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LA_Surfer

Suspended
Original poster
Mar 17, 2021
59
104
The battery life sucks I can use it for about 40 mins before it goes dead. Battery is fairly new.

System seems to have an issue with Google Chrome, I typically have 80 tabs open and I'm not sure why that uses so much battery life.

How to fix? I need tabs open for work.
 

mdhaus72

macrumors regular
Dec 29, 2018
222
299
The battery life sucks I can use it for about 40 mins before it goes dead. Battery is fairly new.

System seems to have an issue with Google Chrome, I typically have 80 tabs open and I'm not sure why that uses so much battery life.

How to fix? I need tabs open for work.
Do you really need to have 80 tabs open, even for work? My guess is that it's a combination of a not-so-great battery and excessive system use due to all of those tabs. Try bookmarking some of the tabs and use something other than Google Chrome, which is known to be terribly inefficient with RAM.
 
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tharper

Suspended
Sep 11, 2022
33
51
Seems like you got a poor battery. 40 minutes of run time is too short for it to mean that you're not optimizing something. I'd get a new battery. Look at reviews beforehand.

-Tristan
 
Last edited:

Malus120

macrumors 6502a
Jun 28, 2002
697
1,457
Go to "About this Mac" -> System Report -> Power -> Battery Information and see what it says your battery health is.
You say the battery is "a new battery with very few charges." If its around or below 80, there's part of your problem . FYI "charges" don't actually matter that much. A laptop that's plugged in all the time can have a low charge count and a heavily degraded battery

If the battery is not "degraded" as this is a 2016 model the question then becomes.
If it is "new" was it replaced by Apple, an Apple Authorized Service Provider (using genuine parts) or a third party (who may have used non genuine parts) ? If it is the latter that could also be part of your issue.

Your real problem however, are those 80 tabs you have open in Chrome. Chrome is relatively power inefficient on macOS. Switching to Safari, if that is an option, or another more power efficient browser would likely help to a degree, but with 80 tabs(!) open there's only so much you can do on a 2016 Intel Mac. Those CPU's just weren't built for power efficiency when running that many tasks concurrently.

If upgrading is an option an Apple Silicon Mac would do much better. Alternatively if Chrome is a requirement you may also be better served by a physically larger Windows or Linux laptop with an AMD Ryzen 6000/7000 chip (Intel tends to be more power hungry) with room for a larger battery. Honestly speaking, regardless of what you choose, if you want to run on battery for an extended period of time you probably need to find a way to bring that tab number down. I won't pretend to know your use case but 80 tabs sounds excessive.
 

LA_Surfer

Suspended
Original poster
Mar 17, 2021
59
104
Go to "About this Mac" -> System Report -> Power -> Battery Information and see what it says your battery health is.
You say the battery is "a new battery with very few charges." If its around or below 80, there's part of your problem . FYI "charges" don't actually matter that much. A laptop that's plugged in all the time can have a low charge count and a heavily degraded battery

If the battery is not "degraded" as this is a 2016 model the question then becomes.
If it is "new" was it replaced by Apple, an Apple Authorized Service Provider (using genuine parts) or a third party (who may have used non genuine parts) ? If it is the latter that could also be part of your issue.

Your real problem however, are those 80 tabs you have open in Chrome. Chrome is relatively power inefficient on macOS. Switching to Safari, if that is an option, or another more power efficient browser would likely help to a degree, but with 80 tabs(!) open there's only so much you can do on a 2016 Intel Mac. Those CPU's just weren't built for power efficiency when running that many tasks concurrently.

If upgrading is an option an Apple Silicon Mac would do much better. Alternatively if Chrome is a requirement you may also be better served by a physically larger Windows or Linux laptop with an AMD Ryzen 6000/7000 chip (Intel tends to be more power hungry) with room for a larger battery. Honestly speaking, regardless of what you choose, if you want to run on battery for an extended period of time you probably need to find a way to bring that tab number down. I won't pretend to know your use case but 80 tabs sounds excessive.

I installed Brave browser and had one tab open and the system said Brave was using a ton of system resources!!!

I dont think I can upgrade, I just bought this laptop a year and a half ago for $1,100 and now its worth $500. So much for macs holding value. I would just get a new mac air that can do 18 hour battery life but the screens are just too small for my taste.
 
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