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macbook air terrible battery

L

Love-hate 🍏 relationship

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Sep 19, 2021
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i got a mba m1 a month ago and it's battery is way worse than my previous mba

for reference my mba 8/256 lasted about 8-10h , while with the new one i barely get 5h of SOT

the battery dropped from 78 to 26 in less than 3h today , chrome, pixelmator , documents , nothing crazy

the worst part is that there is no battery history on mac so it;s really hard to know whether it's faultive or not

apple says it's good , system reports 100% of health , but coconut already shows 98% after only 8 cycles ...

1673982141261.png



"MaxCapacity" = 100


| | | | | "DesignCapacity" = 4382


| | | | | "AppleRawMaxCapacity" = 4298

1673982184344.png
 
Chrome is definitely a battery hog, trying switching to Safari for a day and see if that changes anything.
 
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I know using Chrome and browsing websites doesn't seem like it would drain battery but it can. A lot. Chrome is always sending info back to Google while Safari doesn't. This process can use a lot of resources.

If you try using Safari and don't get at least 6-7 hours SOT something might be wrong with your laptop.

There are a lot of factors to battery life. Screen brightness is one of them. More than 80% screen brightness is going to drain battery as well and combined with Chrome could be the issue.

You might also consider backing up your laptop and doing a complete wipe of the drive and re-install MacOS as a last resort. Sometimes that can fix mysterious issues.

65 watt charger is fine and should not be an issue.
 
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Technerd108 said:
I know using Chrome and browsing websites doesn't seem like it would drain battery but it can. A lot. Chrome is always sending info back to Google while Safari doesn't. This process can use a lot of resources.

If you try using Safari and don't get at least 6-7 hours SOT something might be wrong with your laptop.

There are a lot of factors to battery life. Screen brightness is one of them. More than 80% screen brightness is going to drain battery as well and combined with Chrome could be the issue.

You might also consider backing up your laptop and doing a complete wipe of the drive and re-install MacOS as a last resort. Sometimes that can fix mysterious issues.

65 watt charger is fine and should not be an issue.
Click to expand...
Thanks

Idk what’s weird is that I had the same use on the previous mba

Brightness is about 50%

I’ll try safari but I really can’t stand it tbh lol
 
Love-hate 🍏 relationship said:
Thanks

Idk what’s weird is that I had the same use on the previous mba

Brightness is about 50%

I’ll try safari but I really can’t stand it tbh lol
Click to expand...
You might try an AdBlock on Chrome and see if you can lock down your privacy settings in the browser and make sure the Apple firewall is active. This might help with Chrome. Maybe try that first and see how battery life is and then if it is still bad try Safari.
 
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My MacBook 16 intel 2019 does last more than three hours with chrome,
something is wrong with yours.
Anyway, install ublock origin because it’s a must.
Did you download the M1 chip version of chrome when it asked?
I would try a full reset: remove the MacBook from the iCloud account, and wipe everything from disk utility in recovery mode (exactly like you would sell it to somebody else). Reinstall macOS and setup as a new MacBook.
There is the guide from Apple website what to do when to sell the MacBook, and make sure you reset the Mac with the disk utility wiping the SSD.
If this doesn’t work I would show it in person at the store.
 
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Technerd108 said:
You might try an AdBlock on Chrome and see if you can lock down your privacy settings in the browser and make sure the Apple firewall is active. This might help with Chrome. Maybe try that first and see how battery life is and then if it is still bad try Safari.
Click to expand...
Thanks ! I already have AdGuard desktop ( blocks ads for the whole OS)

What settings are you referring to? And I don’t see apple firewall being active
 
gianfloyd said:
my MacBook 16 intel 2019 does more than three hours with chrome.
Something is wrong with yours.
Anyway install ublock origin because it’s a must.
Did you download the M1 chip version of chrome when it asked?
I would try a full reset from the recovery mode just in case, remove it from iCloud account, and wipe everything from disk utility in recovery (exactly like you should sell it to somebody else). Reinstall macOS and setup as a new MacBook.
If this doesn’t work I would show it in person at the store.
Click to expand...
It’s already new , I set it anew a month ago

Eh I get more than 3h from 100-0 , but in my case it was 78 to 26 ,which went down in about 150mns
 
Love-hate 🍏 relationship said:
It’s already new , I set it anew a month ago

Eh I get more than 3h from 100-0 , but in my case it was 78 to 26 ,which went down in about 150mns
Click to expand...
But did you reinstall macOS? Wiping the ssd?
If you are sure you have the m1 version of Chrome, then your last try would be to wipe everything.
You can try to uninstall chrome and re-download the M1 chip version.
 
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Love-hate 🍏 relationship said:
It’s already new , I set it anew a month ago

Eh I get more than 3h from 100-0 , but in my case it was 78 to 26 ,which went down in about 150mns
Click to expand...
Like others have said it might be a good idea to completely wipe the drive and re-install MacOs not erase all contents and settings from within the OS but actually go into recovery and delete and wipe the drive and then re-install MacOS. This is a troubleshooting step. Once you have done it, then we can rule out a software issue.

If you go into settings and just search for firewall you will see a toggle switch to turn it on. I also enable stealth mode in the options section but that only works with Safari. A firewall is always good to have enabled for your security. Some people may disagree.

Even using Chrome the SOT seems low specially with 50% brightness. I am leaning towards a hardware issue with the battery but it could be Chrome and it could be the websites you are visiting. However 5 hours or less seems suspect to me.
 
Battery life depends on the workload in terms power consumption in watt. M1 MBA battery size is 49.9 watt-hour so if you're getting 5 hours then your workload is pulling about 9.98 watt (battery size in watt-hour / load in watt = battery life in hour) and I've seen it close to 20 watt under load. Suggest using an app to log over time powermetrics power consumption, running processes and utilization, battery life, etc. so you have better visibility into what's causing it. Look into iStat, iStatistica, etc.
 
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Love-hate 🍏 relationship said:
i had good battery using chrome on the previous mba m1 tho...
Click to expand...
Do you mean, the battery in this M1 MBA is much worse than your previous M1 MBA (which I thought, those two are same model)? If that’s the case, maybe helpful to check, what specific apps that you installed and run frequently in the current MBA but not in your previous one. Also, is the MacOs version both are same?
 
Isamilis said:
Do you mean, the battery in this M1 MBA is much worse than your previous M1 MBA (which I thought, those two are same model)? If that’s the case, maybe helpful to check, what specific apps that you installed and run frequently in the current MBA but not in your previous one. Also, is the MacOs version both are same?
Click to expand...
yes that's what i mean, my previous mba had better battery

hmmm not super different, i do use pixelmator pro which i wasnt using before though

macOS versions weren't the same , one was on 13.0.1 and the other is 13.1 . here is a link to how quickly the battery is discharging if you understand how to interpret it

MacProFCP said:
As mentioned by others, Chrome is a battery hog. I understand that in your prior machine, it was fine with Chrome. I have personally had issues with Chrome being corrupted or having a faulty preference with the result being a crazy amount of CPU usage; like my entire MBP running very slow. I switched to Safari and Firefox and have a much better experience. Also, I’m not worried about Google seeking and commoditizing my data.
Click to expand...
oh wow. do you know if a reinstall of chrome should fix that issue ? and did you know which preferences resulted in such high cpu usage ?
mi7chy said:
Battery life depends on the workload in terms power consumption in watt. M1 MBA battery size is 49.9 watt-hour so if you're getting 5 hours then your workload is pulling about 9.98 watt (battery size in watt-hour / load in watt = battery life in hour) and I've seen it close to 20 watt under load. Suggest using an app to log over time powermetrics power consumption, running processes and utilization, battery life, etc. so you have better visibility into what's causing it. Look into iStat, iStatistica, etc.
Click to expand...
looked into istats but not sure what it means...could u enlighten me about these numbers ?

1674073308313.png
 
Chrome If You Don't Want To.....

my same MacBook Air battery is SOOOO incredible,
the energizer bunny sleeps next to the power chord quite often!
 
Chrome isn't the issue since I have 29 charge cycles over two years. It would be a lot more if it was the cause. If you're running Adguard app it's known to cause battery drain. Suggest trying Chrome+uBlock Origin extension which is what I use or Chrome+Adguard extension (not app) to see if battery life improves.
 
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