Complete Mac Newbie having issues...PLEASE HELP!

[jblank]

I'm a complete newb to Mac's, but I bought a Macbook Air 11 that is a couple of years old, but in PRISTINE condition, with a very healthy battery, according to all indicators. It has, what I've been told, a below average amount of charge cycles and performs fine when being used, away from AC power.

My issue is this, when I stop using it and close the lid, the machine drops about 25% in battery power, a day. I've turned off things like Power Nap, and done several Google searches on the subject (which seems to be relatively common, but not universal) and tried a thing or two, but never gotten any definitive explanation of why it happens, or read any suggestions that have markedly improved the issue. I know they're completely different, but I have a real energy hog of a laptop for work and I can close the lid on it and it won't drop 25% in battery power in a month.

I'm kind of out of ideas and being as I'm a Mac/OS X neophyte, I'm in need of some experts. I'll try anything! For the record, it's running El Capitan.

Thank you!

 

[Just_Me_D]

I don't know what to tell you except to make a genius bar appointment with the nearest Apple Store to have them diagnose the issue for you.

 

[jblank]

Do you have any suggestions on things I can check? The nearest Apple Store is 120 miles away.

 

[jblank]

Anyone? At all?

 

[Ledsteplin]

Response can be slow at times. Hopefully someone will come along who can help soon.

 

[Blake Dolinger]

This may be a long shot. Trying putting your computer to sleep before you shut the lid. If there is a sensor not recognizing that the lid is closed internal processes may not be shut down. This is a hail mary long shot.

 

[jblank]

I will try that, Blake. I'll post back and let you know if that works.

 

[OZsMac]

As this machine was second hand, may I ask if you completed a fresh OSX install when you got it. If you didn't, this would be my first step.

As you have already turned off Power Nap, the only thing to do would be to click "restore defaults" on the settings of Energy Saver just to be sure everything is set as it should be (this appears to have worked/helped for some people).

Check this thread for some further advanced debugging you could try, specifically confiming settings with "pmset -g" and looking for hibernatemode 3.

But key I think will be to ensure that you are starting from a clean/fresh install if possible, better still the good folks here at imore have written up step by step instructions - How to install and get started with OS X El Capitan | iMore

 

[OZsMac]

ps - could be a more widespread 10.11 / El Cap thing also - http://forums.imore.com/os-x-el-cap...e-sleep-mode-os-x-el-capitan.html#post2615467