Extreme Battery Shortage

Hi, by saying extreme battery shortage I do in fact mean extreme battery shortage. I'm running a 13 inch macbook pro with a 2.26 processor and my macbook isn't even a year old. The problem that I'm facing is that I had left my macbook to charge last night before I went to bed and this morning I log on to my macbook and although the battery was at 100%, It calculated 2:45 hours of battery. Usually my macbook will calculate 7-8 hours of battery after being charged. So I waited for about a minute to see whether or not the amount of hours would increase since it would usually recalculate itself. Instead, the amount of time decreased and it stayed at 2:15 hours with 99% battery. Right now I have 60% battery and 1:10 hours of battery when I should have about 4-5 hours on 60% battery life. Below is my battery information. I really don't want to pay for another battery so I was hoping if anyone had this problem or not and got it fixed some how.

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 3591
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 5216
Health Information:
Cycle count: 326
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -2448
Voltage (mV): 11300

Check activity monitor to see if there is something hogging up your CPU. Welcome to the forums, by the way.

Hi

I had the same problem with my 15" Mac, but it was a bit older. The battery got down to an almost instantaneous depletion if not plugged in to a power supply after just 2.5 years of use. I had to buy another one.

Just my two cents worth.

But saying that, when I first brought the laptop, there are hazy memories of me having an issue with the battery then also, but it was all covered under the warranty, so they posted me out a new one. Bravo!

You can't fully trust the time that is given on the battery gauge. Use an actual watch and use your computer until it goes into sleep mode automatically due to fully drained battery. See if the time does match the battery gauge.

Doing this will set you up for the next step which is to calibrate your battery if you have not done so in awhile. If you didn't know calibrating your battery involves fully draining your battery and then fully charging it without any interruptions. It helps keep your battery gauge more accurate and should be done about once a month.

Also contrary to what some people think calibrating doesn't make the battery healthier. It is more to keep the battery gauge accurate. Once the battery is fully charged look at the battery information again and see if the charge remaining is that same as the fully charge amount. If it's not then you probably lost some battery capacity and it would have to be quite a bit lost if your current battery gauge is accurate. Your battery might be dying if that is the case. It's normal to lose some capacity but if you lost a lot then it's probably time for a new battery.

If it's not the battery then Mac Masta could be right about something else eating up your battery power but if you have not changed anything or installed anything recently then it's probably the battery.

Wow, thank you for the quick responses. Alright, I checked my CPU usage and currently its at 54.34% with just terminal and firefox open. Now it is currently turning the cooling fan on and off occasionally. So taking in everyone's advice, I'll try first restarting my mac then follow by draining the battery and give it a full charge by itself. I'll post later if I have any problems or if I have to thank you all .

Finished charging, 100% battery life with 8:50 hours and 0.5% CPU. Thank you to everyone who contributed to my post