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User profile for user: MKamdar
MKamdar Author
User level: Level 1
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MacBook Air Rapid Battery Drainage after OS X 10.8.3 Update

Hello, I updated to OS X 10.8.3 about a week ago and have noticed rapid battery drainage ever since! I purchased my MacBook Air end Oct 2012, I have 42 charge cycles on my battery, and mainly use my computer to surf the internet/use microsoft office progams (excel/word/powerpoint) - really really simple stuff!


The Activity Monitor says CPU use is 3% max, I normally keep my keyboard light off, bluetooth off, brightness of my screen at the halfway mark...before the update I would get 7hours+ of battey life and now I am only geting 4! Is anyone else experiencing the same problem? Help!


Thanks in advance!

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Mar 29, 2013 6:03 AM

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User profile for user: MKamdar
MKamdar Author
User level: Level 1
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Apr 5, 2013 11:32 AM in response to MKamdar

Situation Update : Battery replaced....AND still losing 1% every three/four minutes...


I took my MacBook into the Apple shop to trouble shoot the problem, they couldnt find anything wrong with the compter, all activity reports/system diagnostics came back normal. To see if the problem really came from the battery, they decided to take my laptop in and replace the battery.


Just picked it up this afternoon after leaving it in their hands for five days, Ive been told a new battery has been replaced and that "everything is working fine".


I decided to test the MacBook for myself in store, and lo and behold...sitting idol without ANY activity running, the battery dropped 1% every three/four minutes.


And whilst writing this post and actually running a single program (Google Chrome), I am losing 1% of battery at an ever faster pace of every two minutes.


So if I were to just use the internet as I am right now, the implied battery life is 200 minutes (1% for ever 2 minutes) = 3.3 hours.....UNACCEPTABLE!


Everything is really just working fine... They popped in a new battery and didnt even bother to check if the battery was still droping abnormally. I continue to believe OS X 10.8.3 is the root of the problem!

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User profile for user: PRP_53
PRP_53
User level: Level 10
84,403 points

Apr 5, 2013 1:06 PM in response to MKamdar

I too experience the same battery drain over the same time period. Running MBA 2012 13 inch, 4gb ram and 256 gb SSD. Purchased late July 2012 with osx 10.8.3. Have done an erase and fresh install of 10.8.2 then updated to 10.8.3. Nothing I have done makes the battery last more than max 5hours. SMc reset did nothing to improve battery life. Noticed from coco battery the capacity has dropped from 6700 to 6400. I know of no solution.

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User profile for user: MKamdar
MKamdar Author
User level: Level 1
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Apr 5, 2013 3:51 PM in response to PRP_53

Hi P. Phillips, its nice to know Im not the only one with this problem, I thought I was going crazy with this battery issue! Even when powered off, my MBA loses its charge (I just lost 10% over the past three hours while my MBA was fully shut down and the battery is brand new!). This is incredibly frustrating. Im going to have to take my MBA in again to the Apple store because this is clearly a software issue.

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User profile for user: PRP_53
PRP_53
User level: Level 10
84,403 points

Apr 5, 2013 4:16 PM in response to MKamdar

Mkamdar,

That really sounds like a serious issue. My MBA looses maybe 1% once shutdown and restarted the next day. What worries me the most is the battery capacity loose. It goes up and down so fast and never gets stable. Right now, it shows 6403 amphere at 100% full charge. That is down from 6700 amphere when brand new.

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User profile for user: DavCar
DavCar
User level: Level 1
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May 7, 2013 4:46 AM in response to MKamdar

Same issue here.. MacBook Pro, about two years old... updated three things at once:

- OS X 10.8.3

- Xcode

- Oracle java

Since then I get "Service Battery" and it drains in about half the time it used to. I see there was an issue with an older OS that was later patched and the battery problem went away, but it doesn't seem like there's anything that can be done from in settings to help.

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User profile for user: Mukmu
Mukmu
User level: Level 1
1 points

May 31, 2013 4:13 PM in response to MKamdar

I left my MacBook Air open (in sleep mode thought) for about 2-3 hours with about 95% battery left and when I tried to log on it didn't work and I plugged it in to discover it had 0% battery left. I had turned off WiFi, the whole computer was sleeping (not just the display). This computer is 21 months old so it's no longer under warranty. Do you think Apple can replace my MacBook? There is no water damage or anything kind of damage whatsoever.

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User profile for user: PRP_53
PRP_53
User level: Level 10
84,403 points

Jun 18, 2013 1:04 PM in response to Mac_Air

Good, was worried because I just received the new MBA with the Haswell chipset. As for the issues in this thread, I had not found a fix on my previous MBA mid- 2012 Ivy Bridge i5 1.8 GHZ - 4 GB Ram & 256 SSD. I had done an erase and install of OSX 10.8.4 thinking this might resolve the battery drain issue but it did not.


Pierre

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User profile for user: DavCar
DavCar
User level: Level 1
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Jun 25, 2013 7:25 PM in response to MKamdar

Mine is now ok (see my earlier post). A few things I noticed:


- a newer version of oracle java has come out

- I checked Activity Monitor and found Firefox was using a ton of CPU even after closing it. I killed the process within Activity Monitor and the cpu went way down, as did the fan speed, and within a few days the battery consumption and "replace battery" warning went away.


I can't say exactly what the solution was, but I'm awfully happy to have my battery life back.

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MacBook Air Rapid Battery Drainage after OS X 10.8.3 Update

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