Battery Life Experience

Hi All,

I've enjoyed having a MBP 15 i7 2010 for over a year. Computer runs fine, however I noticed recently that my battery charge lasts 3 hours at best. I have Istat Menu monitoring the battery and here's some detail :

Health: 92%
Cycles: 330
Capacity: 6200/6900Mah
Amperage:
With no software running: 1700
With just Firefox/Chrome and mail: 2700!!!!

This effectively renders around 2 hour battery life at best. And I don't mean watching HD youtube/HULU. Just browsing regular websites. I'm not doing anything heavy on the system. I'm really surprised that little after a year of use this computer's battery life is comparable with a gaming beast Alienware system.

Do you think it's a hardware problem? Maybe something is wrong with my software? Anybody had similar experience? What are your numbers on the battery front?

All comments are highly appreciated.

 

are you using gfxCardStatus to force on the Intel HD?

 

no, because when I force it, it gets choppy even on scrolling.

I have an SSD, 8GB of ram and it still is far from smooth.

I'm running Lion on it ( clean install with profile files moved over)

 

Well most likely your GPU is getting kicked on when you launch one of the browsers, and it stays on all the time no matter what your doing with that app. Apple's auto-switch is terrible. It does not go by current use... it only goes by what apps are running, and if that app links to something like OpenGL, then it kicks on the GPU. That draws a ton of power.

Forcing the Intel works good on 2011 Macs cuz the Intel HD 3000 is powerful enough, but the Intel HD on the 2010s is MUCH weaker, so I do not blame you wanting to have the Geforce on. You might want to force it to the Intel all the time until you get ready to do something that needs the Geforce, then switch.

 

Yep i think he is right i am also facing low battery life because i am using Windows 7 as my 24/7 os i have yet to find a way to switch the GPU off and use HD3000

My new MBP gets around 1.5-2 hrs while gaming and about 3hrs while surfing. my 6750m also runs on 800/850Mhz.

 

Thanks for your input guys!

I understand the relationship between power drain and discrete graphics, however it used to be able to run for hours with no problem. Even now, after I fully charged it it show 4:45 left. What's interesting is that amperage now is 1600 (on discrete card). After 10-20 minutes it will jump up to as high as 2800. Guess it's normal?

 

depends on hundreds of variables.. from what is running, what hardware is plugged in or activated... what software is installed...

mine is around 2500 with Firefox and Safari and my Radeon enabled...

 

Have you calibrated the battery recently? Reset the SMC?

 

It is all a lie that macbook pros can run for hours on hours. If everything has to be turned off to make that happen, then might as well get a larger netbook and they can run up to 9 hours, plus you can easily replace the battery as well.

I can't think of anything other than a pure ponzi scheme of what apple touts out their "battery life" when it is horrendous. Yes, I do run gfxcard which forces the computer to run on integrated mode on battery.

 

its called "up to" for a reason... that means its up to that amount of hours. It all depends what you do with it.

My 2010 13" MBP was rated as 10 hours on the old testing metrics (changed to 7 hours on the new) and I pulled over 9 before.

My 2011 17" MBP is rated as 7 hours, and I've pulled over 6 before. Depending on what I'm doing I can kill it in under an hour if I want to, but just simple web surfing and typing in Pages, and 6 hours wasn't hard at all.

 

if I just want to run Pages or check email then I would get an MBA.

 

and? That doesn't make much sense though... Its nice when doing something light to have a machine that has a long battery life, and still have the power to do more when needed, knowing it takes more power. You think any machine exists you can run really hard and get 7 hours of battery? You need to buy an external battery to plug in to and lug around maybe if you need that much power.

You act like this only affects Apple. I've had other brands that claim like 3 or 4 hours that just running a medium load died in 30 minutes... and even just sitting idle I could barely pull 3. Apple is probably the best right now in selling machines that can actually live up to their battery claims. Most other brands actual use is usually much further away then the advertised amount.

its kind of like a car and gas milage. You can drive it multiple ways and get very very different results in gas milage. I recently bought a used car, who had a MPG on the computer listed at 19.7. I'm guessing the previous owners had no clue how to drive efficiently. After 2 months of ownership, the MPG with me driving now sits around 27.5. huge difference, same vehicle.

 

Why are you gaming on battery?

And you OC'd?

I'm confused by this post.