I have a 2008 "blackbook" and my battery life is sucking right now. When it's in sleep-mode it sucks way more power than normal. I've looked to see if I have anything open that would continue using power while it's in sleep-mode, but I haven't found anything.

Anyone know what might be going on?

 

Batteries on these laptops are known to take a hit after a couple years. My MBP 15" is going on 5 years; I barely get 15 min in a full charge with light Internet browsing.

Get a new battery if it really is an issue.

 

+1. Get a new battery and change your power settings in the System Preferences app.

 

Thanks guys! I'll call the apple store later.

 

First try calibrating your battery.

If the issue remains, install any of the numerous system tools that display batter life (I use the dashboard widget iStatPro) and see how many cycles are on it and what the relative health is. If it has 300+ cycles or less than 30% health, probably time for a new one.

Apple store can check it out for you, too.

In future, always try to keep the battery charging or discharging a bit each day. Doesn't have to be constant, but leaving it connected to power and never charging/discharging is bad for it. I find a good practice is to unplug it when asleep at night, and plug it back in in the morning.

 

I have 563 cycles on my blackbook and still 85% health. I'd say I can get over 2 hours on it. So more like ~60-70% original life, but I usually keep it plugged in, so that is enough for me for now.