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why is my battery so terrible??

I don't think Dropbox drains battery like some people are saying here.

I've had Dropbox running in the background with Evernote open, Pocket running, two Scrivener documents opened, Mail opened, and Safari running, with the screen dimmed to 60%. I can get sometimes between 9 to 8 hours of battery estimate. If I'm browsing and loading pages a lot, then yes, the battery estimate can go down to 6 or 7 hours.

Still, with everything running, and most time spent on writing, I've sometimes seen the battery estimates jump to 11 or 12 hours.

Essentially, it varies on personal usage and what one has installed on their computer. Even Evernote has a setting where you can change it sync intervals to hourly, which of course reduces battery usage. Just my two cents.
 
macappleguy8 said:
I don't think Dropbox drains battery like some people are saying here.
Click to expand...

What drains it is active bluetooth/wifi usage. If Dropbox is doing the initial sync it will kill battery. Same as downloading a huge file. Same as streaming a large movie over wifi.

If Dropbox is idle, it won't be as hurtful on the battery.
 
Yeah, I was on 100% and it said like 3:50 hours remaining. It lasted like 2-3. Granted, I've been setting it up so downloading etc, my Dropbox sync is going (10GB, lol) but still... that seems pretty bad. :/ Other than the setting up, it's very VERY light usage, a few websites and iTunes playing. Suggestions?

I don't know if this is a stupid question, but could it have something to do with wifi? When I first set it up wifi wasn't working AT all, I had to hotspot to my phone to update my OS and then it finally worked, but even now it's quite bad. Just really slow at times, unresponsive at others, while it's fine on other devices?
 
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jsmith189 said:
Yeah, I was on 100% and it said like 3:50 hours remaining. It lasted like 2-3. Granted, I've been setting it up so downloading etc, my Dropbox sync is going (10GB, lol) but still... that seems pretty bad. :/ Other than the setting up, it's very VERY light usage, a few websites and iTunes playing. Suggestions?

I don't know if this is a stupid question, but could it have something to do with wifi? When I first set it up wifi wasn't working AT all, I had to hotspot to my phone to update my OS and then it finally worked, but even now it's quite bad. Just really slow at times, unresponsive at others, while it's fine on other devices?
Click to expand...

after over a week, my thinking is...

*Battery management software isn't the great (especially with Core-M).
*battery estimate software isn't great (hard to predict it with turbo on so often)
*some issue with battery (my battery health is dropping faster than any of of my previous 4 macbook/pro/air). now it's at 95%

even with the slighest usage (VLC + 2,3 tabs on firefox), i'm getting less than 7 years estimate.
 
kingofwale said:
after over a week, my thinking is...

*Battery management software isn't the great (especially with Core-M).
*battery estimate software isn't great (hard to predict it with turbo on so often)
*some issue with battery (my battery health is dropping faster than any of of my previous 4 macbook/pro/air). now it's at 95%

even with the slighest usage (VLC + 2,3 tabs on firefox), i'm getting less than 7 years estimate.
Click to expand...

If you're having to turbo for those minor tasks, something is wrong with the way they're coded. :\
 
Definitely something weird going on, my battery percentage is stuck on 19%. I got worried when it randomly turned off, then realised it had actually died. And now it just won't move despite saying current charge is 17% in energy saver.
 

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jsmith189 said:
Definitely something weird going on, my battery percentage is stuck on 19%. I got worried when it randomly turned off, then realised it had actually died. And now it just won't move despite saying current charge is 17% in energy saver.
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Are you saying that even if you fully charge your battery, it shows a 19% charge? For power or charging issues, try resetting the SMC.
 
just to update... I had it for a little over 3 weeks now.

Battery health is down from 98% to only 90% (not a sudden drop, but a slow decrease). Only 32 cycles (11 cycles more from the day I got it).

I am suspecting there is some issue with the battery itself. Check your own battery, fellow rMB fans
 
I had the same issues. 4-6 hours (browsing only, non-flash websites), battery health dropping, etc. I didn't have a battery gauge freeze though, but reading other people's experience, I'm glad I returned it.

Here's hoping the replacement doesn't have the same issue.
 
my battery was at 95.5% with 6 cycles. i am at 10 cycles now and the battery is holding at 96.1% according to coconut. i have seen some folks have around 95.5% and other around 99-100%. i think someone mentioned that apple batteries have a range anyway. Going down from 98% to 90% seems odd and probably something is wrong. Maybe it's the new battery that they are using in the RMB. I am curious what % the 1.3 versions started out at.

King, how far do you let your batteries go down to, before you charge them?
 
turbo87 said:
my battery was at 95.5% with 6 cycles. i am at 10 cycles now and the battery is holding at 96.1% according to coconut. i have seen some folks have around 95.5% and other around 99-100%. i think someone mentioned that apple batteries have a range anyway. Going down from 98% to 90% seems odd and probably something is wrong. Maybe it's the new battery that they are using in the RMB. I am curious what % the 1.3 versions started out at.

King, how far do you let your batteries go down to, before you charge them?
Click to expand...

normally i have it plugged in. When I'm out, most of the time I charge them when I can (most of the time around 40-50% left), Once it got to 10%.

I'm recording battery life on a weekly basis. if this continues, I'm taking it to Apple.

Any idea what Apple deems to be bad battery? 80%? 70% battery health?
 
kingofwale said:
normally i have it plugged in. When I'm out, most of the time I charge them when I can (most of the time around 40-50% left), Once it got to 10%.

I'm recording battery life on a weekly basis. if this continues, I'm taking it to Apple.

Any idea what Apple deems to be bad battery? 80%? 70% battery health?
Click to expand...
Apple states that your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its health for up to 1000 cycles. If it drops below 80% before 1000 cycles, take it to Apple to see if it's defective. They usually won't even consider looking at a battery until it's below 80% health.
 
GGJstudios said:
Apple states that your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its health for up to 1000 cycles. If it drops below 80% before 1000 cycles, take it to Apple to see if it's defective. They usually won't even consider looking at a battery until it's below 80% health.
Click to expand...

thank you. I remember reading something about this.

by my going rate, I will be below 80% in a month time and under 50 cycles. :(


In comparison. my 2012 rMBP 15 was over 89% after close to 3 years and 690 cycles. What a shame
 
kingofwale said:
thank you. I remember reading something about this.

by my going rate, I will be below 80% in a month time and under 50 cycles. :(
Click to expand...
As I stated earlier in the thread, the decline is not a straight line downward. It may fluctuate up or down and may decline faster at some times and slower at others. You can't accurately predict when your battery health will drop below 80%.
 
GGJstudios said:
As I stated earlier in the thread, the decline is not a straight line downward. It may fluctuate up or down and may decline faster at some times and slower at others. You can't accurately predict when your battery health will drop below 80%.
Click to expand...

it's definitely a straight line downward from day 1. I'm consistently losing 1% every 2 days and most of the time not even using the laptop on battery.

I might not be able to predict exactly when, but like I said, I track it daily and save screenshots for the time when I need to go to Apple store to get it investigated.
 
kingofwale said:
it's definitely a straight line downward from day 1. I'm consistently losing 1% every 2 days and most of the time not even using the laptop on battery.

I might not be able to predict exactly when, but like I said, I track it daily and save screenshots for the time when I need to go to Apple store to get it investigated.
Click to expand...

Just take it back and get it checked if there is a problem they'll fix or replace it.
 
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