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htmanning

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 20, 2009
14
2
I have a MBP that's about a year old. My battery was working fine and still giving me about 2.5 hours on a charge. Recently I noticed significantly less battery time (about 1:15) per charge. I calibrated the battery and had full charges on it but still would not get more than 1:15 reading on the battery meter for a full charge.

Today, I turned off my airport and plugged into a network cable to test my slingbox. I noticed my battery meter read 2:45. It hasn't done that in about 2 weeks, and I just bought a new wireless n router 2 weeks ago. I was shocked so I started testing. When I turned the airport on and connected to my wireless g router, the battery time dropped down to 1:50. When I connected to my wireless n router the battery meter dropped to about 1:40. It seems like using the wireless over the network plug takes significantly more battery time.

Interestingly, ever since I plugged into the network cable my battery meter seems to have been reset. I'm now getting at least 1:40 on a full charge when previously I was consistenly getting 1:15 of battery time on a full charge.

Any explanations?
 

iLog.Genius

macrumors 601
Feb 24, 2009
4,903
451
Toronto, Ontario
I wouldn't look too much into it. The battery meter/timer is always calculating how much power is approximately left. Wi-Fi does take up a fair amount of power which is why you're seeing the timer fall. Using the ethernet port uses less so that is why the timer goes back up. You can play around with it and see the timer go up and down but that's just the computer estimating how much power/time is left based on what the computer is doing.
 

skye12

macrumors 65816
Nov 11, 2006
1,211
2
Austin, Tx
Yes, you have to let it run down to a very low level for the "meter" to
recalibrate. It usually overstates how much battery charge is left otherwise.
 
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