MacBook Pro Retina Battery

Hi there.. I just had the same problem and after reading all the support ideas on these boards I figured there is nothing I can do beside go to apple and let them check the battery with their tools. As it turned out the brand new MacBook Pro came with a battery defect. Those machines have one battery made out of 3. 1 was shot 100%, the other one 100% consumed and the last one ok... I got it replaced and tested.

It might be the case for many other users here. Since obiously the MacBook behaves well. Maybe sorage problems, heat during transport etc... can cause this battery damage.

A screenshot is attached too: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ckod4rtn8pfqy6y/MacBook.jpg

Best
D

They did the same test with my new retina 13 inch, but everything seemed to be okay. I get about 4 to 4,5 hours battery runtime out of one charge while surfing the web and listening an online radio, which seems pretty less! Most product testers say that they got 6 up to 10 hours runtime while working normal.

David how long was your battery runtime before you went to Apple and how long is it with your new device?

I got the computer a few days ago and brought it right back after 2 days back to apple because 4h or less isn't what I purchased. Maybe I was lucky with the battery test, however one thing I did prior giving it to apple, was to run this trminal command that someone here posted. This actually made the battery start instantly at 7h on a full charge, however dropped instantly after slight use down to 4h and less.

It should have at least 6-7h for regular usage. Even 5+ hours for simple photoshop stuff. Anything less is unacceptable for this price level and I would ask for a replacement.

And that's what I told the apple staff, which acknowledge the same thing. Some people at their Genius bar aren't full of it and do know what the computers can and should do 🙂

Same here - just bought the 15 inch MBPr, 512, 8 gb less than 4 days ago and the battery life is horrible. I am getting less than 2 hours on a full charge and just thought it was the transfer of photos and videos from my iphone to the laptop.

For this price ( and the related marketing ), I am shocked at the poor performance. I may as well bought the iMac as I need to have this thing constantly plugged in. No heavy use besides transferring pictures and linking iTunes to IMatch.

Tonight I had everything shut down and was surfing the web (with no downloads) and my battery was at 50% remaining after being fully charged after 45 minutes.

I will be returning this paperweight ASAP. I am shocked at the lacklust performance.

Hi

Choosing between iMac and MBPR it's totally up to your needs. But about that 2hrs you know that sth is wrong about your machine and it's not the same for the rest of us. Go to the G bar and let them check that out. Mine gives me qt least 5hrs while surfing and watching movie and more than 7 hrs if it's only reading a documents.

Good luck

I'm using a 4-week old 15" MBP with retina display and running Mountain Lion with all updates. Bottom line: I have never gotten more than 3 hours out of a full charge and I seldom run anything other than Safari for web access, a couple of schedule apps, and MS Word.

I went to Apple and they put Coconut Battery on my laptop and said, See, your battery is fine. There's no problem with your MBP.

Okay, what do I do now? Just put up with the 3 hour battery life?

The battery performance of my 8 week old MacBook Pro Retina is disappointing but not as bad as others like Jake Needham are experiencing. I seem to get somewhere between 4 and 6 hours. The problem is not with the battery but with the power consumption.

About This Mac/More Info/System Report/Power will show you what's going on. I haven't had the personal energy to take this up at my local Apple store. But what the geniuses need to explain is something like this:

Just now, the full charge capacity of my battery is given as 8366 mA/h and the charge remaining is 4488mA/h. The power consumption (Amperage) is -2047mA. So I have 4488/2047 hours to go, i.e., about 2.5 hours and would have 8366/2047, i.e., just over 4 hours if the battery was fully charged - much less than the claimed 7 hours. 2047mA at 11 volts is over 22 watts and that is much more than Apple claim the power consumption for an idle MacBook Pro Retina should be. The power consumption seems to fluctuate unpredictably, but always on the high side.

If the geniuses insist that Coconut Battery says there is no problem then just click on the battery icon. For me, just now, it says that I have 55% and 2:30 remaining - but 55% of 7 hours is a lot more than 2 hours and 30 minutes.

See http://www.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/MacBookPro_Retina_Product_Environm ental_Report_June2012.pdf

for Apple's claims about the power consumption.

I typically don't reply to posts, but I felt obligated to with this one. Holy crap did this trick work. My battery life while using wireless internet has gone up from 2 hours to at least 5. Cheers!

Good news! But which trick worked?

Re: "I typically don't reply to posts, but I felt obligated to with this one...this trick worked."

Comment: Most often this forum has people from around the world who are very helpful. But this is not always the case.

Ditto. When you say "this trick worked" we have no idea what you are talking about. THose of us following this thread since last summer would appreciate a quoted reference, or, at least, a specific post referenced.

Many thanks.

I apologize. My commentary skills are lacking. I'm using a Macbook Pro Retina 15" that I bought in August 2013. For the first few weeks my battery life was fine (around 6 hours), but after a few updates I started to notice a serious drain. The worst was when my battery lasted only about 2 hours, and that's when the computer was on, the wireless was turned off, and the monitor was turned down all the way. It was annoying to say the least.

Even after trying all the standard tricks (turning off the bluetooth and wireless connections, turning off the keyboard lighting, seriously dimming the screen, it was still terrible. But here's whats ended up working for me.

The procedure:

• In this procedure, leave out all quote marks “ “
• Open Terminal (by going to the Applications folder and from there the Utilities folder and from there opening Terminal).
• On the keyboard type “cd ~/Library/Preferences/” and hit Enter.
• Now type “rm com.apple.desktop.plist” and hit Enter again.

Finally, type “killall Dock” and hit Enter

It took me a few tries to get the file to delete because a few times my computer said there was no such file, but I just rebooted the computer and it finally worked. I didn't notice a change the first charge or two after I deleted the file, but a few days later it really started to kick in. Where before I could only spend two hours without wireless on my BRAND NEW Macbook Pro, now I'm running around six hours with wireless on and moderate activity (word processing, simple internet browsing).

Thanks a lot. Excellent and quick response. Very helpful. Kudos.

suicidor,

a little bit late reaction:p

but what was that thing what helps you out with your battery?

Regards,

Daan

Probably this thing:

The procedure:

• In this procedure, leave out all quote marks “ “
• Open Terminal (by going to the Applications folder and from there the Utilities folder and from there opening Terminal).
• On the keyboard type “cd ~/Library/Preferences/” and hit Enter.
• Now type “rm com.apple.desktop.plist” and hit Enter again.

Finally, type “killall Dock” and hit Enter

There is some good stuff in this thread, but I am having an issue with the MATH. Let's assume the capacity of the MBPr 15" battery is 8400-8600 (seems some overall ranges here, but 8400 should be achievable from a good charge or a slightly used battery)

At 8400, in order to get "7 hours" of usage one has to get the burn rate down below 1200maH per hour. That seems pretty hard to achieve. When I am running on battery, I'm often at 1800-2000 or so, but I have to take the backlight WAY down below 50% to even get near 1500mAh. I'm not really sure how one gets to 1200 unless one turns off wifi, takes the backlight down below 40% or so and makes sure to keep the dedicated GPU off. When I look at the detail provide by iStat menus, PPVCCSA S0 CPU seems to be taking up the most power, using betwen .65-.80 A. What is THAT thing doing?

Also, how does one easily check if something is logging to the log files, or making a query it cannot fulfill to see if something is indeed hitting the CPU or other and just wasting energy.?