Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference to kick off June 10 at 10 a.m. PDT with Keynote address

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hypo luxa Author

Level 1

10 points

15" MacBook Pro i7 battery life mediocre

I figured I'd post on the forums to let everyone know how I'm faring with the new MacBook pro i7. I love the machine, first off. It's fast!!!! However, the battery life is the most important aspect of a laptop to me and this particular battery leaves much to be desired as far as charge longevity is concerned. Just to give you some numbers....after about 3 hours of web browsing, I'm at fifty percent of battery charge capacity. That extrapolates to around 6 hours of total available charge. Brightness is set at 50 percent with wifi and Bluetooth on. Flash sites visited made up approximately 40 percent of the total quantity of sites visited. There was much browsing and skimming occurring and very little in depth reading. More of an aggressive approach to surfing the Internet. I just feel that the battery acts very uneven in it's discharge of energy with respect to the indicator that is given to the user in the form of the battery percentage / time remaining calculation. It seems to discharge very quickly during the first 10 - 15 percent (in a matter of 15 -25 minutes) and then evens off a bit. It seems to give a more instantaneous reading rather than a rolling average usage reading. It's definitely not 8-9 hours, that's for sure. Kind of disappointing given the advertisement.

Message was edited by: hypo luxa

MacBook pro 15" core i7, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Apr 19, 2010 10:17 PM

157 replies

Zavior

Level 1

5 points

Apr 24, 2010 5:37 AM in response to hypo luxa

I also noticed that the battery seemed to be noticeable short to say the least. so when does it decide to switch? Here is when:

What I noticed when powering/booting up OS X Snow Leopard is that it starts by using the Intel HD Graphics. And at some point switches to NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M.

When opening say RapidWeaver and selecting “New Project” (after selecting “New Project) and running Intel. *_BOOOOM! It switches to NVIDIA every time! (EVERY TIME! and do not go back to Intel card)_*

So there you have it. It must be a OpenCL related problem!

MacRS4

Level 2

330 points

Apr 24, 2010 5:44 AM in response to Zavior

There's a fair number of apps that make the switch happen - see: http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2010/4/21Early_2010_Macbook_Pro_-_Battery_LifePoor.html

Zavior

Level 1

5 points

Apr 24, 2010 5:57 AM in response to MacRS4

Oh sorry I see. I also noticed that it did go back to Intel after some time :-D

Sorry for the confusion

Rod Hagen

Level 7

32,000 points

Apr 24, 2010 6:07 AM in response to Graham K. Rogers

Hi Graham,

You can tell using System Profiler (which you can access in the Utilities folder, or by heading to the Apple Menu, choosing "About this Mac", then "More Info...".) Look in the "hardware" section of the window that then opens and check the "Graphics/Displays" section.

If the NVidia card is currently the one being used then (assuming you are using the computers own screen) under *NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M* in this section you will see (after other info):
......
......
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes

If, on the other hand, the computer is using the Integrated Intel graphics then "Online: Yes" and "Built-In: Yes" will appear under the section that starts:

*Intel HD Graphics*:
Chipset Model: Intel HD Graphics
Type: GPU......

instead.

Please note that this is not "live" information. To update it you have to use "Refresh", under the View menu in System Profiler, to update the screen.

Cheers

Rod

Apr 24, 2010 7:04 AM in response to Rod Hagen

Thanks, Rod. I was wondering if there was some more obvious display to indicate this. System Profiler it is then.

Apr 24, 2010 9:08 AM in response to hypo luxa

Well this morning i talked to apple support and they suggested i go into an apple store to have the MBP looked at and diagnosed. I would like to know before i go in if anyone has experienced good battery life out of their MBP. As i have stated in my previous post, i can only get about 3 and a half hours out of mine doing remedial tasks. My other concern has been the how hot the underside gets while running video whether it is from itunes or online or on a dvd. it is a 2 hour trip to an apple store, i don't want to make a 5 hour round trip to be told "yeah the battery just has a short life" So do you guys know of people that seem get "normal" battery life out of this thing or anything more than 4 hours? thats as much as i have gotten out of mine.

Apr 24, 2010 10:15 AM in response to hypo luxa

Yeah, my battery life has been quite poor too, and I'm guessing it's also because the Nvidia is always running. Actually, I've never seen it use the intel yet (I don't use skype and a lot of the other apps mentioned here).

I know Apple was attempting to come up with a no brainer solution but the implementation seems quite poor. You can't tell your programmers to use API's that depend on opengl and flag anything using opengl to switch to the nvidia. At least this is what I'm guessing on some level is happening.

Apr 24, 2010 11:07 AM in response to Rod Hagen

Hey Rod.

the iStat entry was the first one I removed. It did not make a difference. After that I thought about my install from my 2006 MBP (used Migration Assistant) and thought maybe something got set wrong so I turned off the graphic switching, rebooted, turned it back on, rebooted and there was no difference. I then went in and removed the last three entries in the startup, rebooted and it went to the integrated card. I plan on putting the last three items (growl, ituneshelper & ms au daemon) and then iStat back in to see which one triggers it and will report back.

Thanks for all your help.

bitninja

Level 1

10 points

Apr 24, 2010 11:24 AM in response to hypo luxa

Hey all,

I made a menu bar app that lets you know which card is in use, so you don't have to check the system profiler anymore. It updates when you launch/terminate any application, and when the display configuration changes or an external display is plugged in. There's also a manual update if you feel it isn't correct. See this thread if you're interested (anchored to my first post of the app):
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=901521&page=5#122

There are screenshots and some feature list updates further down the thread if you want to see what it looks like in action before you try it out. It has worked for everyone with an i5 or i7 MacBook Pro that has tried it yet, so it should do the same for you if you choose to try it out. Thanks, let me know what you think!

Cody

Apr 24, 2010 2:13 PM in response to paulchat55

The startup item that seemed to be causing my issue was the MicroSoft AU Daemon. With it, it defaults to the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M. Without, the Intel HD Graphics.

Rod Hagen

Level 7

32,000 points

Apr 24, 2010 2:58 PM in response to Graham K. Rogers

Third party programs like Hardware Monitor should be able to provide the information in "live" fashion, Graham, if you want something more direct, at least once they have been updated for the new machines.

Rod Hagen

Level 7

32,000 points

Apr 24, 2010 3:17 PM in response to Rod Hagen

UPDATE

It seems that an enterprising "coder" has produced a free menubar item that indicates which GPU the computer is using at any time without the need to use System profiler- see http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=901521&page=7 for information and the relevant download link

(NB it is only intended for use on the new i5 and i7 machines and may crash other hardware )

Cheers

Rod

bitninja

Level 1

10 points

Apr 24, 2010 3:20 PM in response to Rod Hagen

Thanks for the mention, Rod! It now also has an official homepage at http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus/

I'll be posting screenshots there soon as well, although there are some already in the referenced MacRumors Forums thread.

Cody

Apr 24, 2010 5:11 PM in response to Rod Hagen

Thanks for that, and I note the later posts concerning the other developers' utilities. I managed about 4 and a half hours last night with a lot of heavy work (wifi file transfers, Aperture image imports, plus web working and other downloads). Will try to calibrate again and see how/if this changes. Interesting thread.

Rod Hagen

Level 7

32,000 points

Apr 24, 2010 6:07 PM in response to bitninja

Well done, Cody! Looks like quite a few people are going to find it very handy!

Cheers

Rod

15" MacBook Pro i7 battery life mediocre