My new macbook retina has not lasted me or predicted longer than 3 hours of battery life. However reviews are confirming apple's prediction of 7 hours. My brightness is down, keyboard illumination off, bluetooth off and barely using the comp.
What could be wrong?
MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
kdamghani's solution fixed this for me; my battery life went from under three hours to over five as soon as I did this.
kdamghani wrote:
I FINALLY FIGURED OUT THE ISSUE! Its a simple terminal command. There is a corrupt file that Migration Assistant created and this will fix the issue. I am now getting 8+ hours of battery on my MBP Retina.
Open Terminal:
Type the following, hit enter after each line:
cd ~/Library/Preferences/
rm com.apple.desktop.plist
killall Dock
I tried this, it didn´t work for me. Running Lion, all updates installed. Getting maybe 3 hours tops on my Retina 2.6.
Hi.
The following might be a guide to a solution of such problems:
The battery of the MBP has a capacity of 8460 mAh. That is if the computer "consumes" 8.5 Ampere (A), then the battery lasts 1 hour (h). If the computer consumes 4.25A, then the battery lasts 2 hours. If the computer consumes 2.8 A the battery lasts 3 hours. If the computer consumes 1.75 A the battery lasts 5 hours. If the computer consumes 1.2 A the battery lasts 7 hours.
Instead of doing lenthy tests you should just have an eye on the amperage (power drain) and try to adapt you configuration.
Example: I noticed that my MBP Retina (2012) lasted about 3-4 hours on battery, starting fully charged. Using some battery utility I found that is was consuming 2.0 A to 3.0 A. Opening the console app I found that there was a log message generated repeatetly by some app (tens of messages per second). (Note: The app was Growl, which was compaining that it could not open a window). Fixing the problem, the power consumtion was reduced s.th. below 2.0 A (to around 1.7 A, which would corrspond to 5 hours). I assume that the log messages where constantly nagging the SSD. Note that you hardly notice this type of power consumption by looking at the CPU
Monitoring the amperage gave me s.th. like an App's power consumption. Some apps, which I believed to be idle (even if there are idle on CPU), were not.
If you find a usage pattern which consumes only 1.2 A you will have your 7 hours.
Best
Christian
Note: You can view the power consumption with the System Profile (Apple Menu -> About this Mac -> More information -> Power).
PS: Running Mountain Lion 10.8.1.
Which app did you use to figure out what was the draw on ampage? I can not get more than 3.5 hours tops on my 2.6 ghz rMBP. I went to the store and they are not sure why it is do this as well. Thinking of ordering the 2.3 and trying it out on that. Running ML 10.8.1
Hello.
As I mentioned, you can check the current amperage in "System Information" - an Application being part of OS X. To check amperage:
The amperage is listed under "Amperage (mA)". If the number is positive, then the laptop is being charged. If the number is negative, then the laptop is taking this amount from the battery. Note: The value is not updated automatically. To refresh the display tap cmd-R.
There are also apps that display this number, but some are not for free (e.g. Battery Monitor).
Best
Christian
Just checked my rMBPro 2.3GHz 256G and the mA number is -2178 which I guess is pretty lousy? I see that the machine is running a Time Machine backup so I wonder if that enlarges the draw?
I don't think we know what is good or bad on that.
This is mine w/ power cord unplugged:
Amperage (mA): -3664
Mine w/ the power cord plugged in:
Amperage (mA): -2008
Looks more like it shows when there's a draw on the battery maybe
Dear Pier.
If the TimeMachine backup is running the SSD is used extensively and -2178 is maybe OK. Check again if the backup is not running. It should drop to -1700.
You should check the amperage under different situation to see when or why your machine consumes too much power.
@MikezMac: I believe we know what is good or bad on that: -3664 means that your battery won't last for three hours. That is: you have something running which consumes more power compared to the situation Apple used in the benchmark. The other number cannot be true. If the cord is plugged in the number should be positive (but maybe that change isn't reflected instantaneously).
Best
Christian
I have the new retina mbp, my battery life does suck actually. 😟
So, now I have a little predicament - and am looking for feedback.
A little backstory; I got the 15" MBPr early last week. Fully loaded - 2.7 i7, 768 Flash, 16G Ram, and immediately the battery life was horrible. I was in a meeting last week, and it drained from 100-10 in 50 minutes, barely using any processor (web and email - minimally). I let it run dead, and charged it full and let it run dead again. About five times this happened, and it drained totally again. I was averaging about 1hr - 1:30 on a full battery, even just sitting there. The fans seemed to blow really hard, also. Even just sitting here with mail open, the fans were blowing hard.
And then on Tuesday of this week, it just stopped. The fans stopped blowing hard, and battery life improved. For example, I unplugged today at 1:36 at 100%. It's 2:14 now, and it's at 90%. Literally the only setting that was changed was the computer name was changed from the IT name to my personal one.
Running battery health shows it to be decent:
My predicament is this, Apple has already agreed to send me a brand new one. But, is it going to be any better than this one? I'll be w/o for about a week while they're exchanging - and it might be just as easy to keep this one. So, was the problem at first just some sort of calibration issue? Or is it a problem that could pop up again?
Would you take the new computer, or ride it out with this one?
Better than what you were getting I'd guess yes. I have the same mbp 768 Flash, 16G Ram and I'm getting about 3-4 hours.
People who owned the MBPRetina running on the previous OS have claimed almost 7 hours. I'll bet that once Apple figures out the issue it will be as simple as a software update. Apple has actually been calling people on this forum asking to help collect info. They are working on this activly.
Hi, new to this discussion. I have been pretty active over on the
'MacBook Pro Retina display burn-in?'
thread though!
So as a quick recap I just got my 3rd rMBP. 1st had an LG screen with very bad image persistence, but otherwise fantastic machine. 2nd had a perfect Samsung screen, but had a scratched body. 3rd appears (touch wood) to be great in all respects!
However, strangely enough the 2nd came with the OS X 10.8.1 update installed, while this later one is still on 10.8 - it asked me to update. However, I noticed that the battery life on the 2nd was quite bad. It seems to be alot better on this one, though not used it for long yet. I wonder if the 10.8.1 update has actually made things slightly worse for retina macbook pro owners? I googled it and found this article which suggests that may be the case:
Just wondered if anyone else has expereinced this? And whether I should stick with 10.8 rather than upgrade? What are the other benefits to 10.8.1?
And also, does anyone know when 10.8.2 is coming out officially...?
can i use my macbook pro retina always in charge mode and only once per month to fully discharge and charge again?
I got the 10.8.2 update yesterday and the battery life seems to be better, as right now I've been using my rMBP for a little over two hours and it's showing over 4 hours of remaining battery.
Tried everythingbut still 3h 45min when it's at 100%
has anyone an idea? Battery status is 'good' so it can't be a hardware problem
MacBook Pro Retina Battery
