2017 Macbook Pro (Base Model) Battery Draining Suddenly

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Level 1

8 points

2017 Macbook Pro (Base Model) Battery Draining Suddenly

Does anyone know why my battery is draining in 3-4 hours with normal use on the 2017? This was the case with a refurb that I bought a few months ago which I returned because no one at the store or over the phone seemed to have a clue as to what was causing it. Got this one, and for the first 1-2 weeks the battery lasted 9-10 hours. Then one day, 4-5 hours. Now 3-4. Not even playing video-just normal web browsing. The refurb had the same issue from the moment I opened it. I upgraded my mother's 2015 Macbook air to Mojave and now it is having the EXACT SAME ISSUE with the battery. The performance is much slower too, as it is on my 2017 pro, and the bootup is twice as slow on both laptops. Does anyone have any clue what's causing this? Any insight would be greatly appreciated :)

P.S: I ran disk utility. Everything is normal. Then I reinstalled Mojave, and the issues are still exactly the same.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 13, 2019 3:59 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

y_p_w

Level 6

17,696 points

Jul 13, 2019 5:05 PM in response to Mark959

Run Applications>Utilities>Activity Monitor.

At the top, click on the "Energy" tab. It will list the current "Energy Impact" and the "Avg. Energy Impact" from the last 12 hours. There's the possibility that there's some runaway process that's eating through the battery capacity. I've seen stuff like mdworker work overtime. Usually when you have a runaway process it's going to run hot and you'll hear the fans going full blast to keep your machine from destroying itself.

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Answer 2

Mark959 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 14, 2019 3:19 AM in response to y_p_w

HI y_p_w, thank you for responding.

That's what I figured it was, but I don't think I've noticed anything like that when checking the "Energy" tab, but maybe I've missed something.

Right now, the only app using any significant energy is Chrome. It says the energy impact is 29.6, and the average energy impact is 78.48. Is that high?

The only time I've heard the fan running is when I'm making a long screen recording, or when I've been on a long webcam call. Most of the time the fan is silent. The battery consistently drains within 4-5 hours regardless of how many apps are being run, and whether the fan is running or not.

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