Graphics & Instant Battery Death

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15" Unibody MacBook Pro, 2.66 Ghz, 4Gb Ram
Hi All,
I'm curious if anyone has experienced a similar problem, what has been done, or what can be done and future updates.

I have had my new Macbook Pro Aluminum for a little over 2 weeks now. I bought it brand new from the Apple Store and have been quite pleased as a customer. There is one thing which bothers me, however.

Recently upon switching the Graphics settings to Highest Performance and browsing the web from battery power, the machine suddenly went into its self-protected, low-battery, sleep mode. Mind you, I still had approx. 2 hrs of power left. Upon plugging the machine back in, I found the battery health from the iStat Pro widget displayed 6%. Battery health under "About this Mac" displayed: Check Battery.

I set the MacBook on charge and left it to do its thing.

It didn't take long for the laptop to recharge and with a restart, the health was back to 100%. I found this occurrence odd and scheduled an appointment with the Genius Bar for the next day.

Well, I visited the Genius Bar today and gave them the whole spiel. Diagnostics were ran on the battery and everything turned out perfectly normal. A ticket was submitted into the database and I was on my way.

I came home and since I was running on battery power, I switched from the Graphics settings from High Performance to Better Battery Life. Please be aware, I still had 3/4 battery life remaining. Upon the mandatory system log-out to switch Graphic performance, the MacBook went into its all-now-too-familiar low battery sleep. I've plugged it back in and iStat widget reports 8% Health. After about 30 minutes now, the battery is 'fully charged' again and should be ready to go.

Does anyone have an idea what's going on? Is it the OS? The graphic card? What should be my next steps?

I've just switched from PC and love my first-ever mac.. but this is driving me crazy.

Thanks.
 

chscag

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Take it back to the Apple store. You either have a defective battery or the charging circuit is not working properly. High performance graphics should not drain a battery that fast.

Regards.
 
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Yea, take it back, it seems like changing the setting for some reason causes the battery to freak out. Looks like you're able to duplicate the problem, which will be helpful when you take it in.
 
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Yea, take it back, it seems like changing the setting for some reason causes the battery to freak out. Looks like you're able to duplicate the problem, which will be helpful when you take it in.

Thanks for the tips... Unfortunately it doesn't reproduce each time I switch settings. Should I have them check something in particular? Diagnostics on the graphic card or so? I just feel like a fool walking in with a "problem" and not being able to reproduce the problem.... as was the case in them looking at the battery.
 

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