I am only getting approximately an hour and a half of battery life on my Macbook Pro. I calibrated my battery yesterday and the battery is running down really fast. I've been having this problem for a while now. Any solutions or suggestions?
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Only getting a little over one hour of battery life
- Thread starter KingMo
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I'm not doing that after only having my MBP for 14 months. So another solution is going to be found...
Surely you are capable of realizing that your options are:
1. Do nothing.
2. Buy a new battery.
3. Call Apple and ask for a new battery.
...was that so difficult? Since you seem to rule out #1 and #2, you're left with #3.
There is no reason for you to be rude. If your input is just to be "smart," then I really don't need your comments. Thanks tho.
Giving some info about the current capacity of your battery would be a lot more helpful than demanding "another solution be found."
Have you tried a fresh, clean install of your OS?
Have you checked in your Activity Monitor to see if there are any CPU taxing programs running?
Also just wondering, what brightness is your screen set as? Do you use the backlit keyboard and/or speakers frequently? How many apps are running at the same time on a normal day?
There are many reasons why your battery might not be last as long as it should. However, your battery indicating 6490 mAh is very good. I would've suggested replacing the battery, but the software might be bogging it down for some reason.
Have you checked in your Activity Monitor to see if there are any CPU taxing programs running?
Also just wondering, what brightness is your screen set as? Do you use the backlit keyboard and/or speakers frequently? How many apps are running at the same time on a normal day?
There are many reasons why your battery might not be last as long as it should. However, your battery indicating 6490 mAh is very good. I would've suggested replacing the battery, but the software might be bogging it down for some reason.
Thanks a lot for this explanation, because I was starting to get worried that I would have to replace my battery.
To answer your questions, my screen brightness is set to the halfway mark. I hardly ever use the backlit keyboard and I mostly use headphones instead of my speakers, but I do use them every now and again. On a normal day, I just run Mail, iTunes, the Twitter app, Safari, Skype, and Newsfire. That's about it.
I installed the new OS X Lion though...and I just upgraded it...I didn't do a clean install by restoring everything or anything like that. I don't know it that is the problem. I doubt it though, because this battery problem has been occurring for quite a while way before I upgraded to Lion.
Ok, thank u, Philflow & ABadSanta for ur help. I'll go to a genius bar just to hear what they say as well, but I'll also do a clean install. Thanks again.
No problem. Keep us updated with how it goes.
I also went to the Genius Bar on Friday and had them do a clean, fresh install of Lion. Battery life seems to be better right now.
It's probably not a problem with your battery - if you were to get it replaced with a new one, you'd have the same problem.
As others have said, it's probably some application(s) that are draining your battery. Just keep a look at your activity monitor and look for programs that are using an abnormal amount of resources.
As others have said, it's probably some application(s) that are draining your battery. Just keep a look at your activity monitor and look for programs that are using an abnormal amount of resources.
maybe that's because of how the OP responded...
it's possible for a person to kill a battery after 14 months.
also, when i read the opening post, i assumed that he had an older mac and had it for a while. he left out vital information like the age of the mac/battery and whether or not he has apple care...
so i'm defending miles01110 here as i would have said "buy a new battery" as well without any additional information other than "it's not working properly"
Lion when first installed forces a spotlight re-index, which can be pretty taxing on the system depending on how much content you have on the drive and what you have allowed spotlight to index in the past.
There is also likely some other process that is running that you are unaware of. I would make sure to bring up activity monitor and capture what is taxing the system. Likely you will see mds and some other indexing services running, but you may see something else.
Your battery seems physically fine, just need to locate the software process draining it.
Ok, well in that case, I'll look into doing a clean install. That seems to be one of the main solutions.
Thanks for that. I checked the Activity Monitor and I've noticed that something called "kernel_task" is taking up a bit of space. So it "WindowServer." Are these normal occurrences or is this supposed to happen?
Exactly...that's exactly what I was trying to say. I'm all for one stating one's opinion, but there was no need to be so insensitive about it.
kernel_task and WindowServer are both normal, though not generally very taxing (I've been watching mine, and combined they haven't gone above 6% CPU usage on a 2.67ghz dual core i7)
you can tell if it is still indexing by looking at the spotlight icon in the top right. If it has a dot in the middle of the spyglass, and if when clicked on, there is a progress bar and it says "indexing"
Download coconut battery and check on the capacity %. If it still has a good capacity, it's not the battery that is the problem but something that is taxing the CPU and using a lot of power. If this is the case, check activity monitor for runaway processes.
Batteries aren't covered by warranty so you may end up needing to buy a new one
Batteries aren't covered by warranty so you may end up needing to buy a new one
I already did that and posted the screenshot above of my coconut battery findings.
