Brand New 2011 Macbook Air 11" has horrible battery life. What can I do?

Question

Level 1

110 points

Brand New 2011 Macbook Air 11" has horrible battery life. What can I do?

Hello,

I just received a NEW 2011 Macbook Air 11" from Apple a week ago. Immediately, I noticed the battery life was extremely poor. Even with a full charge and NO applications running (or some light web surfing) the battery lasted on average 2 to 3 hours maximum. I can watch the battery life indicator count down.

I have tried dimming the screen to 50%, closing all unused applications, turned off bluetooth, optimized all the energy save features and still the battery life is less than 3 hours. I actually have to keep it plugged in while working on it. I am concerned that I cannot take it on trips or to longer meetings because of this.

Has anyone else had this issue?

What steps did you take to resolve it?

Thanks,

Shane

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7), i7 Processor, Thunderbolt, 4 GB Ram

Posted on Aug 12, 2011 9:34 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

cpickrell

Level 2

300 points

Aug 12, 2011 2:09 PM in response to alcheme

Hi Shane,

Web surfing with Adobe Flash enabled can reduce battery life by an hour or more. Installing the Safari Click to Flash extension or uninstalling Flash alltogether may help. If you are not confident that Flash is the cause, you may run Activity monitor from the Utilities folder and sort by the CPU column. The CPU column will show any processes that are using more CPU time than expected.

Reply

Answer 2

jbonios

Level 1

4 points

Aug 14, 2011 9:13 AM in response to alcheme

Yes, I have a new 11" MBA and my battery life is horrible. Often after being plugged in overnight, the battery never reaches 100%; sometimes as low as 96%. And then while using it will quickly drop and drop and drop. I'm guessing 2 - 3 hours max as well.

Reply

Answer 3

alcheme Author

Level 1

110 points

Aug 14, 2011 10:28 AM in response to cpickrell

Hello cpickrell,

I have installed both "FlashFrozen" from the MAC APP Store and "Click to Plugin" for testing later today. I will share the results of my test on this discussion as soon as I have the chance.

NOTE: Click to Flash (http://clicktoflash.com/) is no longer supported by Safari 5.1. The developer recommends his other plugin "Click to Plugin" (http://hoyois.github.com/safariextensions/clicktoplugin/),which works the same.

Take care,

Shane

p.s. Still looking for additional solutions to extending battery life. I have also looked at the external battery option "HyperJuice" (http://www.hypershop.com/HyperJuice-External-Battery-for-MacBook-iPad-iPhone-USB -s/91.htm); although, I find them a bit pricey and kind of bulky looking to carry around.

Reply

Answer 4

Aug 14, 2011 2:01 PM in response to alcheme

You have probably seen the thread belwo already but just in case:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3086478?tstart=0

It is hard to reconcile most posters' positive feelings about the battery life on their MBAs (mine included) and the rather poor results that some are reporting.

Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder may reveal some program using up all of the RAM or writing to and from the hard drive constantly.

good luck

dick glendon

Reply

Answer 5

Aug 15, 2011 1:19 PM in response to W. Richard Glendon

Interestingly it appears that Activity Monitor was the cause of my relatively poor battery life. I was getting about 3 1/2 hours of battery on my new 11" MacBook Air. I run Activity Monitor as a general rule. I've never noticed it being a big battery drain before. But using Activity Monitor I could see that Activity Monitor itself was using a substantial (relatively) amount of CPU. I quit the application and immediately saw a rise in the estimated battery life.

I've only done 5 battery cycles so far but I will keep track of how my battery life is from here on out when the Air is mostly idle.

Reply

Answer 6

alcheme Author

Level 1

110 points

Aug 15, 2011 1:27 PM in response to alcheme

After installing "FlashFrozen" from the MAC APP Store and "Click to Plugin" my MacBook Air's battery life instantly increased by 2 hours to nearly 5 hours. Who knew running flash would drain the battery - even when not viewing flash content.

FlashFrozen: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/flashfrozen/id413876424?mt=12

Click to Plugin: http://hoyois.github.com/safariextensions/clicktoplugin/

*Problem Solved*

Thank you "cpickrel"

Reply

Answer 7

Aug 27, 2011 9:09 AM in response to Jim Bailey

Option + click on the battery icon in the Menu bar to check on battery health. If the battery is normal, it's possible you are using more applications, or performing a CPU intensive task which could be draining the battery quickly.

Reply

Answer 8

Sep 5, 2011 7:04 AM in response to alcheme

Shane - glad you got your problem solved! 🙂

In case it helps others:

For those who are using Chrome you can switch off Flash in Chrome, or use the Kill-Flash plugin to be able to click to enable Flash sections of the webpage.

There's also coconutBattery (free) to monitor how much battery power you're using - you can see how much power you save from exiting an app running in the background, turning off Bluetooth or dimming the screen.

Another bit of software, App Tamer is like FlashFrozen, but it pauses all apps in the background.

More info at "MacBook Air 2011 Battery Life".

Reply