I just upgraded to the latest core i5 MBP from my previous C2D with the 8hr battery (the previous model). I have noticed that my battery doesnt seem to last as long. On my last one, just reading PDFs in preview I could get 8+ hours with wifi on and half brightness. Now its more like 6 hours under the same conditions, and that's when doing absolutely nothing else. Coconutbattery reports 7000mAh capacity, and I've tried rebooting, resetting pram, checking activity monitor, etc. I even installed gfxcardstatus and forced it to use intel graphics only. It's not generating an abnormal amount of heat or anything. It is possible that my laptop is in some way draining more power even doing normal tasks? Does the flick scrolling feature perhaps use more power? I'm sure if I take the laptop to apple, they will say the battery is ok and hand it right back to me.
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New MBP worse battery life than previous gen
- Thread starter hari-bhari
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you should never really believe what the battery forecaster says.
i have a mbp with a 5 hr battery and when the battery was new the forecaster said i had like 6 hrs left but it never lasted that long.
i think the mbp batteries last to long.
Mine also needed about 3 days of use and a calibration to get decent estimates. Before they were kind of weird. Starting pretty low but the battery lasted longer in the end.
But it could be that you got a worse machine. There have been some i7 out in reviews that really had terrible battery life. There is no reason some i5 might not have the same problem. It could also be that some powermanagment feature doesn't kick in and that would be Apples problem.
Calibrate and use it for 3-4 days and if nothing changes hand it back.
7000mAh is good though mine is only at 6800 when it came but it does last about 8 hours with minor use.
But it could be that you got a worse machine. There have been some i7 out in reviews that really had terrible battery life. There is no reason some i5 might not have the same problem. It could also be that some powermanagment feature doesn't kick in and that would be Apples problem.
Calibrate and use it for 3-4 days and if nothing changes hand it back.
7000mAh is good though mine is only at 6800 when it came but it does last about 8 hours with minor use.
I'm having a similar issue with my i5 2.5ghz. I was getting decent battery life for the first month or so about 5/6 hours. Now I am getting around 3 hours. Not sure if its because of the way I let it run all the way down until it dies, before I charge it back up. Should I take it into the Apple store?
You should all get gfxCardStatus, which will sit in the menubar and tell you when the intel card is used and when the nVidia card is in use.
And then you'll pretty much be able to correlate poor battery life with nVidia use. AND the menubar applet also tells you which apps are forcing nVidia card usage, as well as allow you to force intel or nvidia card use to maximize power or battery life.
Patrix.
And then you'll pretty much be able to correlate poor battery life with nVidia use. AND the menubar applet also tells you which apps are forcing nVidia card usage, as well as allow you to force intel or nvidia card use to maximize power or battery life.
Patrix.
ive been using gfxcardstatus, and i keep intel forced. i hope its not a defective unit. but i mean just sitting in preview and reading a pdf while listening to music with headphones i used to get 8+ hours, now its more like 6. not terrible, but still doesnt make any sense to me. and ive cycled and calibrated the battery several times now