Macbook Air (a1369): New battery fast drain

Question

Level 1

0 points

Macbook Air (a1369): New battery fast drain

Hi everybody

I'm using A1369 (1,8 GHz, 4Gb, 256GB, El Capitan) since May-2012. During the last year battery became to discharge within 1,5 hours instead of 4.5—5 as it was before.

About two weeks ago I got new battery from ifixit.com, but it didn't cause any effect — it was still draining too fast.

I reported a claim to ifixit.com and they send me the new one. I replaced it once again but still can't see any significant result, still holds no more than 1.5 hours. Mostly I use Mail App, Evernote and Chrome (Google Docs ans other Saas products). Coconut Battery shows Maximum Charge of 6430mAh and average battery usage is around 12 Watts.

I've tried SMC reset, and repairing HDD permissions but it didn't work for me.

So any steps I can do to find out where the power leaks and resolve it somehow? Appreciate your thoughts on this.

MacBook Air, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Nov 24, 2015 9:29 PM

Reply

Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

141,144 points

Nov 24, 2015 9:47 PM in response to BakerJay

Read Use Activity Monitor on your Mac - Apple Support. It will identify Google Chrome as the energy hog that it is notorious for being. Uninstall it.

Google products including Google Chrome will burden any Mac regardless of its age or configuration. Chrome's sole purpose for existing is to harvest your personal information so that Google can sell it. Read http://adwords.blogspot.com/2015/09/Google-brings-you-closer-to-your-customers.h tml to learn the extent to which they do that. It does so by infesting a Mac with a plethora of constantly running resource-intensive root level system modifications in the same manner as a "computer virus" would, if such a thing were to exist on a Mac, which it doesn't. Read Apps can affect Mac performance, battery runtime, temperature, and fan activity - Apple Support. Read http://betanews.com/2015/08/06/dump-google-chrome-to-extend-your-macbooks-batter y-life/ for one of many such reports regarding Google Chrome.

Google has yet to demonstrate the ability or apparent desire to write efficient OS X apps. If you are required to use Google products, expect a very limited useful economic life from your hardware investment.

Reply

Answer 2

BakerJay Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 24, 2015 10:23 PM in response to John Galt

Well, thanks for detailed answer with proof links.

I know pretty well that Google harvests all the possible info about me, and I'm sure it can drain battery faster than for example Safari, but not so fast as it's happening now.

1. If I use Safari, battery holds may be 5-10 percent longer, not a big deal.

2. My wife is using MBA (A1466) with Chrome and can work on a battery for 5-6 hours comparing to 1.5 in my case.

So I suppose other reasons exist.

Reply

Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

141,144 points

Nov 25, 2015 7:23 AM in response to BakerJay

It's not enough to not use Chrome. Installing Google effectively turns your Mac into an information-gathering and -uploading "bot" that can result in varying effects on different Macs. You have to uninstall it according to Google's instructions. If you find that you can't live without it, you can always install it again. The way to isolate excessive energy usage is to use Activity Monitor's Energy tab, so do that.

You should also be advised that non-removable batteries in portable Macs are not user-replaceable. DIY battery replacement problems are commonly reported on this site.

Reply

Answer 4

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 25, 2015 8:29 AM in response to BakerJay

Apps can affect Mac performance, battery runtime, temperature, and fan activity - Apple Support

Reply