Q: Mavericks - power use / service battery

same here, "Service Battery" message & radical drop in battery health since updating 6 days ago... MBA Mid 2011… 553 cycles

same thing reported after Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion and now Mavericks. But only happening to a few people.

This one thread indicates it's more than a "few people." I didn't have any problems when I bumped up from Snow Leopard to Lion. (Skiped ML.)

I was able to silence the Service Battery alert by resetting the System Management Controller (SMC). However the battery drain and meter erraticness is still persisting. I'm going to try recalibrating the battery.

Activity Monitor (CPU) shows kernel_task for root taking up 75 threads and over 200 wake-ups. What's that about? Only Firefox uses more cycles, but I'm actually using that.

Put the amount of people in context with the many many millions of Mavericks downloads in just one week. It makes a very small amount with issues, which are generally caused, as with Every OSX download in recent times, by third party apps or failing hardware. Others are just a very few who can't handle change.

Pete

I'm not quite facing the issues mentioned here; mid-2010 MBP and I've been getting the Service Battery Alert but my battery still lasts its usual ~4 hours, which is what I used to get as well.

I think the theory put forth by one of the users is correct that there might be pre-mavericks apps that could be causing a bit of the drain. I did a fresh install on my MBP for the first time and since did not install a ton of apps I no longer use and have found a) no additional drain to battery life and b) my memory management got a lot better and now I don't ever seem to be under 500 MB of free memory at any time (pre-mavericks used to reach 14 MB when I had a lot of things open).

was able to correct the service battery, after completing a full battery cycle. run your battery all the way down to 0% then let it charge fulling over night for 5-6 hours. after that my in my MBP battery reads that it is in good condition.The battery life still doesn't say it will last longer then 3 hours, but I used it all yesterday, and it lasted a lot longer then it said it would.

Yup.

The very next day after installing Mavericks my battery capacity tanked.  I know this as I had been tracking it pretty religiously with Coconut battery.  I'm also getting the Service Battery warning.

As of today my Macbook Air is 27 months old, has 510 battery load cycles and has a current capacity of 5088mAh vs a design capacity of 6700mAh(76%).

Prior to the install of Mavericks, at 490 loadcycles, I had a capacity of 5696mAh and no Service Battery Warning.

See attached pic for dramatic dropoff in battery capacity.

Just yesterday I purchased a replacement battery and wishing I hadn't now as it seems this might be an issue with Mavericks.  I'll hold off installing it to see if there is a resolution from Apple.

I'll just add, the lowest the capacity got to after the install was 4783mAh(probably triggering the Service Battery alert), and has recovered slightly to the 5088mAh mentioned above.

I truly hope someone from Apple reacts to this thread...

I am running a Mid 2009 MBP and have noticed that my battery life stays good until it drops to 49%. After that if faills flat very very fast, rarely gives any 'low battery' message and then abruptly dies out.

Apple needs to seriously look into this issue and I hope Mavericks doesn't kill my actual battery by this abrup behaviour.

I have just noticed tghis on my 2011 macbook air. Service battery message is present and mattery capacity has dropped to 69% after 400 cycles

Yes, I am having the "Service Battery" message on a 2011 MPB.  It has 156 battery cycles, charges fine; although it does seem to go through the battery slightly faster than with 10.8.

No odd errors other than that.

I have this same issue; battery life was fine prior to upgrading to Mavericks, after upgrading I get about 2.5 hours at full battery. This is on the 15 inch Mid 2012 Macbook Pro with a battery < 500 cycles on it.

If I recall, Apple addressed a similar issue after Mountain Lion.

Cheers

Pete

I've been experiancing the same issue since updating to Mavericks. I hope the good folks at Apple find a soultion for this.

MacBook Air 13-inch, Mid 2012

Processor:  2 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory:  8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics:  Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB

The same problems with MacBook Air Mid 2012 after updating to Mavericks.
1. Service battery message.
2. Work time on battery dramatically dropped.

3. Now I know that my MacBook has a cooler.

Are you referring to this :

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4268043?start=15&tstart=0

?