Just got a new MacBook Pro 16" and today is the first full day of use. I am getting less than 4 hours of battery life, not even close to the advertised 11 hours.
Will do more testing at work tomorrow and hopefully things improve.
Config is 2.4GHZ 8-core, i9, 32GB RAM, Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB
MacBook Pro 16", macOS 10.15
Partially figured it out (for me at least)
Station (getstation.com) was forcing my discrete GPU to run all the time and eat up all my battery.
Open it using terminal with this command: `open /Applications/Station.app/ --args --disable-gpu`
and your battery life life goes from about 3 hours to over 5 hours.
Still not even close to a full day, but much better.
RE: Battery Life on the newest MacBook Pro models.
Their batteries must be treated the reverse of the way you treat your iPhone battery. When you are near AC power, they should be plugged in, and only when AC power is not available should they be run on battery. They should always be plugged in at night, all night. It is designed too reduce the charge rate as it fills, and NEVER over-charge.
For long battery life, do not leave them at a low charge level overnight. This can contribute to battery swelling and premature failure.
The MacBook Pro uses (up to) all the output of the power adapter to run. When under especially heavy load, it will also freely "borrow" power from the battery. In some cases this may persist enough to show battery discharge on power adapter while running.
Not connecting AC power means it is internally throttling, and not performing as well as it could be.
All, Apple replaced my Brand new MacBook Pro after I wrote a scathing review. A $3,000 computer should not have these issues of battery draining fast. Since the replacement (thank you Apple) I have since had ZERO battery issues. There is clearly a battery issue in some machines. If you are doing essentially regular work and getting fast battery drain, that IS NOT NORMAL and something is wrong. Since the replacement I get easily 8-10 hours without fail. Now to be clear, I am not doing high powered software but I often have several apps open doing research, writing, emails, etc at a time. I wish all of you luck because Apple DOES NOT help easily and it is extremely difficult to get problems resolved. Finally, most, of not all people you speak too have no idea what they are talking about, give stock replies on answering, and cannot solve your battery issue. Honestly, I cannot tell you I will ever purchase an Apple computer again!
After upgrading to catalina 10.15.5, which did have specific battery health mode added, my battery seems to perform like advertised. I don't know if this will last, but it might be that this solved the problem, at least for me. Am running Chrome without adverse effects, but the computer does seem to use the integrated graphics card for it now and not 'high perf'. Anyone else seen improvement after installing this update?
I notice when my second videocard is activate (checked in activity monitor) the battery already start draining even without doing any stessfull things. like i just opened the OBS streaming program and the battery remaining time go's from 10 hours to 2,5.
I have had a discussion add an apple reseller where i bought this device. But they want to charge me research cost when they need to check it and the don't find any problem.
Is there a free apple program that active the second video card on the macbook aswel so i could show them it's having the same problem. So they can't say it's because of OBS software
I'm pretty sure we're all agreed that the dGPU is the culprit on battery drain. Of course, anything that activates the full capacity of the CPU and the dGPU will drain the battery the quickest.
I'll get 4-5 hours of normal use using a mix of standard apps (Safari, Word, etc) and Adobe CC apps that use the dGPU (Photoshop, InDesign*, Illustrator, etc). Apps like After Effects* and games* will give me less (~1.5 hours—about 1% a minute). I don't recommend running solely on the battery for these apps.
I also get a lot of crashes and wonder if the dGPU is to blame — for both. These only happen when the app (the ones I've starred* above) uses the dGPU or switches from one to the other — I think.
Does anyone else have these issues with crashing? Just curious — I'll post to another thread that's dGPU related, if no one responds here.
Basically, is the dGPU a design flaw or just faulty? (Faulty because of excessive battery drain and crashing issues.)
Here's two nifty pieces of data and a full study on the machine I found. Sounds like it could be related to an Intel Processor issue. I do run an external model and have enabled the graphics switcher and will run a timed experiment tonight on machine performance WITHOUT a secondary monitor. I'm curious to see what the battery life is without it...
Secondly; the video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkmdHVfk4XE
Speaks to the i9 processor overclocking to 5ghz to open EVERYTHING therefore eating the machine up tremendously.
Here is the app that allows you to turn off Turbo Boost - I will run tests today as well on performance with Turbo Boost shut off. Here: https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/
Here is a workaround for that problem:
Use https://gfx.io/ to activate only the integrated graphic card. Then you will have 10 hours of battery life.
Otherwise it uses the performance gpu mode all the time. Auto switching does not seem to work on the Macbook 16“, so you have to manually trigger it with that app.
The post mentioned among other things;
I started another thread. I think it may be due to the screen brightness. On my previous MacBooks, I would typically keep the screen at around 30 - 35% brightness. On this Mac, I have to keep it at 75% for the same brightness. If I put the screen at 50% or lower - it is very dim. Thinking the battery is way less because the screen has to be so bright.
What config do you have? I have:
2.4Ghz 8 core i9, 32Gb Mem, Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB, 2Tb SSD, MBP 16" 2019
(same as @CromeYellow).
It seems as though Adobe CC Apps (InDesign and Photoshop) are forcing the dGPU to run all the time and I wonder if the 4GB GPU and less RAM would be better for battery drain. Computer is only about 14 days old and had gone through 19 charge cycles.
Update: just did the latest OS update, Adobe CC updates AND SMC reset. Saying 5.5 hours fro 95% charge. Brightness at 63%
I think you’re conflating two issues that are related, but different.
It doesn’t help to claim we’re Apple fans or employees. You bought a Mac too, does that make you an Apple fan now? I don’t know.
I’m looking at the issue as fairly as possible.
(1) The dedicated AMD GPU has a high energy impact.
(2) “Pro” apps that use the CPU and dGPU together have a very high energy impact and it’s just better to use them plugged in.
I observe that running following apps drain battery and fan runs fast (also system heats up to 70C):
So sad, but atleast MCB should work fine with OBS/Prism Live Studio and Apple motion :(
"from what I’ve read in this forum, and watched online it seems we the consumer by into the idea of great, only to be confronted with... oh it’s because you have this chip, or your using this software. If this isn’t a pro machine, that can run and do as it’s advertised then it needs to be addressed and advertised for what it is. To add salt to the injury, I’ve also got the kernel crash thing happening when the machine goes into sleep mode. Oh wait a minute, that’s because I have it attached to a monitor. Please Apple, enough is enough. "
Did you even check the About This Mac as I suggested to verify if your dedicated GPU was activated? I understand your frustration but if you're not even going to reply to tell me that you checked it but rather just wanted to rant at me I don't have time for that. Ranting is not allowed here according to the forum rules. BTW, having long battery life does not dictate if something is PRO or not. Every laptop with a dedicated GPU has the same battery drain when it's activated. This is not exclusive to Apple.
I think the simple answer is OBS (like any other video editing app) is just going to chew through your battery faster than, another app that doesn’t rely heavily on the CPU and dGPU.
When I use AfterEffects, for example, I only get a few hours or work time, so I’ve resigned myself to plugging in when I’m working.
Guys here is my UPDATE -
Specs:
Purchased July 10th.
I have done literally EVERYTHING shy of rewriting the HD and installing everything manually. At this point I have done the following:
Issues I have seen/experienced:
I have spent hours + on the phone with Apple Senior Advisors and Level 3 techs. Nobody has any idea even though this is a known problem! Senior advisor claims it was the first she had heard of it although there are a ton of documented cases. Nothing I have done at this point has improved the issue and it seems it is NOT an isolated incident. This machine was around $4700 and is used as my primary machine for a digital agency. *Sending this machine back (one week) and waiting 2 weeks for a new machine, which may or may not have the same issue is simply not a practical solution. I'm losing time and money daily. My MacBook Pro 2012 with a new battery lasted longer than this. APPLE please have your engineers sort the issue out. I suggest issuing a RECALL on these items as many professionals are losing precious work time. An almost $5k machine that in under 2 weeks isn't working as specified is a huge issue and our agency will not hesitate to vocalize the issue to gain attention and have it fixed on behalf of professionals everywhere. This is NOT ETHICAL. You have to know the issue exists as its documented countless times since November or 2019. *PLEASE ADDRESS this and get it fixed STAT!
MacBook Pro 16 inch battery life
