MacBook Pro 13 Mid-2009 Low Battery Life -- Help

Question

MacBook Pro 13 Mid-2009 Low Battery Life -- Help

I have a mid-2009 macbook pro 13 inch. The battery life was never great, but lately it has been aweful, pretty much since the mavericks update. It lasts for about an hour and a half from full charge. I pretty much just use chrome for browsing, emailing, youtube watching, and document writing (google docs). It says the full charge capacity is 3674 and that I am at 1131 charge cycles. Usually, it also dies at anywhere from 8 to 4 percent shown left. In a possibly related issue, the computer runs very slow, despite upgrading to 4 GB of ram a couple of years ago, and takes forever to boot up from the state when it runs out of battery.

Is there anything that I can do without paying money in order to improve the battery life and/or speed? And if I am to pay for these improvements, what would be the best use of money? Would it be a new battery, more RAM, SSD, new hard drive, or a replacement altogether?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Apr 15, 2014 5:48 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 15, 2014 5:50 AM in response to mitch.brosnan

Completely close Chrome and try a different browser. Same result?

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Answer 2

Melophage

Level 5

7,213 points

Apr 15, 2014 5:54 AM in response to mitch.brosnan

mitch.brosnan,

a battery is a consumable, and with 1131 charge cycles, Apple considers your battery to be “consumed”. You’ll need to pay money if you want improved battery life.

You’ll need to determine what the cause of the slowdown is for us to recommend the best course of action, whether it requires money or not. For example, Chrome tends to be power-hungry; are you able to use Safari instead? Safari in Mavericks is typically less power-hungry than other browsers, if conserving your existing charge duration is a priority.

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