Questions MacPro 2017 battery life

[mandixo]

I bought this laptop at 2017 end and barely use more than a few times a week and sometimes not for months.

I am curious if this new design in which the laptop auto switches on with the opening of the screen is depleting my battery even when it is switched off? Since this version is key sensitive, who knows. It just seems that the battery can go down by 10% or more even if it is turned off for a week or so. As in battery decreases even when turned off. It is really strange and never happened with my older laptops...

Secondly, the battery seems to deplete by 1% every 3-5 minutes with just using a browser.
I don't know if any of this is normal or not. If anyone has insights or has the same laptop and battery depletion, please help!

 

[casperes1996]

The Mac Pro is not a laptop and has no battery. I think you're thinking of a MacBook Pro. Pedantry aside, I've heard complaints about similar issues before.

Is the laptop on when you do open it, or does it boot upon opening?

All batteries will deplete even when their connected device is entirely off. Batteries need to be exercised now and then with a bit of use and recharge to stay optimally healthy.
Though of course the rate at which this happens perhaps shouldn't be as noticeable as it is in this case.

With regards to drain under usage, what browser and how many hours of use would you say you typically get on a full charge?
Averaging out your numbers to 4 minutes per 1% it'd be 6.6 hours, which is on the low end. But then again, some websites these days have become really quite aggressive in their CPU utilisation, especially with some advertisers pushing more and more taxing ad-systems on sites too, with large chunks of JavaScript and all sorts.
Sticking to Safari will at least help minimise the battery drain from the web.

 

[mandixo]

The Mac Pro is not a laptop and has no battery. I think you're thinking of a MacBook Pro. Pedantry aside, I've heard complaints about similar issues before.

Is the laptop on when you do open it, or does it boot upon opening?

All batteries will deplete even when their connected device is entirely off. Batteries need to be exercised now and then with a bit of use and recharge to stay optimally healthy.
Though of course the rate at which this happens perhaps shouldn't be as noticeable as it is in this case.

With regards to drain under usage, what browser and how many hours of use would you say you typically get on a full charge?
Averaging out your numbers to 4 minutes per 1% it'd be 6.6 hours, which is on the low end. But then again, some websites these days have become really quite aggressive in their CPU utilisation, especially with some advertisers pushing more and more taxing ad-systems on sites too, with large chunks of JavaScript and all sorts.
Sticking to Safari will at least help minimise the battery drain from the web.

[doublepost=1556911920][/doublepost]

The Mac Pro is not a laptop and has no battery. I think you're thinking of a MacBook Pro. Pedantry aside, I've heard complaints about similar issues before.

Is the laptop on when you do open it, or does it boot upon opening?

All batteries will deplete even when their connected device is entirely off. Batteries need to be exercised now and then with a bit of use and recharge to stay optimally healthy.
Though of course the rate at which this happens perhaps shouldn't be as noticeable as it is in this case.

With regards to drain under usage, what browser and how many hours of use would you say you typically get on a full charge?
Averaging out your numbers to 4 minutes per 1% it'd be 6.6 hours, which is on the low end. But then again, some websites these days have become really quite aggressive in their CPU utilisation, especially with some advertisers pushing more and more taxing ad-systems on sites too, with large chunks of JavaScript and all sorts.
Sticking to Safari will at least help minimise the battery drain from the web.

__________________________________________________


Yes, I definitely meant Macbook. LOL Trying to abbreviate. Anyhow, I haven't used my MP for several months at one point. And, the battery does turn on only after I tap the keys or press the power button.

I tend to use Google Chrome more than Safari, but perhaps I should switch back? And, sometimes I am listening to Itunes while browsing, but still seems ridiculous! The only time I see a further drop than that is editing movies on Imovie, which I assume is to be expected?


I would say I use about 25% battery per 1.5 hours (just now actually), so maybe full charge will give me 5 hours (average) if I am lucky. But, I definitely expected better performance (as advertised). HA...


If there's any adjustment to settings or otherwise, please let me know! Cheers.

 

[casperes1996]

Yes, I definitely meant Macbook. LOL Trying to abbreviate. Anyhow, I haven't used my MP for several months at one point. And, the battery does turn on only after I tap the keys or press the power button.

Well in that case it would seem it is just regular old electron drain. PS. Reason I went pedantic, is that the Mac Pro does exist as a separate computer - MP being its abbreviated form too. MBP is typically used for the MacBook Pro.

I tend to use Google Chrome more than Safari, but perhaps I should switch back? And, sometimes I am listening to Itunes while browsing, but still seems ridiculous! The only time I see a further drop than that is editing movies on Imovie, which I assume is to be expected?

Right, so Chrome is pretty notorious for using a lot of battery. It's a resource hog in general actually. Google is first to market implementing a lot of web technologies, and typically have really good performance, but it is at the cost of battery efficiency. Safari is the best on the Mac in the respect. Chrome can use up to a magnitude more RAM than Safari, and battery life is typically hours better with Safari.
Regarding settings, well, there's not much more than adjusting brightness of display and maybe keyboard backlight.
I don't know if it works with your generation of machine, but if you're feeling more adventurous than that, there's a tool called Volta. It allows you to control things like whether the CPU turbos or not, how much voltage it gets and the like. Turning off turbo or undervaluing it can increase battery life. Turning off turbo will of course cost a little bit of burst performance. Undervolting can cause instability if done too much, but CPUs generally take more voltage than they need to "be on the safe side of stability", since each CPU is different and they set a good margin to not let the worse chips get unstable. So you can turn it down a bit without affecting anything, but getting better battery life and less heat.

The tool can only undervolt a very specific set of CPUs though. Adjusting whether turbo is on or not can be done on a lot more chips.

But that's a trade-off really. Do you need high performance or do you want to extend battery life?

The switch to Safari from Chrome will increase battery life, and in my opinion has no downside. But I also like Safari a lot and well, I don't think Chrome is all that great. I mean, there are definitely great aspects to Chrome, and I do have it installed for pen-testing and web dev, but I prefer Safari or Firefox for personal use.

 

[mandixo]

Well in that case it would seem it is just regular old electron drain. PS. Reason I went pedantic, is that the Mac Pro does exist as a separate computer - MP being its abbreviated form too. MBP is typically used for the MacBook Pro.



Right, so Chrome is pretty notorious for using a lot of battery. It's a resource hog in general actually. Google is first to market implementing a lot of web technologies, and typically have really good performance, but it is at the cost of battery efficiency. Safari is the best on the Mac in the respect. Chrome can use up to a magnitude more RAM than Safari, and battery life is typically hours better with Safari.
Regarding settings, well, there's not much more than adjusting brightness of display and maybe keyboard backlight.
I don't know if it works with your generation of machine, but if you're feeling more adventurous than that, there's a tool called Volta. It allows you to control things like whether the CPU turbos or not, how much voltage it gets and the like. Turning off turbo or undervaluing it can increase battery life. Turning off turbo will of course cost a little bit of burst performance. Undervolting can cause instability if done too much, but CPUs generally take more voltage than they need to "be on the safe side of stability", since each CPU is different and they set a good margin to not let the worse chips get unstable. So you can turn it down a bit without affecting anything, but getting better battery life and less heat.

The tool can only undervolt a very specific set of CPUs though. Adjusting whether turbo is on or not can be done on a lot more chips.

But that's a trade-off really. Do you need high performance or do you want to extend battery life?

The switch to Safari from Chrome will increase battery life, and in my opinion has no downside. But I also like Safari a lot and well, I don't think Chrome is all that great. I mean, there are definitely great aspects to Chrome, and I do have it installed for pen-testing and web dev, but I prefer Safari or Firefox for personal use.

Thanks for the detailed answer! I will definitely be using Safari in that case. I mean, I am open to anything that with extend battery life, which is my main concern. The only time I really need high performance is when using Imovie, which I may later upgrade to FCP. Although, at the moment, I would only use Imovie on a monthly basis if that.

Yes, I always keep my display on low light, for the sake of my eyes as well.

How and where do you download Volta? Hmm...as long I don't inadvertently damage my machine! :-o What is considered a good amount of undervolting? Or how to control the levels?

 

[casperes1996]

Thanks for the detailed answer! I will definitely be using Safari in that case. I mean, I am open to anything that with extend battery life, which is my main concern. The only time I really need high performance is when using Imovie, which I may later upgrade to FCP. Although, at the moment, I would only use Imovie on a monthly basis if that.

Sure. Hope it works out for you. If you have a 15" computer, you might also want to keep an eye on whether the dGPU is active or not - that can take extra battery. Activity Monitor will tell you if it's active or not, and what app uses it, and there's an app I can't remember the name of (GFXSwitcher?) that let's you tell the computer never to activate it. Again, this of course reduces graphics performance.

How and where do you download Volta? Hmm...as long I don't inadvertently damage my machine! :-o What is considered a good amount of undervolting? Or how to control the levels?

Volta can be downloaded here:
https://volta.garymathews.com

It works like an app and sits in the menu bar.
Overvolting can cause permanent damage. Undervolting can cause your CPU to not have enough juice to keep running, but if you don't have Volta start on bootup, if you reboot the computer it'll be back to normal. The voltage regulations are only available for some CPUs and works when the app is active, it does not modify anything permanently.
Same goes for all Volta features.

 

[anpaman]

Could you download battery health 2 in apple store and posting the screenshot in here ?

 

[SSD-GUY]

I too have a MacBook Pro 13" 2017, and get around 3/4 mins battery life for each % that the battery goes down.

I'd recommend downloading Battery logger from the App Store, as this gives you the exact time your MBP has lasted on battery.

FYI, I get no where near the 10 hours of battery life, even with following Apple's guidelines (using Safari, brightness at 75%, keyboard backlighting off, auto brightness off etc). I work as a BA and use normal browser based apps with a bit of slack and office, and get no more than 6 hours of Battery life at a push.

I'd download battery logger, use your mbp normally for a few days with the 75% brightness etc and then come back and post here with your results.

Good luck.