MacBook Pro 2011 Battery Re-Charging Issue

With respect Jerry, your last comment is just so far out in left field. Going by that logic, how do you think Apple would be portrayed if they announced the MBP models are not made to run at 100% or let alone able to run non stop while PLUGGED IN?

All computer manufactures have there little quirks that they know all too well about. It is just not a big enough problem that get's huge attention. I would imagine that Apple would be forced to fix this problem if it became a loud enough problem. With me only having a new 13" model without discrete graphics I can't test this out. I wish you guys luck. If I had a 15 or 17" model and discovered this problem I would keep my pedal to the floor until Apple gave me a proper explanation. If there is one thing that drives me crazy is when big companies try to hide behind a wall when a problem arises.

toyo8696 wrote:

With respect Jerry, your last comment is just so far out in left field. Going by that logic, how do you think Apple would be portrayed if they announced the MBP models are not made to run at 100% or let alone able to run non stop while PLUGGED IN?

How would you 'emerge -e world' in a gentoo linux VM?

That takes a few hours for sure.

Clearly Apple is aware of the issue, as they had a specific firmware release to deal with computers turning off under heavy load.

They clearly have more to do to tune this as many people on this thread are seeing the problem much more significantly then I saw.

Whether or not it is ever ok for a plugged in system to resort to battery power is a philosphical question. However, it would be never be ok for a system to run out of battery while plugged in. In fact, one could make some sort of a rough statement that never more than 8% of battery should ever be drained while plugged in (or some small number).

However, when I said 'use a computer at 100%', I was referring to my absurd load tests of running prime95 on all 4 cores (and their threads), running a netflix movie, run mcafee inside a vm, and also using the system for email and browser.

My system managed to stay at 100% battery during this 15 minute load test. Since your systems are seeing the problem much more dramatically then I saw, then you would clearly need to give Apple a reproducable test case that they could then use on their own systems so they could diagnose the issue further.

Apple could be doing better in certain areas, for sure. But they have never been one to hide under a log when issues arise. Call Applecare, provide a test case, show them videos of the battery draining from 100% to 50% and more while plugged in, etc. They will surely bring this up with the hardware/software developers and more tuning will be necessary.

Late 2011 15'/2.5Ghz Connected on a Thunderbol display power....

The one on the left is 8-9hours later than the middle one.

T

Check this screenshot out will you? Tell me its normal. I've been on 95% for over 2 hours now.

I would be inclined to say that it's a software problem related to Safari, which occasionally uses up to 700 MB/s of ram for its "ultra fast" rendering with 200 on top to run the GUI. I never experienced these problems with my early 2010 13inch core duo macbook pro, and it was stricly connected to a mirrored display. I'm going to be upgrading the guts of this new one shortly, hopefully to resolve some of the problems that follow having an i5 processor slaved by a spinning HDD and measly 4 gigs of ram. Basically I'm trying to give it more headroom and lighten the GPU/CPU load, and maybe even fixing this weak battery problem.

Also, I know how to charge my computer and have been cycling from 1% to 100% everytime I charge.

-13inch 8.1 Macbook Pro

1. If you are running your battery down to 1% every time you use it before charging it again, you are being extremely hard on it, probably unnecessarily. It would much rather be charged before it runs all the way down. Lithium batteries don't want to be drained completely. In short, your confidence that you know all about charging your battery is misplaced. Plug it in whenever it's convenient. Don't run it on battery power when you don't need to.

2. If your computer was working hard during the two hours that it sat on 95% charge, that's not surprising. Under heavy load, the computer can require all the power its AC adapter provides, and none is available at such times to charge the battery. Under really extreme loads, it can demand more power than the adapter can provide, and then the battery may actually drain while the AC adapter remains connected.

3. When the battery reaches 100% charge, it stops charging automatically to prevent overchaging and allow the battery to cool down. It doesn't begin charging again until the charge level falls below 95%, even if the AC adapter is connected the whole time. And if the AC adapter is powering the computer during that time, the drain down to 94% will go very slowly. This may be what's going on with your battery whlle it sits on 95%.

4. Your battery is rated to retain 80% of its design capacity after 1000 load cycles IF it is properly used and maintained. The fact that it indicates 93% after only 33 cycles may be concerning you, and it may (or may not) be good cause for concern. That percentage will normally fluctuate, up as well as down, from day to day and week to week by as much as four or five percentage points. It isn't very precise. Don't obsess over it, but do check on it every week or two, and if it declines steadily, you may have a defective battery. But Apple is very unlikely to replace the battery until it actually shows less than 80% of its design capacity for a period of time, and this is why you want to keep an eye on it (again, without obsessing).

Point 2 is only ok if you work for apple and you also believe that a design error (antenna iPhone4) is actually a feature (or can be corrected with a software patch).

So you are saying that if I are playing a game with an apple laptop for 10hours with extreme demands the battery will go 0%... The MacBook will go dead.... And that is OK! A designed feature by apple...

Well... Maybe.

(the above game story has happened to people. For me, my gaming time ended with around 80% while connected)

Btw nothing personal. Just a general reply to post with the same kind of arguments.

Best,

T

Varoudis: I didn't say anything was OK; I explained that that's how it works. Nobody has to like it, and you and a lot of other people don't, quite understandably.

I don't work for Apple. No one who posts here regularly does. Apple employees post very, very rarely in these forums.

t.mcat wrote:

Check this screenshot out will you? Tell me its normal. I've been on 95% for over 2 hours now.

I would be inclined to say that it's a software problem related to Safari, which occasionally uses up to 700 MB/s of ram for its "ultra fast" rendering with 200 on top to run the GUI. I never experienced these problems with my early 2010 13inch core duo macbook pro, and it was stricly connected to a mirrored display. I'm going to be upgrading the guts of this new one shortly, hopefully to resolve some of the problems that follow having an i5 processor slaved by a spinning HDD and measly 4 gigs of ram. Basically I'm trying to give it more headroom and lighten the GPU/CPU load, and maybe even fixing this weak battery problem.

Also, I know how to charge my computer and have been cycling from 1% to 100% everytime I charge.

-13inch 8.1 Macbook Pro

I have found coconut battery to be inaccurate, try using the tools that Apple provided before jumping to prettier 3rd party crap.

What route would you recommend in reporting this issue to Apple? I know if enough problems are reported Apple is likely to address it.

Here's where to tell Apple what you think and what you want from your MBP:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

I've been in contact with Apple lately, trying to solve this problem, here's what I've been doing:

First time, apple wanted me to reset the PRAM and also the 'changing' software which controls how much power the AC adapter should deliver.

Then they sent a new adapter to me, to see if that worked. (it didn't)

Then now say, that I can take it to a apple store / reseller, they will send it to repair, and see what the problem is. It will take 2-4 weeks, which I can live with (using my MBP for work) so I just stopped trying to fixing the problem.

Thanks for the advice. I'll take it to heart and report. I'm very impressed by the amount of responses I've got on here.

This is my 3rd Mac in 9 years. I still use the other two, one iMac from 2004 and the previously mentioned macbook pro. I have no reason to doubt the longevity of mac products, and wont be obsessing over it much unless i notice substantial battery draining issues. I don't have apple-care, so I'll be fixing any problems on my own this forum will be sure to hear about it.

Hey.

I have a late 2011 MBP 13" i5 model and i noticed the same battery drain issue while plugged in. I installed windows7 with bootcamp and after playing Lotro or Skyrrim for a couple of hours i noticed the battery was at 80%..this is very frustrating.Also why they put capable hardware in a laptop which doesent have proper power supply to provide enough juice. I will test this again under mac osx, will render out something which recuires multiple hours to finish..because i cant run those games under Lion with medium/high settings.

And i dont even want to get into Lion's battery issues..theres another thread for that.

So i guess there's no fix for this, only bigger power suply or limiting the CPU's performance..

I have 17" i7 macbook Pro, 16Gigs of Ram, 250gig SSD and 1TB internal.

This does the same thing for me when running just two/three programs.

Apple needs to come up with a solution for this and fast.

I know many people with this issue too