MacBook Pro 2011 Battery Re-Charging Issue

Same problem here, playing WOW for 3 hours drains my battery.

MBP i7 2.2GHZ, 750GB

Hi,

Is it an early 2011 or late 2011 17" Macbook Pro?

Hi! I've been experiencing the same problem too. As a DJ, I mix music video and when I run the video part of my setup, all of a sudden the incoming amperage from the charger will drop from about 1800 mAH to less than 500 and fluctuate from there all the way down to negative where I'll then get "Not Charging". At the Apple Store, I had 2 diagnostics done, SMC and PRAM resets, and a new Mac and still happens. Everything works fine on my late 2008 MacBook Pro 15" so you would think technology gets better as time goes on. I've even had to resort to using my old Mac during a gig because of this - Apple, please issue a fix! Upgrading Macs has now introduced worries when I work - not something that should happen!

oh and i upgraded to an early 2011 15" 2.2 i7 and since then have been swapped out for the current 2.4 i7 15" (both mid-level MBP)

Try this firmware update it kind of fixes the problem. The battery still drain's while under heavy cpu loads with my computer however it seems to drain a lot slower. This update claims to resolves an issue where a MacBook Pro being used with a power adapter may unexpectedly shut down under heavy workload if the battery charge level is near empty.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1474

Its still a half assed soultion to a pretty major design flaw I say.

D

My MacBook Pro recently started this behaviour. When I'm watching Netflix the Magsafe light will turn green and the battery status bar says "Battery is not Charging".

Last night the machine completly died without warning, the battery was drained to 0% even though it was connected to power.

I'm going to see the Genius Bar. Maybe I can get a new battery, the machine is still under warranty.

I have had a nightmare with the early 2011 17' MBP and the replaced the power management and logic board to remedy with no effect - two different repairs but they did very kindly turn them overnight. This issue is too severe to be managed in all cases with a massive external battery powering the MBP transformers via AC is the current fall back option. I am lucky if i get two hours productive time out of it anyway let alone if i leave with 60% charge despite it having been plugged in for days.

Anyway, they recently replaced with a new laptop which is a new late-2011 model under warranty and the customer service is very good, however, the new laptop is by far worse than the early 2011 model and discharges even with close to no load. i have to have the brightness down when plugged into milliate against this which is rediculous. the firmware update on early 2011 model reduced the performance of final cut pro x in my opinion with cpu utilisation dropping by around 25%. the late 2011 model is noticably faster in use but the battery issue is terrible with battery level at rest (doing minor tasks that are not cpu or graphics intensive, and often with screen off [Cmd-Shift-Eject]) usually at 85% and dipping well below 50% very quickly if you ask it to do very much for very long and often registering a current defecit at well over -1500mA.

The gentleman at apple who arranged the replacement was the very model of excellent customer service but I find it amazing that they would knowlingly replace my logic board, and laptop entirely now, knowing full well there is a defective design insomuch as they have not remedied in ten months on the early model with firmware or software. Surely they waste time and money doing unecessary repairs until they are able to address the problem so why not let their employs know. Perhaps they don't want their morally well compassed employees reluctant to recommend this product.

I have written to advise issue remains on new machine and will hope that they make a machine soon that will not have this problem else will have to switch machines. If anybody knows if the thirteen inch or fifteen inch MBPs in the late 2011 model also suffer this please reply to me. i know the early 2011 15 inch apparently does.

Good luck to you all in this terrible business - it is not unreasonable to expect a £2k machine to work hard for its owner and then leave the house charged fully, especially when you sacaficed the ability to change batteries when you chose their laptop in the first place.

Yeap I've got the same problem!

15' CTO (2.5Q + 750G 7200rpm + HD AntiGlare) 3 days old...

So no point in reterning it for another one??

T

Hmmm so that's why I noticed that my battery drains so fast, i have an early 2011 MBP 13", after charging my batt to a full 100%, all I did was run a complete scan with Clamxav, after 20-25 mins of scan I noticed that my bat was at 80% charge!, now I know that this is a "regulAr problem with them."

This thread is about macbook batteries draining WHILE they are on AC power.

This is not an explanation as to why laptops use battery power faster in some cases when they are not plugged in, doing more work = faster battery usege in all and any laptop. (rare exceptions excluded)

I think yours would be the first 13" macbook reporting the problem.

I was having same problem yesterday.. I was sitting on skype, doing a conferance call because of work. Suddently I saw that it was losing power, saw that the AC Power was plugged in, and started to search about it. Found this thread, This morning I did call the danish Apple support, reported the problem, we tried resetting the PRAM, cmd + option + p + r, but also the SMC, where we hold the power on button for 10 seconds.. No luck.

They don't know how to solve it, and the latest SMC update (1.5) doesn't work on 1.7.2.

I really don't like this, because my CPU is only running on 30%, which is quiet easy..

Hope apple will fix this.. I wanted to call the US support instead, but not allowed..

regards,

Lucas

The only way to fix it is to use less power.

Eww, yeah let me see I have my macbook pro, no external tools, I use photoshop, I use skype and I use netbeans. Having those things running, shouldn't kill the battery when I'm plugged in. Really, if I use 50% of the memory on the GPU, and 20-30% processor, the power supply doesn't give enough power. I can't 'use less power'.

It's not a 'customers' problem that it doesn't deliver enough power, it's apples, and it should be fixed, whatever they should make a patch that fixes it, or giving us a power supply which can deliver 10-15w more power.

When a company build a laptop, they say, okay this computer should at least be able to hold the current amount of power, when the CPU / GPU is running on full power usage.. let's say we have 85watt, the CPU uses 20watt when idle, and GPU uses 60watt on idle, then 85watt power isn't enough, if the CPU uses 45watt on load.. and GPU still uses 60watt...

This should really be fixed, else apple could just deliver a computer with let me see, 1 single core 2ghz, and a graphics card that is half as powerful, because we can't use more than that anyway.

Hi guys I have the same issue

I have a i7 2.5 15" MBP with HD atyglare screen and 7200 rpm drive

last night I noticed the not charging status while using protools on a huge project the fans were speeding like crazy and istat showd all 8 cores at 60% so yes I understand that

but today i was websurfing and it did it again ***....

i remember my core 2 duo or my first gen intel mbp not having this issue and also giving me a way better battery life

i think someone at apple disnt do the math when designed the battery

maybe the 4 core i7 and a 2 core i5 have the exact same battery

I agree with other users about the need for a 100w aftermarket poweruser magsafe

it should be a option whenb you purchase

happy new year to all

Same problem here with a 17" late 2011 MBP, 8GB, 256SSD.

Basically the battery never charges (and sometimes drains, though very slowly) while running Windows 7 under VMWare Fusion (which I need to work). So it's workable for me, given I make sure my battery is charged in the morning.

Still a bit disappointing apple doesn't produce a heavier magsafe...

I think the problem is even bigger when Im using the Apple Thunderbult display... which is stupid for a 900 pounds display...

Anyone tested Charger VS TB Display?