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MacBook Pro Insomnia

manuel.bernhardt.io

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Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#11

Post by sugarpimpdorsey »

Apple's power management isn't as great as everyone claims.

I've an older MacBook Air with a severe battery drain problem.

The battery will last maybe a day or two when SHUT DOWN (not sleep) before being fully drained and refuses to power on.

It's done this since day one.

I tried resetting everything possible which could be reset and nothing helped.

Allegedly the problem is related to a Bluetooth radio which does not shut down properly but as usual Apple is tight-lipped, and the cult members that moderate their community forum try to gaslight you into believing the computers are perfect and you're doing something wrong.

Eventually I just gave up and lugged the power adapter everywhere.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#13

Post by sangeeth96 »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #12

https://support.apple.com/en-mn/guide/mac-help/mh40774/mac This seems to be available as a first party config option

Edit 2: My bad, I assumed power nap == "wake for network access". This no longer seems to be an option in macOS 26.

Mine's set to "Only on Power Adapter", which makes sense.

Edit: On an M4 MacBook Air running macOS 26 DB

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#14

Post by sangeeth96 »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #12

https://support.apple.com/en-mn/guide/mac-help/mh40774/mac This seems to be available as a first party config option

On macOS 26 DB running on M4 MacBook Air, I don't see power nap in that place. I see "Wake for network access" which might be the new thing and it's set to "Only on Power Adapter" by default.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#15

Post by shortrounddev2 »

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #11

Apple's power management isn't as great as everyone claims. I've an older MacBook Air with a severe battery drain problem. The battery will last maybe a day or two when SHUT DOWN (not sleep) before being fully drained and refuses to power on. It's done this since day one. I tried resetting everything possible which could be reset and nothing helped. Allegedly the problem is related to a Bluetooth radio which does not…

I haven't used a MacBook in years but when I did, their power management was actually the worst thing about them - this was before they moved to ARM, so I assume it has improved, but it was common for a MacBook pro to turn into a screaming hot chunk of aluminum which would burn your legs on contact and misrepresent the actual battery life available to it.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#16

Post by pauljara »

This used to happen to my MacBook Pro, although it was a non Apple Silicon one. The issue was that I had changed the DHCP lease time on my router from the default to a really low value. I believe I had set it to 15 minutes. What I believe was happening was the MBP was waking up to renew its IP address every 15 minutes and by the time it went to sleep again, it was probably waking back up to repeat the process. Changing the value on the router back to its default completely fixed the battery drain issue on my MacBook Pro. I'd never have guessed the cause-effect except I made the change around the same time I purchased that new MacBook Pro and was paying more attention to any issues that might arise.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#17

Post by sugarpimpdorsey »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #15
sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #11

Apple's power management isn't as great as everyone claims. I've an older MacBook Air with a severe battery drain problem. The battery will last maybe a day or two when SHUT DOWN (not sleep) before being fully drained and refuses to power on. It's done this since day one. I tried resetting everything possible which could be reset and nothing helped. Allegedly the problem is related to a Bluetooth radio which does not…

I haven't used a MacBook in years but when I did, their power management was actually the worst thing about them - this was before they moved to ARM, so I assume it has improved, but it was common for a MacBook pro to turn into a screaming hot chunk of aluminum which would burn your legs on contact and misrepresent the actual battery life available to it.

The Apple Community moderators would have you believe you're using the built-in pizza stone function wrong.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#18

Post by sneak »

pauljara wrote: post #16

This used to happen to my MacBook Pro, although it was a non Apple Silicon one. The issue was that I had changed the DHCP lease time on my router from the default to a really low value. I believe I had set it to 15 minutes. What I believe was happening was the MBP was waking up to renew its IP address every 15 minutes and by the time it went to sleep again, it was probably waking back up to repeat the process. Changi…

This is a macOS bug; it doesn’t need an IP address while it’s asleep. Waking up to renew a DHCP lease is crazy.

Closed source OSes are such a bane.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#19

Post by DJBunnies »

sneak wrote: post #18
pauljara wrote: post #16

This used to happen to my MacBook Pro, although it was a non Apple Silicon one. The issue was that I had changed the DHCP lease time on my router from the default to a really low value. I believe I had set it to 15 minutes. What I believe was happening was the MBP was waking up to renew its IP address every 15 minutes and by the time it went to sleep again, it was probably waking back up to repeat the process. Changi…

This is a macOS bug; it doesn’t need an IP address while it’s asleep. Waking up to renew a DHCP lease is crazy. Closed source OSes are such a bane.

That’s a little obtuse. Macs can still poll for certain messages while they’re asleep (Power Nap.)

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#20

Post by mschuster91 »

sneak wrote: post #18
pauljara wrote: post #16

This used to happen to my MacBook Pro, although it was a non Apple Silicon one. The issue was that I had changed the DHCP lease time on my router from the default to a really low value. I believe I had set it to 15 minutes. What I believe was happening was the MBP was waking up to renew its IP address every 15 minutes and by the time it went to sleep again, it was probably waking back up to repeat the process. Changi…

This is a macOS bug; it doesn’t need an IP address while it’s asleep. Waking up to renew a DHCP lease is crazy. Closed source OSes are such a bane.

> This is a macOS bug; it doesn’t need an IP address while it’s asleep. Waking up to renew a DHCP lease is crazy.

It's actually not. As a user I'd expect the device to wake up and still have the same IP address via a continuation of the lease.

Yes, the correct way would be a longer lived DHCP lease, but el-cheapo ISP routers often lock down such settings.

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