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Only Getting 5 - 6 Hours MOST from October, 2013 MacBook Pro :(

DaRealElvis said:
Your full capacity shows 8957 mAh. My battery says full capacity is 6469! Do I have worse battery than???? (See attachment)
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If you're not already doing so, use iStat Pro (free) or iStat Menus ($16) to get accurate readings of battery health and cycles and computer uptime, among many other things. A forum member has posted a copy of iStat Pro that has been "tweaked" to enhance compatibility with Mountain Lion. You can download it here.
 
DaRealElvis said:
Your full capacity shows 8957 mAh. My battery says full capacity is 6469! Do I have worse battery than???? (See attachment)
Click to expand...

Mine (Late 2013 13" MBPr) is similar to yours but my battery life is fine. Looks like that other guy had a 15".

MBPr_Battery.png



I see people talking about dropbox killing battery but I use that too.
 
Chrome and VLC are both evil, don't run them. It because of the video mode it puts them in. When I use to run the app that showed what video card was being used, it would always switch away from the integrated card to the discrete one, which would jump the battery life usage. Flash is always one of the biggest killers of battery life. Don't use it :) Even with all this, leaving some web pages open in safari can still kill battery life, depending on how much they are doing in the background. I get 10 hours from my 15" MBP.
 
IMO Flash has been a source of problems from the start, CPU/GPU/Memory consuming and bugs are the common denominator on this technology, no wonder why SJ hated Flash.
 
I've been trying get the best of our my battery and agree that Safari seems far better than any other browser.

Perhaps the best thing I've installed is a tiny app called gfxCardStatus - this tells me if my machine is using the discrete or integrated card. Obviously using the integrated one is less work for the battery. It sits up in the menu bar and give you a notification when it changes to the other card. As an example I was listening to a podcast from the BBC. If I watched it on their player it was using the discrete card; if I downloaded it and played it in safari it used the integrated card. Also, if I go to www.theverge.com their site is coded such that it requires the discrete card.

http://gfx.io

The app is great; so useful that I sent the guy $5 for a pint.

Anyone else experienced Dropbox causing battery drain? The mention above is the first I've heard of this?
 
GGJstudios said:
If you're not already doing so, use iStat Pro (free) or iStat Menus ($16) to get accurate readings of battery health and cycles and computer uptime, among many other things. A forum member has posted a copy of iStat Pro that has been "tweaked" to enhance compatibility with Mountain Lion. You can download it here.
Click to expand...

Istat pro is free? I swore I saw it had a price in the app store. Is stat menus much better? I see you posted a softonic link, is this place safe for mac software downloads? With my pc I was always careful of downloading software here thinking alot of malaware existed.
 
treepuppy said:
Interesting I didn't know Safari is better for battery life. Any link to back that claim up? Just wondering.
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No one responded to your request for evidence, so I'll do that. Those of us who have been running gfxCardStatus with two-GPU machines often notice that Chrome requests the dGPU. It's a bit of a power hog.
 
There was a thread where a lot of people complimented Apple for under-rating their laptop at 9 hours. A few people got above this estimate.

50% brightness is quite high you must be in very bright areas.
I have the first rMBP and it lasts 5 hours with Windows and 7 hours in OSX.
I have the screen brightness usually at 1/2/3. All I do is some casual surfing, word documents and the occasional youtube video. The battery life does dip to 2-3 hours when running intensive programs like photoshop & compiling C++ files.
 
I get ~4hrs battery with a 15" 2.6 Haswell... mostly browsing, screen @ 40-60%.
I noticed Chrome sucks a lot of my juice... it's better in Windows.

Starfyre said:
I noticed some improvement in battery life just because I was able to block these connections from being made to advertising servers.
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Never hear about the hosts file, netstat?
And NO way is littlesnitch going to improve your battery... unless the blocked app is downloading an update.
 
I installed the Mavericks update and downloaded that clicktoplugin program that keeps flashed turned off unless you click on it... and I'm now using safari for my browser.

I picked up over 1 hour of real time battery life. Before, was getting 7.5 hours of mixed use. Just today, I got a little over 8.5 hours. This is on a 15" 2.3/16/1TB.

The suggestions in this thread are good ones :)
 
actuallyinaus said:
mines 15"



what do you mean? it's activity monitor, and system information
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For some reason in my activity monitor couldn't see battery uptime...when I saw this I thought for a second that it could be a widget! But was confused for a second, nevermind the post!
 
DaRealElvis said:
Thank you for your reply!! I still have a lower one than you :`( ;)
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I have a maxed out late 2013 13" rMBP and mine is lower than yours..at 6465..:p

I have just installed flash so I can see video content from the BBC maybe I will give that a miss and uninstall it.
I am a first time Mac user and did not realise the 'thing' between Apple & Adobe.

I also am using Safari for the first time and find it very dull looking after my customised Chrome, but as said here Chrome seems to use far more power than Safari so I want to use that..is there anyway of Brightening Safari up with skins and other customisations?

Love this awesome machine and don't think I will ever go back to Windows.. even after just having it a week :)
 
Last edited:
lovestruck said:
I have a maxed out late 2013 13" rMBP and mine is lower than yours..at 6465..:p

I have just installed flash so I can see video content from the BBC maybe I will give that a miss and uninstall it.
I am a first time Mac user and did not realise the 'thing' between Apple & Adobe.

I also am using Safari for the first time and find it very dull looking after my customised Chrome, but as said here Chrome seems to use far more power than Safari so I want to use that..is there anyway of Brightening Safari up with skins and other customisations?

Love this awesome machine and don't think I will ever go back to Windows even after just having it a week :)
Click to expand...

Same reason I hate Safari. There isn't any way to add skins or customize it.
I'm just going to put up with all the downsides of Chrome and stick it out. :)
Besides, I always have my rmbp plugged into an outlet while I use it, so no battery problem for me.
 
JayCee842 said:
Same reason I hate Safari. There isn't any way to add skins or customize it.
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Who gives a hoot about that, really? I mean sure customizing my browser was fun to do when I was 14-15 years old, but now, the content interests me a lot more than the browser around it.
 
snaky69 said:
Who gives a hoot about that, really? I mean sure customizing my browser was fun to do when I was 14-15 years old, but now, the content interests me a lot more than the browser around it.
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Just because you don't care about it doesn't mean other users don't either. Get over yourself. Some people enjoy and care for things you don't.

Not being able to customize isn't a huge problem, but it does matter to many of us in a sense, since we're looking at a plain internet browser (Safari).
 
MacChinoNyc said:
Istat pro is free? I swore I saw it had a price in the app store. Is stat menus much better? I see you posted a softonic link, is this place safe for mac software downloads? With my pc I was always careful of downloading software here thinking alot of malaware existed.
Click to expand...
Yes, iStat Pro is free. iStat Menus has some features that Pro doesn't but for most needs, iStat Pro is quite sufficient. iStat Pro is no longer being developed, so there are a few compatibility issues with Mavericks. The original developer download site for that app no longer exists, which is why I posted a download link from Softonic, which is a well-recognized and trusted site for Mac software.
 
I too am getting 5-6 hours on my 13" rMBP. Been just browsing using Chrome. And iMessages. Nothing else... now watching youtube videos. At about 97% reads 5:45. Let's see. It is only my 2nd cycle.
 
nidserz said:
I too am getting 5-6 hours on my 13" rMBP. Been just browsing using Chrome. And iMessages. Nothing else... now watching youtube videos.
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If you are watching YouTube videos in Chrome, they will be using Flash and running down your battery. Use Safari with the YouTube5 extension and you will see a big increase in battery life.
 
Why do I have to NOT use Dropbox and Chrome just to get decent battery life? That seems a little outrageous.

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nidserz said:
I too am getting 5-6 hours on my 13" rMBP. Been just browsing using Chrome. And iMessages. Nothing else... now watching youtube videos. At about 97% reads 5:45. Let's see. It is only my 2nd cycle.
Click to expand...

You're ****ed.. because first mine was getting 5 - 6 hours. Then it went down to only 3 - 4 hours. Finally I just decided to return it and go back to Windows.
 
I don't think Dropbox is a huge battery killer as I get 9 hours easily on my 2.3 Ghz rMBP.

Chrome however, is. You can blame Google for that.

I use Safari for the nice battery life I get.
 
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