RAM vs Battery Life

[JaySoul]

My late-2011 15 inch MBP came with 4gb RAM. I used it for a couple of months, and the lack of RAM power when using Final Cut, Serato etc was a bit frustrating.

I upgraded to 16gb and after a settling down period of a week, it absolutely screamed with RAM intensive tasks.

However battery life is MUCH worse. Before with 4gb RAM, I would easily get 7-10 hours of life.

Now, it's more like 2-3 hours maximum - that's just surfing the net with nothing else even open.

Admittedly I got relatively cheap RAM, so is that the factor in my battery life decreasing or is it just the general power-sucking nature of 16gb?

Cheers in advance!

 

[Mr MM]

nope ram doesnt gobble power, its something else

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Just web surfing can also be CPU intensive due to Flash, RAM should not take away that much battery life.

Open Activity Monitor and select All Processes and then sort by CPU to show you the process(es) eating up your battery life.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

______________________________________________________
This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:
Apple Notebook Battery FAQ by GGJstudios
The F.A.Q. includes the following topics:

• BATTERY INFORMATION
• BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE
• AC POWER
• CALIBRATION
• BATTERY LIFESPAN
• CHECKING STATUS AND HEALTH
• CHARGING
• WHAT IS A CYCLE?
• BATTERIES ARE NOT COVERED
• BULGING OR SWELLING BATTERY

______________________________________________________​

 

[Bear]

Put the original ram back in and see if the battery life improves.

A ram upgrade like that would have at most knocked maybe a few minutes off of battery run time.

Did you change brightness settings? Or any other setting that might affect the run time?

 

[JaySoul]

Thanks...

The only slightly memory hog is Flash, but otherwise nothing else to be honest.

I think I'll have to stick the original RAM in as suggested and test it out. Will report back!