MacBook pro 2012 battery draining issues

Who replaced the battery, and what quality battery was it (you probably can’t answer that easily)? But you have an obsolete MacBook; you need to consider how much to invest in a device that won’t run current versions of MacOS.

The design capacity of the battery in a non-Retina 13-inch Mid 2012 Macbook Pro is 5770 mAh. "Health" is defined as current full charge capacity divided by design capacity. Your full charge capacity is:

  Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 3751

Divide that by design capacity and you get roughly 65% health. If you installed a non-Apple battery, that is better than most user see at 650 cycles.

If I don't keep the laptop plugged in when watching a film, for example, if goes flat within a hour or two.

Expected. Streaming video uses a tremendous amount of battery charge, even on a newer computer. I'm not surprised you get 1-2 hours runtime watching movies with an already compromised battery.

⚠️ Your computer us too old for Apple to service, plus they may deny service on any device with non-Apple parts installed.

The oldest Macbook Pros for which Apple currently offers battery service are from 2015:

Ref: Mac Repair & Service - Apple Support

If the computer continues to otherwise perform normally, I recommend using it with the power cord handy. I have the same model but with the original battery. In situations where I used ti run on battery for 5-6 hours, I now have to pack the power adapter with me. That is expected of a well-used 11-year old computer.

Johnalexclarke wrote:

I have quickly searched forums and found posts from 2019 but wondered if a more recent question would help shed some light / generate some ideas.

This is the battery info from system preferences: I note it says 651 cycles and service recommended.

Your battery needs to be replaced. What more ideas are you looking for?

Start here:

Mac Repair & Service - Apple Support

Actually, I have a MacBook of that vintage. Even new out of the box it only got about 3.5 hours on a charge.

That computer is a battery-CAPABLE device. It is not optimized as a battery-operated device. (It is NOT an iPhone.)

Your computer performs best when connected to AC power. It can use the full output of the Power Adapter AND when doing especially challenging work will also freely "borrow" power from the battery. In some cases, even with the power adapter connected, the charged state may decline during stressful work.

When used only on battery, your computer has no extra cushion of power, and may perform more slowly. However, for ordinary non-stressful tasks this may not be objectionable (possibly not even noticeable.)

In general, you should ALWAYS connect a power source when it is possible to do so, and only run on batteries (which could be somewhat slower) when no power sources are at hand. Your Mac will NEVER over-charge.

in your case, you appear to have consumed the capabilities of your present battery with gusto, and its 650 charge cycles reflect its nearly-used-up state.

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'Simply playing back movies' seems like it should be very simple and not taxing. But to do that, the movies would have to be already available on your computer, at full resolution, and in a ready-to-play state.

That is FAR from the case for streaming. To get them across the limited bandwidth internet, those movies are supplied heavily compressed, and the ordinary compute power of your Mac is inadequate to decompress in real-time without the built-in Hardware Assist. That makes it very taxing work indeed.

Hi there 😀. When you replaced the battery everything with the battery was good? And werer you buyed the battery?