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MacBook Pro 2011 15" Battery going down while playing WoW

One week ago, I' ve buyed the new MacBook Pro 15" with dual i7 2,3 GHz, 1GB Graphic Card, etc...
The first one i got, had a trouble with the graphic card and I got it replaced with a new one, but on the "old" and the "new" one i noticed a problem. While i play a well known video game (World Of Warcraft) the battery keeps on going down until it completely discharges... I don' t think it is working as intended, and i noticed that the battery goes down when there are a lot of items etc on the screen and it needs more power to work. Am i the only one experiencing this? Is it "normal" or do I have to replace this MacBook once again?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Mar 9, 2011 8:36 PM

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38 replies

Mar 11, 2011 6:13 AM in response to C.Klein

I remember reading that MBP's use the battery in such a way that, if you removed the battery of a system (back when it was possible to remove them), the system would throttle down because it takes a combination of the AC adapter AND the battery to ensure proper operation.

I haven't heard of this specific issue where the system is pulling SO much power, that it drains the battery even while plugged in, though. Might be a good idea to call Applecare just so that you have a record of the problem if you decide you need to take back for a checkout at an Apple store.

Mar 11, 2011 8:26 AM in response to speedjfreak

are you using an external display as well?

i've changed my video settings down from ultra to fair, with a few upgrades, and its now charging while playing, rather than discharging.

on an aside, the sandybridge proc GPU cannot run an external monitor, or it isn't connected. as soon as you attach an external monitor, it switches to the AMD GPU.

Mar 12, 2011 3:05 PM in response to speedjfreak

Hello all,

I will just jump onto this thread as it appears that I have a similar issue
on a MBP 2010, 15". This happend three times in 11 months now but the third
time quite fast after the second (weeks?). When this happened the first time
I was under the impression that there was some 'auto calibration' at work, however,
with this third drain after a short intervall I was wondering what was going
on.
After reading this topic I think I was playing WoW each time as well (definatley
during drain #2 and#3) with graphics setting one under top settings.
I also read that the battery may support the power adapter when there is large
demand of power. Is this the likely explanation?
Total cycles of the battery: 14

Thanks for any input.

Mar 12, 2011 3:47 PM in response to speedjfreak

When the computer demands more power than the AC adapter alone can provide, the battery is drawn upon to supply the required additional power. When that happens, the battery is drawn down, and if it continues long enough, the battery will drain completely.

When you're doing something extremely demanding with the computer (many games are extremely demanding), quit all other applications and processes that you've opened, and be conscious of the demands that your game settings are imposing on the machine. It may be necessary to reduce some settings to reach a sustainable balance between performance and power demand, and it may not be possible to continue very heavy gaming for hours and hours on end without draining the battery.

Most users are unlikely to run into situations in which the battery is called on to supplement the AC adapter for extended periods, but gamers may see it happen a lot. I wonder whether Apple will consider releasing an optional AC adapter that can provide more than 85W of power for users who can't be content with the standard unit.

Mar 16, 2011 2:50 AM in response to eww

Sure but why did I buy a 2500 € computer to turn settings down / or not use it extensively? I don't see a point getting the fastest i7 with the fast GPU and ending up turning settings down and / or not doing intense tasks.

Why can a company like apple not just provide a strong enough psu? I'm thinking of returning my 4 days old MBP. This is unacceptable.

Mar 16, 2011 8:00 AM in response to Littleluk

It does seem that a higher-powered AC adapter (100W? 125W?) might be a welcome addition to the product line for folks like you, whose enthusiasm for gaming I utterly fail to understand, but who are undeniably a growing market segment.

For the rest of us, though, I hope Apple will continue to supply the 85W power adapter that is more than adequate for our needs. A more powerful adapter would be bigger, heavier, and probably hotter, and that's not what I want.

I suspect it might be very hard for the MBP to dispose of the additional heat that would be generated by pumping even more power through it. Maybe that's why the adapter is limited to 85W.

Mar 23, 2011 2:31 PM in response to waynelau

I have the same problem on the new mac book pro spring 2011 17 2.2Ghz i7 model the mag safe light will alternate between amber and green and I will get a not charging message when I use the computer. This happens when I play Wow,use Safari,iTunes and one other game app this happens when I'm only using one of these programs at a time. This does not seem normal to me.

Mar 27, 2011 8:31 AM in response to speedjfreak

Hi everyone,

I'd like to jump on the bandwagon with this thread too.

I have taken my 2011 MBP 15" 2.2ghz into the covent garden store as i was in the area. Although the genius i spoke to didn't have a fix for me after running the diagnostics. They are going to escalate the issue internally and get back to me. I'll report back when i hear anything more.

Mar 29, 2011 12:19 PM in response to RayCanada

I just wanted to follow up with an update about the problem I was experiencing. It turns out I bought a wonderful macbook pro with a defective logic board I'm not sure how that gets by quality control, this is my first Mac and needless to say I'm not impressed the computer has been with an authorized Mac reseller and repair place thats still waiting on parts from Apple after 5 days another area I'm not impressed with as they said Apple did not ship parts to Canada this is a brand new computer about two weeks old now. I would recommend to anyone that is having the same problems to take your computer to an authorized apple store or repair depot and get it checked out. Now the question I have is with a problem like that would it have damaged other parts of the computer?

As a refresher the symptoms I had with the computer out of the box was the charge indicator would alternate between amber and green on the mag safe and the tooltip on the display would alternate between saying charging then to not charging while the battery discharged with the computer plugged in. Some programs made this behavior more rapid those programs that seemed to trigger a more rapid display of the symptoms was playing World of warcraft,iTunes,Safari,Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)though if these programs were not running the problem would happen it was just a bit slower in developing. I Have the mac book pro spring 2011 17 2.2Ghz i7 model.

Message was edited by: RayCanada

MacBook Pro 2011 15" Battery going down while playing WoW

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