Battery usage when asleep.

insinkerator

Is it normal for my 2008 unibody macbook to use a little under half its battery, just sitting on a desk asleep for about 8 hours?

No applications were running when I put it to sleep, for what its worth.

Sad Professor

No, it's definitely not normal. It should only use a few percent at most.

Is it definitely sleeping? The sleep light should be pulsating.

insinkerator

Yeah, it happens if I hit sleep from the Apple menu or if I close the lid. Yeah, the sleep light is pulsating.

Its actually been like this for quite a while, but its only recently clicked with me that it shouldn't do this.

I reinstall my OS with a completely clean install every 3 months or so(the problem predates the last install), im running 10.6.7 on a 2ghz Core 2 Duo, with 2GB of RAM. In terms of Hardware, nothing has changed since bought it. For software, I have obviously updated to 10.6 and the only thing I have consistently running in the background is Little Snitch. On the subject of my battery, I guess it doesn't last as long as it used to, but thats to be expected. It gets absolutely crucified though if i use any flash(again, to be expected, I just never realised it to be quite this bad)


According to coconut battery (keeping in mind that i have not calibrated my battery)

Plugged in:


Not Plugged in:

Sad Professor

insinkerator wrote: »

I reinstall my OS with a completely clean install every 3 months or so(the problem predates the last install),

First of all, this is completely unnecessary. I know this is the norm on Windows, but you DON'T need to do this on a Mac. Ever, unless your system becomes hosed or the hard drive fails.

As for the sleep problem: has this only started recently? The battery might be reaching the end of its life. Does it drain as quickly while turned on? Try resetting the PMU and calibrating the battery.

Is it hooked up via Ethernet? If so, make sure "wake for network access" is turned off in Energy Saver preferences.

Is Bluetooth turned on? If so, turn off the same option in Bluetooth preferences. Also try turning it off Bluetooth altogether and see if it makes any difference.

Listen to the Macbook while it's asleep. Is there any activity? Is the hard drive still spinning? It shouldn't be, but they have an antishock mechanism that can sometimes kick in preventing the hard drive from spinning down. Not only would this drain battery, it would also roast the hard drive to death.

fasty

To see if the machine is waking up a lot, in terminal type

pmset -g log

427 load cycles on the battery is 127 over what they're rated for by Apple so it could be dying.

Bruthal

Battery is probably on its way out alright. You can test it like this.

In your 2nd post with the battery condition displays, it says in the second one with its power adaptor plugged out that its using 13 watts(battery power usage). And the current battery capacity is 3875 mAh.

They are 12v batteries i think, so taking about 1 amp for 13 watts.

3875 mAh is 3.875 Ah or amp hours, so taking 1 amp it should last 3.875 hours in theory, but in practice should last at least 3 hours on battery while taking 13 watts if the capacity reading is correct in that display, and if the battery is ok.

So you could test the battery that way, leave the macbook open but not doing anything, and note the battery power usage it settles at, and see if you get the 3 hours. After an hour you will see the battery charge indicator at the top down about 30% as well, so you might be able to see if it seems to be discharging too fast, indicating the battery is at the end of its useful life.