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I have an early 2011 Macbook pro on Yosemite. I've never been thrilled with the battery life. Sometime I"m just doing light surfing and am in terminal ssh'd in to a server. Is there a way to underclock my mac to extend battery life?
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Doesn't the OS do that dynamically?
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Yeah, Apple has been pretty efficient with this for quite a while. Plug it into a Kill-A-Watt and you'll see just how little power it uses.
It's more about how you use it. If you leave Pandora open in the background, that'll suck down battery. As will a lot of JS intensive sites.
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How long do you get on the battery?
It's probably time to replace it.
Swapping in a SSD in lieu of the hard drive may add a bit to the battery-life.
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1) Remove any Adobe Flash, reboot.
2) Remove it AGAIN
3) Remove it a third time. And maybe add a Flash Blocker just in case.
There - you will have almost double the battery life.
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Other power tips:
1) Update to the latest Safari, and use it instead of Chrome or Firefox. Safari is far more efficient.
2) Check Activity Monitor, etc., for any other energy hogs.
3) Turn down the brightness on your screen. Even one step can make a difference.
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Yeah, I'll need actual tests to confirm. Apple marketing is nice, and I actually appreciate the trick, but I would love to see some actual numbers.