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New Battery Only Last 2 Hrs, Could it be Leopard or 1st Gen MBP Crapping Out?

S

sdsviet

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 21, 2008
103
0
Chicago
So apple replace my replacement battery from the recalls since i was only getting 50% health out of 65 cycles. So this is basically the third battery for my 1st gen mbp. right now it is at 99% health and 6 cycles but i am only getting maybe 2 hrs out of this thing. i've tried all the resets and calibrations and still the same. at first i thought it might have just been me using it intensively but even on firefox i only get 2hrs. i've heard people talking about leopard killing their battery life when they switch over from tiger.

the only thing i notice that was odd was that when it was charging, leopard would show me that its gonna take 1hr 40mins to charge to full from empty, but i would check istat pro and it shows me like 2hrs 50mins or something higher. i thought it might have been the magsafe but that was replaced also. i still have 90 day warranty on the battery so i can return it if i have to. my mbp is out of warranty so i cant really do anything about that. anyone have any suggestions or idea about this battery issue, pls let me know.
 
2hrs seems a little low. new battery, CD machine, you should be getting Roughly 3hrs-ish.

whats your cpu usage like?
 
What setting is your power set on when in battery mode? "Better Battery Life," "Normal," or "Better Performance." I know in BBL mode I get around 3-4 hrs, in Normal 2.5-3.75, and BP around 1-2
 
right now its seems to be giving me 2hrs with 67% left but we'll see how this is gonna finish. i have my battery setting on normal. cpu level is really low like 15% when in firefox. i have to run this thing from full again with just firefox and see how it pans out. maybe the battery is finally adjusting to the computer?
 
sdsviet said:
right now its seems to be giving me 2hrs with 67% left but we'll see how this is gonna finish. i have my battery setting on normal. cpu level is really low like 15% when in firefox. i have to run this thing from full again with just firefox and see how it pans out. maybe the battery is finally adjusting to the computer?
Click to expand...

Decrease your brightness a bit and set the power to Better Battery Life mode.
 
alphaod said:
Decrease your brightness a bit and set the power to Better Battery Life mode.
Click to expand...

Sorry guys I've just got a new job so I've been working a lot of overtime. finally got to chance to run the mbp completely empty the way i want it without recharging or sleep mode.

so with full brightness and normal battery mode i was running ichat and firefox mostly and got exactly 2 hrs of battery life. to me this seems a little disappointing. this is a new battery and for this i think i should be getting at least 3.5hrs with this setting. im not even pushing the cpu or vid card to the limit. when i have the time i will test it with full video and see how much it gets. my battery health is at 98% and 9 cycles. i wonder if this might have to do with leopard or if because its a first gen mbp and that it might have that whole too much thermal grease issue. my mbp does jump up to 80c at times when in video. about 72c with just firefox.
 
Im not sure how many people do this, but the first thing I did when I got my MBP was to fully charge the battery. After that I fully discharged it, then recharged it four times. I mean let it run down to sleep mode. Since then Im getting 4+ hours out of my set up.
 
Go into System Profiler, go under Power, and check for "Maximum Battery Capacity (mAh)."

If it's anything lower than the 5000's, then you have a definite problem with the battery.
 
sdsviet said:
so with full brightness and normal battery mode i was running ichat and firefox mostly and got exactly 2 hrs of battery life. to me this seems a little disappointing. this is a new battery and for this i think i should be getting at least 3.5hrs with this setting. im not even pushing the cpu or vid card to the limit.
Click to expand...

The backlightinf uses a lot more power than the CPU most of the time even if you have a LED.
 
yea my battery still got 5188 out of 5392. so the battery is good. i know the lcd on full will drain it but im only using ichat and firefox and that should give me way more than just 2 hrs. im gonna run this again and see if there's some consistency. i am thinking there's something wrong with leopards power management since i've read a few threads out there bout people getting significantly less battery life when they upgraded from tiger. also im not opening this thing up to check on the thermal grease issue until the new 7k320 hdd comes out.
 
On better battery life, I average 5 hours of battery life doing school work at full brightness.
 
I have a 1st Gen MBP as well and I've had three batteries total (original, replacement, and replacement's replacement). My new battery seems to be good, I get about 3:30 or so with some of the brightness turned down. Both times I called Apple, they were very friendly and I got a new battery overnighted both times.

I'd calibrate the battery like people suggested. If that doesn't work, give Apple a call. I'm glad I did (both times).

A bit off topic, but have you had any trouble with the fans? I've had my fan assembly replaced once and it's starting to sound the same. It sounds like a playing card being run through bicycle spokes.
 
smcfancontrol doesnt recognize the fan nor does istatpro so my fan rpms are always at 000rpm. i believe the right fan is dead as i can not hear it. the left is barely audible, i have to actually put my ear by it to hear it. it also doesnt get any louder than that. i've done all the caliberated and reseting and i still get only 2 hrs. im going to do a couple of more test to see how this turns out. i still have about 70 days left on the 90 day warranty so im gong to play with it until then. man i wish i was getting 5 hrs.
 
so i watch 2 full hd podcast of diggnation and trs and this thing topped out at 1hr 45mins. it had ichat and firefox running in the background but i wasn't really using it. it was just in another space. my cpu was averaging around 55%-75% the whole time the podcast was running. they were made fit to screen and not full screen so i can moniter the laptop. it was also running at avg. 80c-82c while in the movie mode. so for me this just makes it more odd since i am able to get 1:45 hrs from higher cpu and hotter temps but were only getting 2hrs with low cpu usage and temps and less intense applications. for me this seems to be a power management problem with the os. man if tiger had spaces i would go back in an instant.
 
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