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    Battery/Trackpad Issues on Macbook 13"

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by PEEGGY, Jul 23, 2010.

  1. PEEGGY

    PEEGGY Notebook Consultant

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    Hi
    I got my 2.66/320/13" macbook pro and it's good to have one.however I got only about 4~5 hours on battery while installing some apps and my trackpad sometimes hesitaes for afew secends to track my fingetips and then works fine again.
    I'm seeking for some [experts?] to see if these are common issues?
    thanks in advance.
     
    PEEGGY, Jul 23, 2010
    #1
  2. SP Forsythe

    SP Forsythe Notebook Evangelist

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    My 13" MBP can often experience similar battery life, depending on what I'm doing. I don't think it unusual.

    I'll let others comment on the trackpad, since I am no expert there.
     
    SP Forsythe, Jul 23, 2010
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  3. aznguyen316

    aznguyen316 Rock Chalk Jayhawk

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    Have you updated to 10.6.4? I think one of the fixes was occasional non-responsive trackpad. As for battery life, lower brightness and just use it a little longer and see.
     
    aznguyen316, Jul 23, 2010
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  4. piker28

    piker28 Notebook Consultant

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    What were you exactly installing. If it was a large program that is intensive to install then that could cause a low battery life. An example of that would easily be photoshop.
     
    piker28, Jul 23, 2010
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  5. doh123

    doh123 Without ME its just AWESO

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    its easy to eat up battery without even knowing it... from bluetooth and wifi to being on and scanning all the time... so screen brightness... DVD spinning... tons of hard drive access... to even just installing a few apps that run and poll things all the time (like iStat stuff)... its easy to eat up a battery quicker than a pretty much empty system would, even if your actively doing the same things.
     
    doh123, Jul 23, 2010
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  6. PEEGGY

    PEEGGY Notebook Consultant

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    I have installed 10.6.4 and seems I still have the same issue.Other than that I was installing windowz 7 + parallel + neo office.
    I didn't know I need to adjust brightness manually (because of the sensors),but I'll try that.
    I got no iStat.
     
    PEEGGY, Jul 23, 2010
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  7. doh123

    doh123 Without ME its just AWESO

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    parallels, and running/installing windows7 is going to eat up a lot of battery right there.

    adjusting screen/keyboard brightness manually saves a bit of power, over using the automatic, but that shouldn't be a majorly noticeable change in battery... depends how much the light is changing, what angles its coming from... if its usually keeping it lower or higher... and if your doing it manually, where your keeping it at.

    I perfer keeping it controlled manually, and when on battery, keeping all light settings as low as I can and still use it comfortably. When you are running on battery, try to not run parallels and Windows... if you don't need to actively use the Windows app your running for 15+ minutes, you can sleep the virtual machine and pull a lot less power.
     
    doh123, Jul 23, 2010
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  8. modernape

    modernape Notebook Guru

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    Never had any trackpad unresponsiveness here, and normal web browsing via wifi with screen at 2 clicks under max gets me about 6-7 hours. Have you calibrated the battery yet?
     
    modernape, Jul 23, 2010
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  9. PEEGGY

    PEEGGY Notebook Consultant

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    @modernape
    Not yet,I'll give it a try
     
    PEEGGY, Jul 24, 2010
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  10. stylinexpat

    stylinexpat Notebook Evangelist

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    Trackpad issues usually start after installing Windows 7. Had that issue on my last MBP after I installed Parallels with with Windows 7 and the battery life got worse after as well. If you run raid on the MBP with 2 SSD;s running battery times will also get worse but if you just add one SSD then battery life improves. My $.02..
     
    stylinexpat, Jul 25, 2010
    #10