Battery Life Suddenly Bad

Question

Battery Life Suddenly Bad

Hello

I bought my MacBook Pro in late January of 2011. At first, the battery usually lased about 7 hours with a few applications running. But recently it has been lasting barely three hours with absolutely nothing running. Here are the specs from system profiler.

Model Information:

Serial Number: W00435H3KD3BA
Manufacturer: SMP
Device name: bq20z451
Pack Lot Code: 0000
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0201
Hardware Revision: 000a
Cell Revision: 0158
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4997
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 5654
Health Information:
Cycle count: 113
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -2222
Voltage (mV): 11807
Can anyone help me?

13'' MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Apr 13, 2011 5:20 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 13, 2011 5:57 AM in response to Spenser Hukill

I'm having the same issues. I only had Firefox or Chrome running and my battery went from 7 hours to 4 to 3 back up to 6 and eventually it only lasted 2 hours before it died. It was at 100% and lasted just 2 hours with minimal screen brightness and one program open. The Genuis Bar replaced my battery last week but it is still doing the same thing. My previous MacBook did not do this. The battery did not go up and down all day when it wasn't connected to a power source. It only went down. Does your computer run very loud as well?

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Answer 2

Apr 13, 2011 5:59 AM in response to nobodyshome101

Not overly loud but the fan is definitely louder than it used to be.

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Answer 3

eww

Level 9

53,028 points

Apr 13, 2011 6:38 AM in response to nobodyshome101

nobody: The time-remaining estimate in the menu bar increases or decreases from moment to moment depending upon what the computer is doing. When it's working hard, as when a Flash video is playing in a web browser, the time-remaining estimate decreases. When the machine is idle or doing something less demanding, it increases. The estimate is only an estimate, and it can only be based on the amount of energy the machine is consuming at any given time, and the assumption that that level of energy consumption will continue unchanged until the battery is drained. It has no way of predicting how your activities with the computer might change.

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Answer 4

Apr 13, 2011 6:43 AM in response to eww

Any help for my end?

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Answer 5

Apr 13, 2011 7:45 AM in response to Spenser Hukill

Spenser Hukill wrote:
it has been lasting barely three hours with absolutely nothing running. Here are the specs from system profiler.

Based on the specs, your battery is in excellent shape.

How do you know you have 'absolutely nothing running'? Have you checked Activity Monitor? Even if you have no apps open, there may be processes running in the background and using a high percentage of CPU activity. Stuck print jobs can cause this, for example.

Check Utilities > Activity Monitor > CPU tab, set the pop-up menu to Active Processes, click on the CPU column header to sort, and see if anything is using a high amount of CPU capacity.

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Answer 6

Apr 13, 2011 7:50 AM in response to neuroanatomist

I had some odd Adobe process running that I was not aware of that was using 87.9 CPU. I just quit that process and I will post again In an hour or so with results improvement or not. Thank you. I hadn't thought of that.

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Answer 7

Apr 13, 2011 7:56 AM in response to neuroanatomist

Thank you so much. Before my battery was at 100% and it lasted 2.5 hours now its at 32% and lasting 3 hours. I don't know what that task was but I'm going to make sure it doesn't run again.

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Answer 8

Apr 13, 2011 8:08 AM in response to Spenser Hukill

Glad that fixed it. Thanks for the

!

Hung processes like that do occur from time to time. You can use a program like iStat Menus or MenuMeters to keep a real-time eye on your CPU loads. They can put a CPU usage plot on your menu bar, and if you see it running high when you aren't (intentionally) doing something processor-intensive, you will know about it immediately.

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Answer 9

Apr 13, 2011 8:45 AM in response to neuroanatomist

Do you know what the process 'kernal_task' is?

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Answer 10

Apr 13, 2011 10:05 AM in response to Spenser Hukill

Kernal_task is the root level process that manages thread scheduling, memory paging, etc.

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Answer 11

Apr 19, 2011 8:34 AM in response to eww

What's the reason behind the sudden battery loss if there are no programs running that are using a high level of CPU? I opened the activity monitor and everything listed ranges from 0.0-1.2. The highest is Activity Monitor which is 9.2.

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Answer 12

Apr 20, 2011 5:50 PM in response to Spenser Hukill

I am also having the same problem. I've checked the CPU levels and I do not have anything running high but I did notice the the CPU Idle percentage at the bottom left of the screen is 95% or more. What does this mean?

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Answer 13

Aug 1, 2011 4:25 AM in response to Spenser Hukill

In System Monitor Cpu usage you want to make sure that the drop-down menu reads "All Processes". This will allow you to see everything that is running currently. In my case, it initially read "My Processes" and did not show the process causing the high Cpu usage.

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Answer 14

Dec 20, 2011 7:06 PM in response to neuroanatomist

How do I check utilities? Where is that located?

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Answer 15

eww

Level 9

53,028 points

Dec 20, 2011 8:10 PM in response to KayLouise

Your Utilities folder, which contains Activity Monitor, is inside the Applications folder on your hard drive.

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