Macbook Air 13 4Gb and battery life

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Level 1

5 points

Macbook Air 13 4Gb and battery life

Hi guys,
I know this was discussed before but I can't decide what to do. I've got an MBA, a week old, 4Gb model, special order. I really expected to have at least 5 hours battery live, as advertised (7hours), but in reality I only got 2 hours. This is dreadful; I need longer battery life for sure. The only thing I'm using is Firefox with web apps, which easily can take up to 500Mb of RAM. I was monitoring the CPU usage and it is never more then 10%. Cooconut showing average usage of battery around 10Wt, is it normal? With Photoshop running it grows to 15-20Wt.

Shall I call apple support and get battery replaced or is there something can be dome to improve it? My MacBook can from China and I'm not really looking forward to waiting two more weeks if I send to repair centre.

Macbook Air 13, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Apr 14, 2011 6:33 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 14, 2011 8:04 AM in response to DenysK

First of all, you should calibrate your battery. Details on the Apple support site but in essence, run the battery down to empty, leave for a couple of hours, then charge without interruption to full and leave on mains for a few more hours. It may be that your battery monitor is reporting wrongly.

If you have done this and checked that you genuinely are getting only 2 hrs (ie let the MBA run until it shuts off, not rely on the gauge) then there is something wrong and you will need to get it fixed. I have a new MBA 13" only a couple of weeks older than yours and I'm getting 7-9 hours of real world use from the battery. It replaced an MBA Rev A which still gives me 5-6 hours of use with a two-year old heavily used battery. 2 hours is not normal unless you have lots of things running the CPU which you said isn't the case.

Best of luck! When it's right, you will be amazed at the battery life.

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Answer 2

DenysK Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 14, 2011 8:13 AM in response to AnDaingean

Thanks for your reply.

I have done a battery calibration, thought, maybe not fully right. I didn't leave MBA for 4 hours after discharge. I will try to do it today, but I don't think it matters, coconut is showing 6700 when fully charged.

To be clear if I take fully charged MBA and use it only web browsing it should give me 5-7 hours?

I have MS Office 2011 Trial and CS5 Trial + Skype installed, could one of those apps be a drainer? The only think running is Skype thought, MS Office and CS5 I didn't use while testing.

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Answer 3

DenysK Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 14, 2011 8:17 AM in response to DenysK

On a second though can someone confirm what is normal use of your MBA? According to coconut I get around 10Wt average. When iPhoto was recognizing the faces CPU was up to 150% and I could hear the sound of the FAN and it when coconut showed 25Wt.

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Answer 4

lorange

Level 1

30 points

Apr 14, 2011 10:55 AM in response to DenysK

I have about 1 wheek old MBA 2.13 256gb 4gb ram . I get btw 6:30 and upto 10 hrs if only doing light webbrowsing. Still i´m running programs like Excel, ok you see what Im running from this pict.

On this pict with all my apps running in background (PS, Excel, Activity Mon, Mactracker, Address book ) I get estimate of about 8 hours and coconut timer is showing 6.5 watts.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55033696@N02/5619841226/in/photostream

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Answer 5

DenysK Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 14, 2011 12:09 PM in response to lorange

lorange, thank you very much, this is most helpfull.
I see the you running a lot of apps and its only taking 6Wt, where I have around 20Wt with even less apps running. It is definetly something wrong and I hope with the software. I'm reinstalling OS now and will see if this helps. I will also calibrate a battery for better results. If non of these help will Apple consider a replacement?

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Answer 6

lorange

Level 1

30 points

Apr 14, 2011 12:15 PM in response to DenysK

My pleasureto be of any help. Going to work now , will be back tomorrow morning ( about 9hrs ) Just let me know if there is anything I can do. We could compare ,like activity monitor ,,,,

There is somth wrong with your setup .

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Answer 7

DenysK Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 14, 2011 12:50 PM in response to lorange

Thanks mate,
I think it is something wrong with the hardware after all.
Straight after clean install, nothing installed but coconut and iLife 11.
OS 1.6.5
Look what I'm getting, 10.2Wt with nothing running at all. This is so disappointing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/denysk/5619518121/in/photostream

As a matter of interest I set battery meter to show time, and result are amazing, the remaining time jumping from 7 hours to 5 than back to 6 and 7 again. Now showing 96% and 7.18 hours, with 98% it showed 5.12 hours.

I think its time to call for apple support if no one else has any ideas.

Thanks,

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Answer 8

DenysK Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 14, 2011 1:01 PM in response to DenysK

With iPhoto import running I just got 92% witj 2.21 hours remaining and 20.9Wt battery power usage.

I'm really sad about it.

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Answer 9

hawleyrw

Level 3

629 points

Apr 14, 2011 3:08 PM in response to DenysK

Hey guys...

I'm running same HW, get typically 6-7 hours out of mine (unless I'm doing a lot of video watching). Mine is usually light work: web browsing, email (using Outlook 2011 and Office 2011). Right now just running those two - system is pulling anywhere between 8w and 16w using Coconut 2.7. With just the browser running (Chrome), pulls between 6-8w.

I keep my backlight at 50% most all the time.

Mine is now 22 weeks old (purchased late Nov), 62 battery cycles later current capacity is still 6679. I haven't calibrated in a couple months so should do that. I do regularly cycle mine. I run pretty much exclusive on battery, then charge when it gets down to ~10%. The only time I run on a charge is when I'm watching a DVD or a lot of internet video for a long time.

If yours through all is this still only running 2-3 hours.... definitely have a problem.

Cheers!

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Answer 10

slyguy_28

Level 2

187 points

Apr 14, 2011 5:42 PM in response to DenysK

Besides how thin, light and sexy this MBA is, how silent and cool it runs, I've been ecstatic with the battery life. With my previous heavy, loud, hot running Windows laptop, I was able to get an hour-MAX! With this MBA Apple says I should get about 7 hours. With the screen brightness set to around 50% and just some web browsing or light word processing, I'm seeing upwards of 8.5-10 hrs!! Coconut battery is stating my MBA is at the ripe old age of 26 weeks and I'm currently using 7.4 watt.

After about 15 minutes of web browsing today:

Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 6610
Fully Charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 6643
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 44
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -827
Voltage (mV): 8240

With only a runtime of 2 hours on a full charge, I'd definitely be making a Genius Bar appointment at my local Apple Store to get it looked at that's for sure...

Sly

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Answer 11

hawleyrw

Level 3

629 points

Apr 14, 2011 7:26 PM in response to slyguy_28

Agreed. Likewise for me...I'm sitting here with my Windows laptop also (this being penned on my MBA). The only real reason I maintain a Windows laptop is I have to support them at work. But my MBA is my real savior at home.

Hands down the best laptop I've ever owned: not JUST the battery, but weight, responsiveness, quick on/off and fastest sleep/awake from sleep in the business.

I'd definitely be taking the MBA in to an Apple Authorized repair or Apple Store if possible. I'm lucky enough to have 2 repair shops in town (no Apple Store), so at least I've got that.

Best of luck...

Cheers!

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Answer 12

DenysK Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 15, 2011 5:03 AM in response to hawleyrw

Thank you all guys for your input.
After clean install I have gotten some better results, yesterday it survived 3 hours on constant high use with iPhoto importing pictures and PCU between 50% and 150%. Battery usage was around 17-20Wt.
Also calibration gave me an idea that battery can do better, after complete discharge I left it unplugged for 8 hours as suggested by corresponding article on apple website, and when I plugged it back in, it was at same stage I left it, which means battery was not discharged to a 0, again as suggested in the article. I will try again and this time will leave it for 24 hours.

For the moment its on 6654/6700.

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Answer 13

Apr 15, 2011 7:08 AM in response to DenysK

Keep in mind you will never get 7 hours doing iPhoto image import. The 7 hours is for browsing the web. Doing photo importing is very CPU intensive and will dramatically lower the battery time. Getting 3 hours while doing photo import sounds about right. I don't think there is anything wrong with your hardware. Try using it just for web browsing, email, and other light tasks and I think you will see a huge difference.

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Answer 14

DenysK Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 15, 2011 8:08 AM in response to Brian Caslis

You are exaclty right and i didn't expect to get 7 hours of battery life importing photos. So I got 3 hours which sounds promising. Now I'm goning to see I can get 7 hours on light web browings. Prior clean install I had 2 hours, not even 3, just browsing. So I really hope that clean install helped.

Thanks.

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Answer 15

rrendahl

Level 1

8 points

May 8, 2011 1:15 AM in response to DenysK

Hi DenysK!

How did it go with the clean install? Did it do the trick or did you need to return the macbook air?

I have the exakt same configuration as u but I did a time machine backup from my old (2008) macbook pro and I'm experiencing almost the same problem: coconut never shows under 10, but rarely over 20. I only surf chrome with flash disabled and bluetooth off.. The battery time indicator jumps from 7h (fully charged) down to 4h after just 15 min use. My friend have the exakt same computor and he has stable 7h of battery time from a single charge. I tried to do a battery calibration and a SMC reset but didn't help.

Do you have any tips or thoughts?

Thanks!

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