to monitor the changeover between integrated and discrete GPUs. For instance, leave gfxCardStatus on "Dynamic Switching" and you'll see it go from "i" to "d" when you launch Chrome. If, on the other hand, you launch Chrome with this switch:
open '/Applications/Google Chrome.app' --args --force_integrated_gpu
you'll see that it stays on integrated graphics with no special hit to your battery life.
Be forcing my system to stay on the Intel GPU with gfxCardStatus, I average above 10 hours of battery life while doing mostly browsing, text editing, and terminal work. I hope this helps spread the word. Enjoy.
Patrick
I know very little about computers...Last Christmas (2015) I bought my oldest daughter a (2015) rMBP 13" (upgraded to the I7, 256 storage and 16GB) - she loves it. This Christmas I purchased (for my 2 younger kids) two touch bar 13" MBP laptops (also upgraded to 16GB, but stuck with the standard I5). I have read the battery issues and thus am concerned. I've run a few tests and consistently the new models run about 15% less than my oldest daughter's machine (when all 3 are on 100% brightness and 2 bars of sound). It is not really an issue, because the only time they use the machines without being able to plug in is on a car trip - and they can easily get through 3 (2hour) movies - again all 3 on 100% brightness. I don't really know if this is good or bad but 6 hours plus on full bright watching Netflix is acceptable to me and not actually something we will do often. The 1 glaring disparity was when they played the game Minecraft (I rarely allow my kids to play games - couple of hours a week)...the new tb models got 99 and 100 minutes while the 2015 machine got 220 minutes. What do you think? I have contacted Apple and they ran diagnostics and say nothing is wrong.
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Hello, I do not want to be rude but most likely you are throwing your money, your kids probably do not need 16GB of RAM.
Apple has committed the huge mistake to cut 1/3 of the batteries with this new release with the hope to balance it with the better performance of the "new" processors and even more software optimisations. However, it has slapped in their face and the smartest customers are complaining. It is a pity because this new release is lovable but yeah, the battery is an enormous drawback.
Of course Apple will try to hide the problem because it is not a manufacturing problem it is a design problem and if they recognise the problem they will be obliged to replace the whole product.
My advice is... if you kids just watch movies, get them a macbook not a macbook pro...
No fear about being 'rude'...my kids rarely watch movies (or play games), as I stated but rather this was the easiest way I knew to compare the 2 new touch bar models vs my daughter's 2015 MBP. I will say since this post they are now using the laptops for their normal school routine, their battery is not an issue. The difference in battery time from the 2015 model remains about 15-20% less but again not really an issue. The kids all use the computers for school/research, and have been pleased so far. I was actually curious to hear the experiences of other folks that actually own this product. Have a good day.
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I'm not using Safari or Chrome, but I have yet to get more than about 3 hours of battery life out of the new MBP. It's really cool for a lot of good reasons, but the battery is non-existent. Or perhaps it's intended to be a retro joke. 1990's battery life.
Steve Jobs is really sorely missed at this point. If this happened on his watch, there'd be heads rolling...
Steve Jobs is really sorely missed at this point. If this happened on his watch, there'd be heads rolling...
This seems absurd to me, I have a 2016 macbook pro non touch bar base model, and I am getting about 6-7 hours battery life. This is when im using chrome and developing nodejs apps, so running iterm2, gulp, atom, chrome, react dev tools, listening to music in iTunes, all at 75% brightness. Perhaps you are having specific software issues, or a faulty battery, but I have had good experience so far with the battery life of this laptop.
Same tools and software as on my old(er) MBP15R. Noticeably shorter battery life. It really s*cks.