rMBP Battery Life - Reformat or Downgrade?

[vahnx]

I've had a retina macbook pro since launch and I've noticed the battery life has gotten quite worse since I first got it. I understand the battery has about 1000 full recharges until it depletes in life so it makes sense now that it's 2015 (365x3) I would notice this. If I reformat or downgrade to something like Snow Leopard (or whatever it's default OS was), would I get better battery life? I've already disabled transparency and tried doing a few other tweaks which didn't help.

I want to avoid sending it into a repair shop/website to replace the battery, that would cost a fortune.

Thanks!

 

[yjchua95]

I've had a retina macbook pro since launch and I've noticed the battery life has gotten quite worse since I first got it. I understand the battery has about 1000 full recharges until it depletes in life so it makes sense now that it's 2015 (365x3) I would notice this. If I reformat or downgrade to something like Snow Leopard (or whatever it's default OS was), would I get better battery life? I've already disabled transparency and tried doing a few other tweaks which didn't help.

I want to avoid sending it into a repair shop/website to replace the battery, that would cost a fortune.

Thanks!

First, the battery is brand new with 0 (or below 5) cycles on it if just gotten out of the box.

Earlier, I missed your part that it's a mid-2012 rMBP, so yeah, it's got a lot of cycles on it. You can check via Coconut Battery.

Second, you cannot install anything older than the OS it shipped with.

Third, there's something eating your battery. For starters, if you're using Chrome, quit using it. It's a massive resource hog.

 

[chrfr]

I want to avoid sending it into a repair shop/website to replace the battery, that would cost a fortune.

In the US, Apple charges $199 for a battery replacement at any Apple store. That includes the battery and labor and doesn't seem too bad to me.

 

[vahnx]

First, the battery is brand new with 0 (or below 5) cycles on it if just gotten out of the box.

Earlier, I missed your part that it's a mid-2012 rMBP, so yeah, it's got a lot of cycles on it. You can check via Coconut Battery.

Ah that's a cool app, it says 257 loadcycles.

Second, you cannot install anything older than the OS it shipped with.

I wasn't sure of the default OS, I think it was SL maybe Lion.

Third, there's something eating your battery. For starters, if you're using Chrome, quit using it. It's a massive resource hog.

You think Chrome might be the problem? I didn't start noticing the battery being an issue until recently and I've been using Chrome since launch. I'm on version 41.

In the US, Apple charges $199 for a battery replacement at any Apple store. That includes the battery and labor and doesn't seem too bad to me.

That seems like a lot. Canadian that would probably come to $260 or more after taxes which is a huge fraction of the laptops current worth.

I may try using Safari a bit and see if I notice much a difference.

Thanks all!

 

[yjchua95]

You think Chrome might be the problem? I didn't start noticing the battery being an issue until recently and I've been using Chrome since launch. I'm on version 41.

I'm very sure it's Chrome. In fact, almost everyone who complains about bad battery life in the forums here are the ones who use Chrome all the time.

The default OS is Lion. However, Lion is to Apple just as Vista is to Microsoft.

Personally, Yosemite is pretty good and doesn't give me any problems.

 

[bhayes444]

Yeah, using Chrome was a battery drain for me. I would notice the estimated usage change from 7 or so hours in Safari to about 4.5 using Chrome. Just use Chrome sparingly, or only while plugged in and you'll be fine. Otherwise, I guess you'd have to bring an adapter with you and stay near a wall.

 

[vahnx]

OK good to know. I'll try Safari for now. I know it's basically the IE of OS X but if it improves my battery, I'll stick with it. Is there a way to sync bookmarks with Chrome and Safari without duplicating them? Xmarks was making duplicates and even on one occasion, 3x the bookmarks when I used it 2 or 3 years back.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Load cycles...

... are far less important than age for battery life, at 3 years it will be starting to drop.

All your battery questions are answered here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/9875442/

 

[vahnx]

... are far less important than age for battery life, at 3 years it will be starting to drop.

All your battery questions are answered here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/9875442/

Thanks. I've already monitored some CPU usage and memory and nothing really seems to be taking my CPU cycles. I've been using Safari though and finding it way slower than Chrome when it comes to rendering pages and I've encountered a couple errors "something about content failed to load" in a popup dialogue but I just hit OK and it continues running. I'll stick with Safari for a couple weeks and report back.

 

[vahnx]

Update: OK I definitely need to switch to safari. Basically 30 degrees celcious cooler when using it, even with flash video. I just need to speed it up (it's slow at rendering/loading pages compared to chrome by a mile) and find a way to sync bookmarks (without them getting duplicated) and get extensions/equivalents.