Recom. for which older MB Air to buy?

[rihia]

I got a 2013 i5 4GB, 128 GB SSD running Yosemite 10.10.5. Good news is that the 1st owner (not guy I bought it from) said he had the battery replaced by Apple. Indeed battery cycle read 2! It changed to 3 when I charged it later that same day.

Bad news is that it suffers from what many that have upgraded to Yosemite have found. Battery discharge rate has doubled for the same things they were doing on Mavericks. For me I just watched the % drop as I looked at it with nothing being used, just the screen powered. Weird.

I found a year long thread of many with this issue, but the guru's on that thread refuse to correlate it with Yosemite.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/29512238#29512238

From CoconutBattery: battery Mfgr date 8/1/15 After charge to 100%: Full Cap = 7474 mAh, Remaining = 7474 mAh, Design Cap = 7150 mAh,

After unplugging 97.9%, battery usage 4.4 watts



After unplugging... System says 100%, 14:01 remaining, no apps using signif. energy

My EtreCheck report for the record is in above link.

But why are you still using yosemite?

 

[davekro]

After charging to 100% yesterday, I am doing a test. Not using it (top closed sleeping), I am opening it just to check System (OS) and CoconutBattery (CB) level status after long periods. (*opened top to check status, then closed again)

11:30am OS 100%, 12:37pm closed top
9:00pm* OS 92%. CB 88%, usage 6.6 watts, Charge curr. 6480 mAh, max 7370. [9.5 hrs since last check]
6:00am* OS 83%. CB 79%, usage 1.3 watts, Charge curr. 5860 mAh, max 7420. [9 hrs since last check]

Anyone else part of or read of the subset of Yosemite users seeing a significant battery drain speed right after updating from Mavericks to Yosemite? Anyone read of a solution? The linked thread started October 2014 with the upgrade to 10.10.0 and still no reports of a solution a year and 38 pages later, and with Yosemite being done at 10.10.5.

What could be different for this seeming not insignificant subset of Yosemite laptop users? Hardware glitch or software glitch that affects only some machines? I was concerned why this guy was selling it so quickly after buying it used. Maybe this was why.

 

[infernoguy]

After charging to 100% yesterday, I am doing a test. Not using it (top closed sleeping), I am opening it just to check System (OS) and CoconutBattery (CB) level status after long periods. (*opened top to check status, then closed again)

11:30am OS 100%, 12:37pm closed top
9:00pm* OS 92%. CB 88%, usage 6.6 watts, Charge curr. 6480 mAh, max 7370. [9.5 hrs since last check]
6:00am* OS 83%. CB 79%, usage 1.3 watts, Charge curr. 5860 mAh, max 7420. [9 hrs since last check]

Anyone else part of or read of the subset of Yosemite users seeing a significant battery drain speed right after updating from Mavericks to Yosemite? Anyone read of a solution? The linked thread started October 2014 with the upgrade to 10.10.0 and still no reports of a solution a year later and with Yosemite being done at 10.10.5.

What could be different for this seeming not insignificant subset of Yosemite laptop users? Hardware glitch or software glitch that affects only some machines? I was concerned why this guy was selling it so quickly after buying it used. Maybe this was why.

Is this a clean Yosemite install? Have you tried upgrading to El Capitan?

 

[davekro]

But why are you still using Yosemite?

I am not 'still using' Yosemite. I literally just got this machine yesterday which happened to be running Yosemite 10.10.5. I am just reporting it's errant battery usage. If someone reports that updating to El Capitan solves the issue, I'll do that. But on the Apple Support Community forum, on 10/1/15 ALex_Iveb posted:
"No improvement from upgrading (to El Capitan) so far... I give myself two weeks and will do the clean install. So disappointed."
He did not report back one way or the other.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/29512238#29512238

Interesting. A thread started by someone where the issue 'started' with El Capitan and was not present for him with Yosemite. Linc Davis posted some tests, so I am off to check those tests out.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7258892?start=0&tstart=0

Infernoguy, Not sure if a clean install was ever done, but it came with some third party apps on it so my guess is no, at least not recently.

 

[navaira]

I've read around here that Capster actually increases battery usage. Haven't checked myself though, as my Air came with Cappy.

 

[infernoguy]

I am not 'still using' Yosemite. I literally just got this machine yesterday which happened to be running Yosemite 10.10.5. I am just reporting it's errant battery usage. If someone reports that updating to El Capitan solves the issue, I'll do that. But on the Apple Support Community forum, on 10/1/15 ALex_Iveb posted:
"No improvement from upgrading (to El Capitan) so far... I give myself two weeks and will do the clean install. So disappointed."
He did not report back one way or the other.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/29512238#29512238

Interesting. A thread started by someone where the issue 'started' with El Capitan and was not present for him with Yosemite. Linc Davis posted some tests, so I am off to check those tests out.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7258892?start=0&tstart=0

Infernoguy, Not sure if a clean install was ever done, but it came with some third party apps on it so my guess is no, at least not recently.

Might be worth a try. You could use the recovery partition or create a bootable USB drive with Yosemite or ElCap and see if that fixes it.