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Time to get a new battery?

I full-charged my Macbook 13″ (Bought in November 2009)this evening and used it on battery, doing Safari, Iwork and a bit of Photoshop. In an hour and twenty mins or so, the battery was over. Time to get a new one?
Also, does diminishing battery strength also lead to more heated macbooks? Maybe it’s my imagination but it seems that the heat generated is excessive these days.

Thanks.
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Dhruv

Comments: 3 Responses to “Time to get a new battery?”

    13 years ago

    First, rule out that one specific thing you did drained the battery. For instance, perhaps your Photoshop use really ran it down. What happens if you just sure and do some relatively light work? Do you get several hours out of it?
    Even if not, then consider that you might have something running in the background that drains power. Look in Activity Monitor, Login Items, etc.
    What I'm saying is your battery might be fine, you just may be using a lot of power. Which is OK, if you think about it.
    But if it turns out that you only get a hour or so of time even doing light work, then sure, get a new battery.
    As for heat and battery: More heat suggests more power use. It doesn't matter how good your battery is. So it might be the case that something you are doing is using a lot of power.

    Dhruv
    13 years ago

    Well Activity Monitor shows some process called sips which was hogging much. Ultimately comp began to hang and I had to shut down. Maybe Keynote sucks more RAm than I anticipated; that was also on throughout.
    So do more RAM intensive apps like photoshop and keynote use more power?

      13 years ago

      No necessarily. An app could load a lot into memory and then not do much with it. But a power-hungry app will often do both: use a lot of memory and processor. It is the processor use that matters the most. But also check your System Prefs, Energy Saver settings. See what you have them set to for battery power. There's a lot you can adjust.

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