Battery life

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Hey guys, I got a new MacBook Pro a week or two ago and I've notices the battery life isn't what I was told it would be. I fully charge it and it will last me two and a half hours tops, just surfing the web and listening to music. I don't know if there is something wrong with my machine or what because my friend has a year old MacBook that stays charged for 5-6 hours doing the same things as mine. Any thoughts? Thanks for our time.
 

pigoo3

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Hey guys, I got a new MacBook Pro a week or two ago and I've notices the battery life isn't what I was told it would be. I fully charge it and it will last me two and a half hours tops, just surfing the web and listening to music.

Listening to music doesn't help...the speakers use energy, and if the music is on your hard drive...it will be spinning a lot!

Also...if you're internet surfing involves a lot of U-Tube or other sites with lots of video content, that will eat up battery life as well.

- Nick
 
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Thanks, that's good to know, but the other day I was typing and it started off with about 95% battery and was at 0% about 2 hours. Is that normal?
 

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Thanks, that's good to know, but the other day I was typing and it started off with about 95% battery and was at 0% about 2 hours. Is that normal?

If all you were doing is typing...2 hours seems kinda short. How bright do you keep your screen?
 
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When you were typing, did you have anything else running in the background? Were you listening to music at the same time?
 
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make sure programs you close are actually closed, not in standby on the dock. I forget frequently that I have iTunes, iCal, Mail, Safari, Pages, Preview, and Address Book in standby mode when all I'm doing is homework. I'll turn them all completely off and watch my battery gain 10+ % I can usually get between 3-4 hours just internet surfing and 5+ if I'm working on writing a paper if i turn the airport off.
 
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also throw out to turn the screen brightness down and the keyboard backlight off.


and as i learned today, dont leave a vm running xp while on battery.. lol
 
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If this is the new uni-body with the non replacable battery that seems short
my 3yr old MBP gets a little over 2 hrs surfing while listening to iTunes.
 
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Hey guys, I got a new MacBook Pro a week or two ago and I've notices the battery life isn't what I was told it would be. I fully charge it and it will last me two and a half hours tops, just surfing the web and listening to music. I don't know if there is something wrong with my machine or what because my friend has a year old MacBook that stays charged for 5-6 hours doing the same things as mine. Any thoughts? Thanks for our time.

There may be something wrong with your battery. I am over half brightness and I have my backlit keyboard on, while surfing the internet. I have 40% battery and I have 2 hours 42 minutes remaining.

I am running the new MBP 13 inch.

I would run coconut battery and you may be able to figure out if your battery is defective by seeing how many mAH there are left in your battery.
 
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am having battery issues on the same model, mine will only go up to 98%. I let it die yesterday and recharged it over night. and still only goes up to 98%.

not only that but when I got it I was getting 4-5 hours with no issue. sometimes even more. now it only shows 2 - 2:30 hours max.
 
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Hi guys, I'm a novice so be gentle. I have a MBP 15" inch and when the battery is fully charged at 100% i unplug and within 30 minutes i get a message that i am running on reserve power. I generally am surfing facebook or ancestry, i may have mail running in the background. The brightness is about 40% and keypad light is off. I'm using my wireless internet connection.

thanks for your help.
 

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Hi guys, I'm a novice so be gentle. I have a MBP 15" inch and when the battery is fully charged at 100% i unplug and within 30 minutes i get a message that i am running on reserve power. I generally am surfing facebook or ancestry, i may have mail running in the background. The brightness is about 40% and keypad light is off. I'm using my wireless internet connection.

thanks for your help.

How long have you had your computer...and how often do you use your laptop on battery power? In other words, how often (per day or per week) does your battery get drained from use, and then need to be recharged?

- Nick
 
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Not just you Macbook having battery issues

I bought 4 - 15 inch macbook pros (June 09), even with messing around with the Energy Saving preferences we can only get around two hours. I always have multiple apps running and always on wireless. My old Macbooks performed much better under the same circumstances. I am considering buying a new battery, maybe we got a bad batch.
 
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How long have you had your computer...and how often do you use your laptop on battery power? In other words, how often (per day or per week) does your battery get drained from use, and then need to be recharged?

- Nick

I would say most days, i fully charged the battery this evening and when the percent left got to 50% i checked how long and it says 9 minutes remaining.

I try to run on mains most of the time but if it falls out or the kids take it out it normally dies.

cheers
 
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Hi guys, I'm a novice so be gentle. I have a MBP 15" inch and when the battery is fully charged at 100% i unplug and within 30 minutes i get a message that i am running on reserve power. I generally am surfing facebook or ancestry, i may have mail running in the background. The brightness is about 40% and keypad light is off. I'm using my wireless internet connection.

thanks for your help.

Are you being nice to your battery - see Mac OS X 10.5 Help: Calibrating a MacBook or MacBook Pro battery and if u still have issues check this Apple Portables: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) but make sure u have the correct model.
 

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I would say most days, i fully charged the battery this evening and when the percent left got to 50% i checked how long and it says 9 minutes remaining.

I try to run on mains most of the time but if it falls out or the kids take it out it normally dies.

cheers

You didn't answer my earlier question regarding how old your computer and/or battery is.

The reason why I asked how old your computer/battery is & how often your battery needs to be recharged (if you run it on battery power often or not)...is because I have read in various places that rechargeable batteries are good for something like 750-1000 recharge cycles.

The closer the battery gets to this max number...the shorter the amount of runtime (hours & minutes) you get when running on battery power.

A rechargeable battery when it's new has a maximum charge capacity measured in milliamp hours.

So let's say your battery when:

- brand new has a 5000 milliamp-hour capacity (mAh)...and has 5 hours of runtime
- after 100 recharge cycles, maybe the battery's maximum capacity is 4500 mAh, and a runtime of 4.5 hours
- after 500 recharge cycles, battery capacity may be down to 3000 mAh...and a runtime of 2.5 hours
- finally after say 800 recharge cycles, the battery capacity may be down to 1000 mAh, and last only an hour.

In all of the examples above...the computer will show that the battery is charged to 100%...but because the battery's "charge capacity" decreases over time, the runtime decreases as well.

So the runtime you get with a 100% battery charge when a battery is new will not be the same (hours & minutes) as a 100% charge when a battery is say 2-3 years old...and been recharged 600 times.

The point I'm making is...the older your battery & the more times it has been recharged...the less runtime (hours & minutes) you will get.

To see how much charge capacity (mAh) your battery has, download & install this program:

coconut-flavour.com - [coconutBattery 2.6.5]

Hope this helps,

- Nick
 
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You didn't answer my earlier question regarding how old your computer and/or battery is.

The reason why I asked how old your computer/battery is & how often your battery needs to be recharged (if you run it on battery power often or not)...is because I have read in various places that rechargeable batteries are good for something like 750-1000 recharge cycles.

The closer the battery gets to this max number...the shorter the amount of runtime (hours & minutes) you get when running on battery power.

A rechargeable battery when it's new has a maximum charge capacity measured in milliamp hours.

So let's say your battery when:

- brand new has a 5000 milliamp-hour capacity (mAh)...and has 5 hours of runtime
- after 100 recharge cycles, maybe the battery's maximum capacity is 4500 mAh, and a runtime of 4.5 hours
- after 500 recharge cycles, battery capacity may be down to 3000 mAh...and a runtime of 2.5 hours
- finally after say 800 recharge cycles, the battery capacity may be down to 1000 mAh, and last only an hour.

In all of the examples above...the computer will show that the battery is charged to 100%...but because the battery's "charge capacity" decreases over time, the runtime decreases as well.

So the runtime you get with a 100% battery charge when a battery is new will not be the same (hours & minutes) as a 100% charge when a battery is say 2-3 years old...and been recharged 600 times.

The point I'm making is...the older your battery & the more times it has been recharged...the less runtime (hours & minutes) you will get.

To see how much charge capacity (mAh) your battery has, download & install this program:

coconut-flavour.com - [coconutBattery 2.6.5]

Hope this helps,

- Nick

Thanks for that Nick, father christmas brought me my shine mac.
 

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