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Retina MB Bleeding 10% Battery Life Per Day In Standby - Fix

boltjames

boltjames

macrumors 601
Original poster
May 2, 2010
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Love everything about my RMB but the battery life drain on standby is really bothering me. After the first few weeks of love where I'm using and coddling my new gadgets daily, they get put aside for awhile and I'm not understanding why a 100% charged MacBook in sleep mode would be down to 70% after three days idle. My new iPad Air 2 doesn't even lose 1% a day. My two year old Sony, same thing.

What's going on with the RMB in sleep that causes such drain?

TIA
 
boltjames

boltjames

macrumors 601
Original poster
May 2, 2010
4,483
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Strange occurence this morning, with my RMB in Sleep and in my backpack plugged into the wall for overnight charging, when I woke up this morning and checked on it the RMB was boiling hot.

Does putting a MacBook into Sleep instead of "Off" keep its processor moving? I have no idea why a simple overnight charge would make my RMB boil.

BJ
 
Gav2k

Gav2k

macrumors G3
Jul 24, 2009
9,216
1,606
Should never charge your laptop in anything but free space. Power nap could have kicked in adding to the heat but generally batteries become hot when charging. The hotter they are the longer it takes to charge. The longer it takes to charge the more heat can build up and result in fire
 
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boltjames

boltjames

macrumors 601
Original poster
May 2, 2010
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Gav2k said:
Should never charge your laptop in anything but free space. Power nap could have kicked in adding to the heat but generally batteries become hot when charging. The hotter they are the longer it takes to charge. The longer it takes to charge the more heat can build up and result in fire
Click to expand...
Thank you both, I am a Windows guy and this is my first MacBook, I never had any of these issues with my super thin and light Sony VAIO notebooks.

Are you certain there is no setting that will allow me to charge in my backpack? The place I charge my notebook the most is where I keep my backpack ready for work the next morning which is by the front door and there is an outlet right there.

The RMB is in Sleep in Windows 8.1 (not OSX) and all power settings are the same as on my Sony, I'm in Airplane Mode as well so all antenna are turned off. Is this just an oddity of Apple notebooks?

BJ
 
zhenya

zhenya

macrumors 604
Jan 6, 2005
6,735
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So you are running Windows on the Macbook?

It sounds like your sleep settings are having some issues. If you are losing 30% battery in 3 days standby, it's probably not going into hibernate so powering the RAM full time. If the device was boiling hot while charging in your bag, it was probably because the computer never shut off, and in addition to charging the battery, the computer was running and generating a lot of heat. Sounds like you need to verify that sleep and hibernate is working properly in Windows. Not surprising as those modes can be difficult to make work reliably if the drivers have not been optimized by the manufacturer.

Best practice is to not charge any battery device in an enclosed space because charging generates heat by its very nature. Nothing unique to Apple here. The faster the power supply charges it, the more heat generated, and the Macbook charges reasonably fast.
 
boltjames

boltjames

macrumors 601
Original poster
May 2, 2010
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zhenya said:
So you are running Windows on the Macbook?

It sounds like your sleep settings are having some issues. If you are losing 30% battery in 3 days standby, it's probably not going into hibernate so powering the RAM full time. If the device was boiling hot while charging in your bag, it was probably because the computer never shut off, and in addition to charging the battery, the computer was running and generating a lot of heat. Sounds like you need to verify that sleep and hibernate is working properly in Windows. Not surprising as those modes can be difficult to make work reliably if the drivers have not been optimized by the manufacturer.

Best practice is to not charge any battery device in an enclosed space because charging generates heat by its very nature. Nothing unique to Apple here. The faster the power supply charges it, the more heat generated, and the Macbook charges reasonably fast.
Click to expand...
Thanks zhenya!

Yes, I am running Windows exclusively. Long story short, have always been in the thinnest/lightest 12" to 14" Windows notebook for the past 15+ years and Sony went out of the business making Apple the most attractive option. I only use this notebook when I travel or need to spend the day in and out of conference room meetings.

Sleep is better than Hibernate as its re-start time is like 3 seconds compared to 13, so is there a way to use Sleep and ensure that no RAM is happening? I'm searching for answers online but if you have expertise in the area that would be great.

BJ
 
zhenya

zhenya

macrumors 604
Jan 6, 2005
6,735
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If you are using Windows 8.1 there is a command line tool called powercfg you can use to troubleshoot sleep related issues. In a administrator-level command prompt, you would type powercfg /sleepstudy and it will generate a report you can use to determine what is preventing the device from going to sleep, which is the likely scenario.

Ideally, what you want is for the device to sleep for some period of time, say several hours, during which time the system state will be stored in RAM, using about 0.5W power, then after that time if it is not interrupted, hibernate where it writes the state to disk and then shuts down entirely. The trouble is that any number of drivers or programs can prevent the computer from going to sleep.

Have you considered running Windows in Parallels instead? I'm not certain how the performance would be on the Macbook, but for light use, I suspect it would be fine. This would prevent you from having to use Boot Camp for Windows, and it allows you to mix OS X and Windows programs side by side. You would likely get better battery life, and more dependable performance this way.
 
I

inmnbob

macrumors regular
Aug 6, 2014
234
82
Chicago and Twin Cities
zhenya said:
If you are using Windows 8.1 there is a command line tool called powercfg you can use to troubleshoot sleep related issues. In a administrator-level command prompt, you would type powercfg /sleepstudy and it will generate a report you can use to determine what is preventing the device from going to sleep, which is the likely scenario.

Ideally, what you want is for the device to sleep for some period of time, say several hours, during which time the system state will be stored in RAM, using about 0.5W power, then after that time if it is not interrupted, hibernate where it writes the state to disk and then shuts down entirely. The trouble is that any number of drivers or programs can prevent the computer from going to sleep.

Have you considered running Windows in Parallels instead? I'm not certain how the performance would be on the Macbook, but for light use, I suspect it would be fine. This would prevent you from having to use Boot Camp for Windows, and it allows you to mix OS X and Windows programs side by side. You would likely get better battery life, and more dependable performance this way.
Click to expand...
 
zhenya

zhenya

macrumors 604
Jan 6, 2005
6,735
3,355
The Macbook is Power Nap capable, however it's disabled on battery by default.
 
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