New MBP battery

[rj19832008]

Hi all,

I have just got a new MBP (first apple) and I'm as close to being in love with a bit of aluminium as is humanly possible!

However, I read the battery life should be up around 4-5 hours. Mine only lasts 2.5 max. Its not like I'm constantly editing movies or watching DVDs either...

Am I missing something (changing settings or whatever) or do you think I have a faulty battery?

Thanks in advance for your help!

R

 

[Tacos!]

Did you calibrate it?

 

[rj19832008]

not as far as I know...? How do you mean?

 

[Tacos!]

Calibrating is when you let it drain all the way until it sleeps your computer and then you plug the power cord in and let it go all the way to 100%. This calibrates the battery and right after you do it, it should last alot longer.

Is your display brightness on all the way? That also drains the battery fairly quickly.

 

[rj19832008]

thanks, I unwittingly did that yesterday actually...so that would point towards a faulty battery right?

 

[guitarmaster18]

thanks, I unwittingly did that yesterday actually...so that would point towards a faulty battery right?

Not necissarily, I would recommend you download coconutbattery from here:

http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/

CoconutBattery gives you all the info you need for determining the health of your battery. The capacity bar will give you the current health of your battery, if it's anything below 90%, then something's wrong. Otherwise, you're fine

PS: I wouldn't take the battery benchmarks on Apple's site too seriously, lab tests are always going to be better than real life use. Real life depends on a lot of factors that Apple specifically cuts out of their tests to get better results.

 

[scottintosh]

I am getting about the same (about 3 hours) on my new MBP.. Make sure that you are using the 9400m GPU when on battery power, and turn off Bluetooth.

One thing I found usefull is keeping Activity Monitor open and have the Dock Icon display processor usage. Some times a site on safari that I am not even using will be playing some flash content or something and using the processors and draining the battery faster..

 

[kobefan234]

Calibrating is when you let it drain all the way until it sleeps your computer and then you plug the power cord in and let it go all the way to 100%. This calibrates the battery and right after you do it, it should last alot longer.

Is your display brightness on all the way? That also drains the battery fairly quickly.

I don't get it when you say let it drain all the way until it sleeps!

 

[SchneiderMan]

small print on the apple site states that they have those 4-5 hours battery times from testing it on a 2.4/2gbram macbook pro with screen brightness set on 50%.. try that.

 

[okrelayer]

i have a new macbook pro. and my battery with mail opened, itunes opened (no music playing), adium opened, netnewswire opened, blue tooth mouse, and wifi on. I get about 4 1/2 hours with half screen brightness. if i start listening to music it gets closer to 3 hours and 45 min or so.

 

[SchneiderMan]

i have a new macbook pro. and my battery with mail opened, itunes opened (no music playing), adium opened, netnewswire opened, blue tooth mouse, and wifi on. I get about 4 1/2 hours with half screen brightness. if i start listening to music it gets closer to 3 hours and 45 min or so.

told you, "Testing conducted by Apple in October 2008 using preproduction 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo–based MacBook Pro units with a Better Battery Life setting. Battery life depends on configuration and use. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information. The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processing document with display brightness set to 50%"

 

[rj19832008]

Thanks all. I've got coconut battery and it says its on 97%...so I guess its not so bad.

It might be because I'm using a usb modem I guess.

I've booked in with the macgenius on Weds so I'll check for sure...

Really impressed with the knowledge of everyone here!

 

[Red-red]

Your health will go up and down. Mine is mostly at 100% but does drop sometimes then goes back to 100%.

I've not actually timed how much I get because I top it up throughout the day.

 

[dukedvl]

Hi all,

I have just got a new MBP (first apple) and I'm as close to being in love with a bit of aluminium as is humanly possible!

However, I read the battery life should be up around 4-5 hours. Mine only lasts 2.5 max. Its not like I'm constantly editing movies or watching DVDs either...

Am I missing something (changing settings or whatever) or do you think I have a faulty battery?

Thanks in advance for your help!

R

I am averaging around 3-3.5 hours. The only time I have ever seen my time remaining at 5 hours was when I turned off wireless, turned my display down to 1-2 bars, turned off the keyboard backlight and bluetooth was already off.