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Battery Drains to 0 in hour and half while on zoom call

My MacBook Pro 13” bought brand new in November 2019 drains to zero in about 90 minutes on zoom call. Other normal usage like internet, word and excel drains the battery to zero in 3 hours. Talked to Apple Support and they recommended taking it to Apple store and they couldn’t find the problem but I am not satisfied. I went to Apple store today so decided to post this on this forum. My 6 year old iPad and old windows laptop give me much better performance on zoom call. Anyone else having these issues? MacBook is being useless and thinking about about going back to windows and buying surface pro. What are my options to fix this issue? Any Apple technician can help here?

Posted on Oct 15, 2020 8:13 PM

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Posted on Oct 16, 2020 12:39 PM

This is kinda odd. The battery must be in very bad condition for an hour and a half of zoom conversation. Even my 2015 model macbook air had 70% battery health, there was still a certain percentage of battery remaining when I had a 2 hour zoom call.(I usually joined group chat with camera off). However, it should not be forgotten that such programs adapted outside the macOS ecosystem are generally not efficient at all. For example Chrome vs Safari, while I'm using chrome on my MacBook Pro 13", the computer's battery level drops to almost 30% within 3 hours. On the other hand, while I'm using safari I get nearly 7-8 hours. So while using such a programs best to use computer plugged in. But as I said your situation is a bit strange, you can try third-party battery applications to see battery health (if it is below %80 percent you can seek battery replacement) or pay attention to the applications that consume the most power from the activity monitor. With the cmd + space key combination, you can easily access by searching activity monitor in Spotlight. If battery health above %80 percent and nothing unusual noticed from activity monitor I recommend you to resetting your computer.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 16, 2020 12:39 PM in response to sumnesh

This is kinda odd. The battery must be in very bad condition for an hour and a half of zoom conversation. Even my 2015 model macbook air had 70% battery health, there was still a certain percentage of battery remaining when I had a 2 hour zoom call.(I usually joined group chat with camera off). However, it should not be forgotten that such programs adapted outside the macOS ecosystem are generally not efficient at all. For example Chrome vs Safari, while I'm using chrome on my MacBook Pro 13", the computer's battery level drops to almost 30% within 3 hours. On the other hand, while I'm using safari I get nearly 7-8 hours. So while using such a programs best to use computer plugged in. But as I said your situation is a bit strange, you can try third-party battery applications to see battery health (if it is below %80 percent you can seek battery replacement) or pay attention to the applications that consume the most power from the activity monitor. With the cmd + space key combination, you can easily access by searching activity monitor in Spotlight. If battery health above %80 percent and nothing unusual noticed from activity monitor I recommend you to resetting your computer.

Oct 16, 2020 2:34 PM in response to X_YAVUZ_X

Thank you for a detailed reply and yes I do use chrome for Zoom call but regardless, 90 minutes on a less than a year older MacBook Pro is really not appreciated. Apple person in the store did some diagnostic checks and told that battery is healthy. I am still very skeptical as my MacBook lasts only 4 hours max even on a a very light use using office apps such as word and excel and all stored locally.

what are some recommended battery health check applications for MacOS? I will try to get that going ASAP.

thank you again for your helpful insights.

Oct 17, 2020 3:51 AM in response to sumnesh

https://fiplab.com/apps/battery-health-3-for-mac

https://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/

I find these two apps useful and I hope help. However, as I said, I recommend you to monitor the CPU usage and enegy usage while doing daily work on the computer from the activity monitor. This way, you can identify the most power-hungry and CPU-consuming apps and avoid using them while you are on battery. I'm glad I could help, I hope you can achieve the performance you expected.

Battery Drains to 0 in hour and half while on zoom call

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