Apple Repaired MacBook Pro 13" - Now Battery Is Terrible

cheaplee on 09/02/2020 - 13:16

Ok so I had a power surge before Christmas and my MacBook was charging at the time. It fried the MagSafe port, but everything else worked fine. It just wouldn't charge. In fact I backed it up, turned it off, turned it on a week later, did some browsing, turned it off etc. I took it to apple mid-Jan who tested battery, said it was fine. Tested MagSafe board, not recognised. They charged me $200 to replace MagSafe board which I thought was a bargain and readily paid to get my MacBook working again.

I appreciate it's a 5yr old machine, but like most people who use a laptop daily you have a fair idea how long your battery will last doing certain tasks. When it came back with a new MagSafe board it was draining 8% overnight with the lid closed and 'sleeping'. Not normal behaviour and it wasn't doing this before apple repair. Remember I had it for about a month after power surge, before repair and it didn't drain like this.

I was obviously a bit upset, but since I have owned macbooks for about 12 years now I had a suspicion. I upgraded to the new OS Carolina and now battery drain is back to normal…

What would have happened that made the battery drain so much worse pre-update?
Am I just paranoid or is this indeed the doing of Apple themselves? In an attempt to get me to either buy a new MacBook or upgrade the OS.

I don't know about you guys but I have had plenty of times over the years where something stops working properly overnight and doesn't work again until I do an update that had been pending for weeks/months.

I don't think I'll get another MacBook, even though they are well built machines and I get 5+ years of use out of them.

TLDR - MagSafe board was fried with power surge and after apple replaced it the battery drained super quick until I upgraded to OS Catalina, something that was pending for months prior.

Computing Apple Computer Laptop

Comments

  • holdenmg on 09/02/2020 - 13:35

    What is the Battery cycle count?

    • cheaplee on 09/02/2020 - 14:14

      When he did it at the shop it was 300 cycles or so. He was banging on about not spending too much money on it as I'd probably have to replace battery in another year. I asked him how many cycles you would expect and the number he gave was much, much higher then my count..

      • holdenmg on 09/02/2020 - 14:42

        @ ~300 it must have spent a lot of time plugged in…

        • cheaplee on 09/02/2020 - 14:44

          Sure did. When it needed to be charged I plugged it in. When it needed to be moved I unplugged it.

          Edit: I just had a look. 314 cycles

          • MeesusEff on 09/02/2020 - 18:16

            @cheaplee: I never knew we could check it until this thread, thanks! Yours seems to fall under the 1000 "cycle limit" so bit odd for the guy to say you'll need to change in a year. Glad mines still under halfway after 5 years of use 😁

        • [Deactivated] on 20/02/2020 - 11:19

          would plugging to power all the time increase cycle count

  • Cave Fire on 09/02/2020 - 13:59

    installing the update did a smc or PRAM reset somehow? Missed out on a 1am auction for a 2015 on ebay for $345, my bid was $320.

    • cheaplee on 09/02/2020 - 14:15

      Cheap as chips! I suppose the problem with an old one you have vs an old one someone else has is you don't know how they treated it.

      • [Deactivated] on 20/02/2020 - 11:20

        and don't know how often its used, 16h a day or 10h a day

    • OrangeBJ on 07/03/2020 - 22:45

      Retina version?

      • Cave Fire on 07/03/2020 - 23:22

        yeah retina, most people don't end at that time.

  • cheaplee on 10/02/2020 - 18:20

    Actually it seems to have been short lived. Still drained 2% today with lid closed and no use and another 3% since I opened the lid 5 mins ago..

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