Massive drop in battery life

[lobad]

So, I've had my macbook 13.3 unibody for about 2 months, and lately I've noticed a huge drop in battery life. I started with being able to have 3 - 5 hours of continuous battery. But now at full charge I get 1 1/2 - 2 hours continuous.

Anyone have any ideas about what to do? I've looked for applications that help reduce energy uses, but I haven'f found anything.

Please help.

 

[spinnerlys]

Have you taken a look at the full capacity and health of the battery via System Profiler > Power and Coconut Battery?
Have you taken a look at Activity Monitor and selected to SHOW ALL PROCESSES and then sorted by CPU use?

And have you taken a look at MROOGLE?

 

[lyons238]

download coconut battery and check out how your batterys health is doing.

calibrate the battery by fully charging it, letting it completely die, let it rest for 5 hours + while dead, then fully charge it.

also to maintain good battery health, try to get as much time as you can off one charge, don't leave it plugged in for long after its fully charged, and try to drain the battery as much as you can before charging again.

if this doesnt work, take it to apple.

 

[BigTroll]

also to what the above are saying don't leave the laptop in your car or really cold places as i have seen that hurt my battery capacity many times.

 

[vistadude]

That's strange. Are you running a lot of programs at once? I think one program might be consuming the processor, it's unlikely the battery went bad so quick. You may want to take it into an apple store so they can run diagnostics on the battery.

So, I've had my macbook 13.3 unibody for about 2 months, and lately I've noticed a huge drop in battery life. I started with being able to have 3 - 5 hours of continuous battery. But now at full charge I get 1 1/2 - 2 hours continuous.

Anyone have any ideas about what to do? I've looked for applications that help reduce energy uses, but I haven'f found anything.

Please help.

 

[lobad]

Thanks, i downloaded coconut battery its at 98% health started at 5450 mAh and its now at 5368 mAh, im going to let it fully charge then fully die tonight, thanks a lot for the advise!

 

[lyons238]

Thanks, i downloaded coconut battery its at 98% health started at 5450 mAh and its now at 5368 mAh, im going to let it fully charge then fully die tonight, thanks a lot for the advise!

remember once you let it die leave it be for 5+ hours, then fully recharge it. thats the most important part (letting it die and rest for 5 hours).

and yeah your battery is fine at 98% health. mine drops to 88%. supposedly its normal for them to fluctuate 15% for the first year.

and if your battery is dying in two hours or so with 98% health something is hogging your power. like others said open up activity monitor and see what is hogging your cpu. also keep your brightness at about 50%, that seems to be the best brightness to save battery but still remain bright enough. or if your in a dark room knock it down to about 25% brightness

 

[mastercool10]

maybe try a clean install. sometimes fixes problem.

 

[vistadude]

Ouch, that's a harsh suggestion

maybe try a clean install. sometimes fixes problem.

 

[lyons238]

Ouch, that's a harsh suggestion

yeah i agree. if someones dirt bike is running ******, you don't tell them to get a whole new engine. you tell them to clean the carb, air filter, check compression, check plug, etc etc. start small, and work your way up until you fix the problem. if not then take drastic steps.

 

[SoCalRich]

Have you called Apple??? What do they say???

 

[BigTroll]

yeah shes doing okay but my computer feels sluggish for some reason check out the pic.