Mavericks MacBook Air 2013 Battery Draining

Even 5 1/2 hours should have been unacceptable. A MacBook Air should get nearly twice that amount.

Smart Mac users don't use Chrome.

Smart browsers show flash natively.

Chrome is so much nicer to use than Safari. It just always works. I love all the integrated accross devices features of Safari, but they don't compete with Chrome's speed and dev tools and built in flash and incognito mode.

Then use Google Chrome and Adobe Flash, and don't be so surprised that they burden your Apple Mac.

For one reason or other (it's a long story) I have to use Chrome because of the company I work for. And I'm sure there are many of us out there who are in the same position. And actually that works for me - Chrome for work, Safari for personal use.

I'm also sure the battery issue goes beyond Chrome. After all, if Chrome didn't drain the battery on M/L, why does it drain the battery on Mavericks?

The point is that it's pretty poor if a large number of Apple customers suddenly have severe problems with battery life after "upgrading" to Mavericks. And galling to read all the articles last week that Mavericks increases battery life...

So, I've found a pretty simple fix for this until Apple fixes this issue. I'm convinced it's a sleep/wake issue.

You can download PleaseSleep which is shareware. I've been using it now for a few days and it seems to do the trick! You can also include exceptions for certain apps that you want to run.

Look it up! By the way, I am not affiliated with them in any way. I found the suggestion on another discussion re: the sleep/wake issue.

AlanD4 wrote:

I'm also sure the battery issue goes beyond Chrome. After all, if Chrome didn't drain the battery on M/L, why does it drain the battery on Mavericks?

You're missing the point. You should have enjoyed more than 5 1/2 hours of battery life in the past, prior to upgrading to Mavericks. 5 1/2 hours should have been unacceptable. Eight or more hours is reasonable for any 2012 MacBook Air running Mountain Lion.

Mavericks increases battery life on a Mac that has not been modified with junk software, and Google Chrome has always been a resource hog. Google has had many years to develop apps for OS X, and does not appear motivated to fix its problems.

I don't think you are right, John. I bought it in October 2013 and I know it's battery life was normal for this model - at least all the people I knew. To be honest I cannot remember if it was 5.5 hours or 7.5 hours. The fact is that it is now 3.5 hours Big change.

For those that have missed this post, give it a try. I was one of the early posters on here as my 2013 11" dropped from 8hrs to 2.5hrs after installing Mavericks.

After using this procedure I was back to 8hrs again.

tut

what procedure?

Tried to quote or paste it in but does not seem to work.

Page 14, Macmacma.

tut

Ignore my earlier post ... SMC reset didn't do anything eventually 😟!

I see a lot of chatter on here between Apple & Google in particular with Chrome.

I do agree that Chrome ***** up a tremendous amount of CPU (battery) especially when flash is running. But once again this was NOT the case with ML. So why the huge difference now.

It's not just Chrome but, MS Outlook also seems to be "Energy" hungry.

These may not be Apple products but, one cannot ignore the fact that a Huge amount of Apple users use Chrome on their machines as a primary browser.

Long story short Mavericks has effected a lot of users battery life negatively, besides publicity that states otherwise.

Any updates that anyone may have received from Apple on this issue would be welcome.

Thanks

AlanD4 wrote:

I don't think you are right, John. I bought it in October 2013 and I know it's battery life was normal for this model -

I have a 13" MacBook Air I bought in 2011 and its battery lasted 9 hours before Mavericks, 11 hours after. The screenshot is in another Discussion but there are others reporting similar increases. I don't use Chrome or Windows.

Hey John,

Glad it panned out for you. For the rest of on this thread that are still suffering we're hoping the issue and noted and a fix duly released.

You're missing the point as well. I'm running the exact same version of Mavericks on many MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models of various ages and configurations, and like millions of others who haven't larded their Mac with junk software I'm enjoying faster overall performance and considerably longer battery life on all of them.

No update from Apple is going to fix problems resulting from the use of junk software that Apple did not develop and cannot control. If a "fix" is forthcoming, it will have to come from developers who have already had a long time to prepare for Mavericks (in other words don't hold your breath), or it will have to come from you by identifying and eradicating the junk, drawing upon the assistance of knowledgeable on this site who volunteer their time to help.

If you want to solve your problems and you think the problem is due to Mavericks, you need tostart a new Discussion in the correct forum as has been mentioned numerous times in this thread alone. Everyone who does that their individual problems addressed. I am not interested in constantly having to repeat that advice, so good luck.

I have the problem,

My mac was brand new. no "junk" software. Under the OS it came with I got much better battery life than when I upgraded to Mavericks.

Now that I've had the mac for a few weeks, I've installed some "junk" software (peleased by some of the best software companies in the world) and it has further impaced the battery life a bit.

Activity Monitor doesn't seem to find the culprit, it doesn't show that chrome uses significantly more more safari. I've spoken with apple support numerous times and they seem to think that 8 or 9 hours is normal for a brand new 13' air running nothing but messages and safari.

What I've found the worse culprits by trial and error are apples' mail app - and letting the macbook sleep and wake up. I set the energy settings not to sleep on battery and I actually get better life.

I had help from someone in the farum who very kindly and painstakingly helped clean a lot of junk software - which was really junk software - and it might have helped marginally, but I didn't really notice a difference.

for me - the mail app was a horiffic battery (and bandwith and harddrive space) hog, safari (and chrome) use a lot, but I need a browser for my mail seeing as I don't use the mail app anymore.

I get max 10 hours now, 8 if I actually use it, and I've resigned myself to the fact that I need to take my charger to work and home.

As I said, it was brand new, I upgraded to mavericks 2 days after I got it, and directly after the upgrade, there was a huge dip in the lifespan, and I've never been able to get it back to where it was before. although after a lot of work and cleaning and tweaking I have managed to improve it slightly.

Bottom line is when you google for battery problems this is where you end up, and you see how many people had the same problem, and you partisipate. It's only after upgrading and realising that it just doesn't last as long anymore that people go in search of answers and see that many others have had the same experience.

It's not like hundreds of people installed "junk" software the same day as they upgraded to mavericks. The people who used chrome before they upgraded continued to use it after. And noticed a difference.