MacBook Pro battery report thread...

[Anonymous Freak]

Figured I'd start a thread dedicated solely to battery reports.

I got mine this morning, used it a little without charging, used it plugged in for a little while, (maybe 15 minutes of each,) then it sat unused, asleep, for an hour. Used on battery for another hour, unused for an hour.

Came home, plugged it in, let it charge fully; using it occasionally, sleep the rest of the time.

Went to a friend's with it, used it plugged in for 5 hours, then when I knew we had less than 2 hours left, unplugged it.

Put it in full power consumption mode. Lasted about two hours. (Full brightness, the works.)

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Oh, and I'm having an odd Sleep issue. When it goes to sleep, the hard drive keeps spinning, and the optical drive ocassionaly acts like it's trying to eject something. And the power light doesn't pulse like on my PowerBook, it's solid on. It also gets/stays really hot in this 'half-sleep' mode. (On another computer, I could see myself as 'away' in iChat, but it was connected still.)

When I open the lid, most of the time (but not all,) it takes a long time to wake up. 30-40 seconds. During that time, the screen is blank, and the power light is about half brightness.

I had a USB-connected* ExpressCard slot memory card reader with memory card in it every time I noticed this. I'm going to try wihout the reader in real quick to see if that makes a difference.

Slept fine this time. I wonder if this is related to the issue in Windows on the new Core Duos not doing power saving correctly with USB devices plugged in? I'll have to report it to Apple.

*For those that didn't know, the ExpressCard slot has both a PCI-Express x1 connection AND a USB 2.0 connection in the one set of pins. It lets card manufacturers choose which interface they want to use. So for something simple like the memory card reader I have, they can just use USB. For something more complex (like a FireWire 800 card,) they could use the PCI-Express interface.

 

[direzz]

rev a. im considering not buying one now.

 

[yoda13]

Rev A problems are always dicey. But that is true of anything. I am still sorely tempted to get one of these. We'll see.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Report 2

Well, after 'calibrating' the battery (by fully draining and fully recharging,) and putting it on max power saving (minimum screen brightness, Bluetooth off, only one core turned on, volume muted, but with AirPort on, it looks like I'm going to get somewhere around 3 hours.

A little disappointing; I was hoping for the 4-4.5 hours I got from my PowerBook when it was new.

 

[Texas04]

Have you tried turning down the screen brightness? Im sure you will be able to get a few more hours out of it that way.

 

[yoda13]

I was hoping for better as well. I am not sure that is good enough....

But I guess there is always trade-offs for increased power...

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Have you tried turning down the screen brightness? Im sure you will be able to get a few more hours out of it that way.

In 'use the battery as fast as possible mode', I had the screen on 'full, dear-got-is-that-the-rising-sun' brightness.

For the energy miser, I've had it on minimum. (Hit F1 until the backlight turns off, then hit F2 once.)

With the same basic settings on my rev.a (867MHz) 12" PowerBook, I could get about 4-4.5 hours on a brand new battery. With AirPort off, and letting the screen turn off (but not letting the computer go to Sleep,) I could get 5 hours of constant use.

 

[Macmaniac]

In 'use the battery as fast as possible mode', I had the screen on 'full, dear-got-is-that-the-rising-sun' brightness.

For the energy miser, I've had it on minimum. (Hit F1 until the backlight turns off, then hit F2 once.)

With the same basic settings on my rev.a (867MHz) 12" PowerBook, I could get about 4-4.5 hours on a brand new battery. With AirPort off, and letting the screen turn off (but not letting the computer go to Sleep,) I could get 5 hours of constant use.

Of course your going to get 5 hours with the screen turning off, of course its a little hard to use with the screen off

Ignore me I am being mean

 

[Over Achiever]

Of course your going to get 5 hours with the screen turning off, of course its a little hard to use with the screen off

Ignore me I am being mean

The point is he got 4-4.5 hours with the screen at minimum brightness (1 bar), and I echo his experience, i get at least 4 hours on my 17" Powerbook similarly. If he can't get more than 3 hours with the same settings on the MBP, then that is quite disappointing, I'd like something closer to 4 hours. The new Sony SZ series, also dual core, gets battery life well over 5 hours, which is a marvel, not to mention including a dual layer DVD burner, memory card slots (including SD), fingerprint scanner, and a bunch of other goodies in a 13.3" widescreen laptop. If only Mac OS X would run on it =(

-OA

 

[AJBMatrix]

I am getting 4.5 to 5 actually on Pages alone for class with wifi turned on for only an hour. With Safari at that time. Screen turned all the way down.

Note: The screen is as bright as the rising sun. Holy Crap is that thing bright. I love the screen. This is the computer of my dreams. But the battery really seems to be doing very well. I like it a lot. Calibrated and everything it works wonderful. Could not have made a better purchase.

 

[macbook123]

Well, after 'calibrating' the battery (by fully draining and fully recharging,) and putting it on max power saving (minimum screen brightness, Bluetooth off, only one core turned on, volume muted, but with AirPort on, it looks like I'm going to get somewhere around 3 hours.

Are you sure max power saving means one core turned off? I was under the impression that the two cores interplay in a way that conserves energy. If you think about it, why would getting the same number of computations done on one core use up less than doing it on two? You will have to cool down the one core more than you would in the Duo Core case, and probably more than twice as much. I thought this was the whole idea behind having dual core instead of one super hot 4 GHz processor. Let me know if I'm wrong.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Are you sure max power saving means one core turned off? I was under the impression that the two cores interplay in a way that conserves energy. If you think about it, why would getting the same number of computations done on one core use up less than doing it on two? You will have to cool down the one core more than you would in the Duo Core case, and probably more than twice as much. I thought this was the whole idea behind having dual core instead of one super hot 4 GHz processor. Let me know if I'm wrong.

That was using the developer tools to turn off one core. (If you install 'CHUD', it adds a 'processor' system preference, which lets you turn one core off. You can also add a 'processor' status item, that you can use to turn off one core. See attachment: (The time remaining is while charging.)

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Update 3

It appears that the Lithium Polymer battery needs a few full charge/discharge cycles to build up to full capacity. So first impressions may be skewed low. I'll check back in a week (after probably 10-15 cycles. Yes, I fully discharge my battery up to twice a day.)

On the other issue, about it not sleeping properly, I have traced it to the USB-connected ExpressCard. If the card is plugged in, even with no memory card in it, the computer tries to go to sleep, waits about 5 seconds, then wakes right back up. If I remove that card, even with other USB devices plugged in, it sleeps just fine.

 

[dblissmn]

According to Macintouch (or was it MacFixIt), the battery controller on the MacBook is the same as on the most recent Powerbook 15 inch -- so it is a very much more convoluted calibration process than simply draining and recharging. I can't remember the full details but check Apple's technical support documents on calibrating the battery in the Powerbook 15 inch dual layer SuperDrive.

 

[aplasticspork]

Not to hijack the thread or anything, but I just noticed this about the battery. If you take it out and look at the back it says Li-ion on it, I was just curious as to whether all of them say this, or if I actually got a lithium ion rather than a lithium polymer battery.

Sorry about the quality of the image, I took it with the isight because I can't find my camera's USB cable.

 

[MRU]

Oh, and I'm having an odd Sleep issue.

Similar sleep problems occur in the new iMac (they are basically the same so it's not surprising)... It is an intermittent problem

 

[Texas04]

MacBook123
Does your MBP run hot? Or is it just warm. I guess im trying to say if you put it on your lap will it burn your ..... off? lol

 

[menziep]

Not to hijack the thread or anything, but I just noticed this about the battery. If you take it out and look at the back it says Li-ion on it, I was just curious as to whether all of them say this, or if I actually got a lithium ion rather than a lithium polymer battery.

Sorry about the quality of the image, I took it with the isight because I can't find my camera's USB cable.

I dont no but with it saying Li-Ion you could of been sent a Lithium ion battery and not a Li-Poly (lithium polymer battery) but if you what to know you could contact Apple (E-mail, Phone)

Links


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_polymer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li-ion
http://www.apple.com/

 

[ieani]

At the apple store I set it on best performance and unplugged the two demos. One said 3:17, the other 3:25. But with a DVD running Im sure it could never even get through anything over 2.5 hours. Its why I am waiting for an intel ibook.

 

[jmsait19]

According to Macintouch (or was it MacFixIt), the battery controller on the MacBook is the same as on the most recent Powerbook 15 inch -- so it is a very much more convoluted calibration process than simply draining and recharging. I can't remember the full details but check Apple's technical support documents on calibrating the battery in the Powerbook 15 inch dual layer SuperDrive.

Yes, on the newest PowerBook, the battery calibration process was different...

Here is the link to the Apple page where it talks about how to calibrate the different batteries... There isn't an article yet on how to calibrate the MacBook Pro's battery yet...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284

PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD)

The battery calibration for the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) has been updated because of a new battery released with this computer. With these computers, follow these steps to calibrate your battery:

Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your PowerBook's battery until the light ring on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.
Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for at least two hours. You may use your computer during this time as long as the adapter is plugged in.
Disconnect the power adapter with the computer still on and start running the computer off battery power. You may use your computer during this time. When your battery gets low, you will see the low battery warning dialog on the screen.
Continue to keep your computer on until it goes to sleep. Save all your work and close all applications when the battery gets very low, before the computer goes to sleep.
Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.
Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.
Tip: When the battery reaches "empty", the computer is forced into sleep mode. The battery actually keeps back a reserve beyond "empty", to maintain the computer in sleep for a period of time. Once the battery is truly exhausted, the computer is forced to shut down. At this point, with the safe sleep function introduced in the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) computers, the computer's memory contents have been saved to the hard drive. When power is restored, the computer returns itself to its pre-sleep state using the safe sleep image on the hard drive.

 

[jmsait19]

It appears that the Lithium Polymer battery needs a few full charge/discharge cycles to build up to full capacity. So first impressions may be skewed low. I'll check back in a week (after probably 10-15 cycles. Yes, I fully discharge my battery up to twice a day.)

Just curious, but why do you discharge twice a day? Batteries only have a limited number of charge cycles before they lose their ability to hold a charge. By doing that with your battery, you will need to replace it much sooner than if you keep it plugged in...


I used to discharge my battery more, thinking that if I do that it will always be calibrated and it will be healthy, but I found out that it will actually beat my battery up a little more and it is truly better to keep it plugged in whenever you can...

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Just curious, but why do you discharge twice a day? Batteries only have a limited number of charge cycles before they lose their ability to hold a charge. By doing that with your battery, you will need to replace it much sooner than if you keep it plugged in...

Becuase I use it away from power sources that much. (Not that I use up 100% of the battery twice, but I use up 50%, recharge, 60%, recharge, 40%, recharge, 30%, recharge, 20%, recharge... That counts to the system as 2 recharge cycles.)

If I didn't have to, I wouldn't. I've already gotten two 12" PowreBook batteries to hold less than 60% of their initial charge in 3 years, and I imagine the MacBook will see the same.

P.S. Litium-Polymer batteries are properly called 'Lithium-ion-polymer', so it's possible that Apple just calls both kinds Lithium-Ion.

 

[Diatribe]

There isn't an article yet on how to calibrate the MacBook Pro's battery yet...

But there is in the manual. To quote the person who told me...

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook_Pro_Users_Guide.pdf

Chapter 1, page 24, step 5.

 

[CaptainCaveMann]

The point is he got 4-4.5 hours with the screen at minimum brightness (1 bar), and I echo his experience, i get at least 4 hours on my 17" Powerbook similarly. If he can't get more than 3 hours with the same settings on the MBP, then that is quite disappointing, I'd like something closer to 4 hours. The new Sony SZ series, also dual core, gets battery life well over 5 hours, which is a marvel, not to mention including a dual layer DVD burner, memory card slots (including SD), fingerprint scanner, and a bunch of other goodies in a 13.3" widescreen laptop. If only Mac OS X would run on it =(

-OA

Who cares what Sony is doing, your comparing apples to the heavenly fruit eaten by the Gods. Were here for one reason; the os. It isnt news that apple is a little behind in terms of hardware. Most of the pc companys have bigger and better things out. With Apple its all about the os, its been that way for years.