today i have upgraded to macos big sur. however, there is significant battery drain after this upgrade. battery drains in 1 hour after this upgrade. how this issue can be solved. my device is 2018 macbook pro.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Now my battery drain is solved.
As I mentioned a couple of days ago in this thread, I stopped using Google Chrome and I ensure "Google Chrome Helper" is not running. This solved my battery drain because "Google Chrome Helper" was constantly using 100% of CPU.
I've also configured Spotlight as mentioned by other people but in my case I think it was the Chrome issue.
Now my battery drain is solved.
As I mentioned a couple of days ago in this thread, I stopped using Google Chrome and I ensure "Google Chrome Helper" is not running. This solved my battery drain because "Google Chrome Helper" was constantly using 100% of CPU.
I've also configured Spotlight as mentioned by other people but in my case I think it was the Chrome issue.
Did not read every reply, so sorry in advance if this is redundant. Had battery drain and overheating for two weeks after Big Sur install (2016 MBP). Tried all the "fixes" (NVRAM, SMC, spotlight indexing, uninstall/reinstall Chrome, calibrate battery, etc). All the while, activity monitor showed that a process called "kernelmanagerd" was running at 60-80 CPU% constantly. I researched and learned this task is an interface between 3rd party software and MacOS. Then I read that antiviral programs (specifically Malwarebytes) were causing same problems for others.
I had actually downloaded this software long ago but had forgotten about it. So it was only when I saw it as a program that could be "uninstalled" in my CleanMyMac app that I realized the issue may have been lurking in the background. I removed Malwarebytes completely, rebooted my mac and things appear to have returned to back to baseline. The "kernelmanagerd" process is no longer using CPU. Fingers crossed.
Welcome, david_0908, to Apple Support Communities!
After you did a «clean re-install», did you test to see if you still had the problem, before restoring your files? And before restoring your old software?
Clean Installs of Big Sur have been a “sure fire” “fix”, because there is no problem with only Big Sur. (With the exception of potential hardware issues, with some older systems.)
After restoring files, but before restoring old software, there is a “housekeeping” period as Big Sur—much like previous major Operating System (OS) upgrades—analyze, reindex, and cache files, photos, music, videos, books, etc., in preparation for your daily use and convenience.
Depending upon how much stuff was “suddenly” put on Big Sur’s “plate”, so to speak, and how fast your system is (including how fast your drive is), this “housekeeping” should “settle down”, once it “catches up” with your files, in a day or so of continuous work.
People not using battery capable systems (read MacBooks) usually don’t notice this much at all, unless, like me, they run always with the Activity Monitor running.
Running on batteries, on the other hand, makes this “housekeeping” period far more apparent, and, if the user is not aware of what is going on, hugely worrying!
Finally, once your old software is restored, you introduce a huge new “dimension” of potential issues that can result from third-party software that can be “confused” by the major OS upgrade—a potentially huge change in the system upon which they are running: they may simply not run, or they may “run amuck”.
If the third-party software goes “amuck”, it is possible that no amount of waiting will permit the system to “settle down”!
All one can do is search out the errant software, and take appropriate action: termination, removal, upgrade, etc.
I have been, quite frankly, surprised that we haven’t seen more issues with third-party software, with this major OS upgrade!
Such is usually far more common than we have been seeing, but it has certainly been happening.
Unless you have a hardware issue—we all hope you don’t!—high Energy use can only occur due to high computer resource use (like CPU, GPU, RAM, disk, networking, etc.) by programs!
The typical culprits will not be the applications you, as the user, have chosen to run and interact with, since, if those “misbehave”, you, typically, notice right off.
So, the usual culprits will be background processes that you usually do not see, unless you more specifically look for them!
This is where Activity Monitor (Launchpad -> Other -> Activity Monitor) comes in!
Note that with the default Views, you will only see “My Processes”.
Change the Views to “All Processes” (I usually run with “All Processes, Hierarchically”, so I can see the relationship between processes and their subprocesses), in order to see what is actually going on, “under the hood”, on your computer.
Note: Unfortunately, it appears that not all background processes have been “instrumented” for Energy use. So the processes and their Energy use, as seen in the Energy tab, of Activity Monitor, is, likely, incomplete. However, fortunately, the overall Energy Impact doesn’t require all processes to be so “instrumented”.
Take a good look around. Reorder the views to show the highest CPU, GPU, etc. “users”.
You may be quite surprised to see what is working your computer so hard!
Now, you can be better equipped to take appropriate action, on your own computer!
Kourkoubas wrote:
I have tried all the 8 steps and to be honest I m offended that after so many people who are saying the have the same problem you still don't reconsider that this is a problem caused by Big Sur . I have also made a clean install of Big Sur and the battery is still problematic .
So my answer is that I have made all the 8 steps and the problem still occurs
The «8 steps» have helped many.
The steps involving Activity Monitor are the most extensive, and, generally, the most helpful.
I suppose I have no alternative but to take your word that you truly tried to track down the culprits, thereby.
The reason why we know that «this is [not] a problem caused by Big Sur», is because (truly) clean installs do not have this issue, except in those few cases where there is a hardware failure.
(I know. You simply don’t want to believe that.)
The sure-fire solution is a truly clean install of Big Sur:
(Note: some lucky few have gone through this without any of their old software causing any problems! That is always a happy coincidence, but is not generally expected behavior!)
Note: the fact that exceeding few have any problems before restoring their third-party software, is what proves that the issues are not between Big Sur and you Mac! (Those few exceptions have verifiable hardware issues. Fortunately, even many such have proven to be non-permanent issues.)
One thing more, you can do, before following the above outlined procedure: make sure to upgrade all your third-party software, even before making your backup. This will decrease your likelihood of running into issues even at the final stages of the procedure.
If you are not completely familiar with and confident in wiping your system and properly installing the OS on a wiped-clean system, it is highly recommended that you make sure your are fully ready to undertake this process before you begin!
Warning: some have had difficulties in not properly wiping their systems clean, or properly installing on such a wiped system! (This is true regardless what version of the OS they were trying to install!) While this is far from any kind of a “fatal” mistake, it can be quite troubling for a beginner!
I have a 2018 MBP 13" and following the upgrade to Big Sur 11.1 was having major battery drain issues correlating with overheating/heavy fan use. Battery would last about 2h following full charge, whereas I could get 6-8h previously with normal use.
After searching multiple forums and trying many tips (waiting for indexing to stop, resetting SMC, NVRAM, rebooting in safe mode etc) I noted in the activity monitor that Google Chrome Helper was using a ton of my CPU. I tried to force quit the program and disable it as instructed through Chrome, but it kept reactivating and consuming 90+% of CPU. I finally completely removed Chrome and related files from my MBP and am just using Safari and this has made a huge difference. No more issues with the fan or overheating and battery life seems back to normal.
Hope this helps others too.
I spoke with Apple customer care and they said that it is normal after the upgrade to Big Sur because Spotlight.app start to make a new indexing of the system (disk). It could take one or two days. After that the battery drain should return to normal.
In my macbook pro under battery icon sometimes I see Spotlight.app under high energy app consumption, so I think it should be reasonable.
to whom may be interested, I solved the issue also thanks to Apple Support.
Long story short, the EFI processes draining my cpu were related to some Xerox printer software apparently obsolete and conflicting with the new OS. Once erased, everything came back to normality and now Big Sur works smoothly and quietly.
My advice is to check Activity Monitor and see what causes the cpu to work so hard and the fans to be on all the time. That's might be the problem. Or at least that was mine.
good luck
I had similar issue after the upgrade, run the top command in terminal and see what app is consuming more CPU. For me it was google chrome consuming almost 80-90% of the CPU. I uninstalled and reinstalled Chrome with the most recent version the issue was resolved for me.
nxahx and @All:
Google Chrome has long been known as a “resource hog”.
However, while that may have been a significant and readily visible contributor, many of us have been trying to help y’all to understand that there are many “housekeeping” operations that “kick in” with a major upgrade of the Operating System (OS): these are indexing and caching operations that help speed up your system, once accomplished.
This was not simply an update, but a major upgrade of the OS.
Not allowing these “housekeeping” operations to complete simply prolongs the natural Energy (CPU, memory, and “disk”) use these operations require.
This is known behavior, of such major upgrades of the OS.
Next time, hopefully y’all will remember this, and schedule such a major upgrade of the OS for a time when you can leave your laptop plugged in, while it does its “housekeeping”.
(However, it could be a long time before we have an upgrade this major.)
I had the same issue. Battery life went to like less than 2 hours, and the fan went on even when just using Safari. It was crazy. A one hour zoom drained my laptop from 100% to 20%.
I think I found the SOLUTION though after calling Apple. Go into your Activity Monitor under CPU, and see what's running the most there. For me it was some sort of demon, with 6 hours of CPU. All I had to do was complete the latest update of Malwarebytes and the the demon was deleted, and the fan immediately slowed and stopped.
Battery seems to be normal now. So I would definitely do this if you have Malwarebytes. If not, still look in CPU and see what's large in there. Hope this helps everyone, as it was super annoying!
hayrettin193 and @All:
This is not a problem with Big Sur.
This is not a problem Apple can fix, except to better educate users about what to expect from a major Operating System (OS) upgrade, such as this major upgrade from Catalina to Big Sur: an upgrade so major that Apple actually increased the major version number, from 10 to 11, for the first time since 2001!
This OS needs to spend some time reindexing your system, your libraries (such as your photo library), and much else, for your user experience within this new OS. I’ll refer to such as “housekeeping” tasks or work.
The more “stuff” you have on your system, the more work the system will need to do to be fully ready for your use!
Unless you have a hardware issue—such as a short-circuit (potentially even within your battery: a most serious situation!)—the only way a computer will use more power is if it is running more CPU computations, and/or more memory/drive work.
Perhaps now is a good time to become familiar with the Activity Monitor (Launchpad -> Other -> Activity Monitor)!
Don’t just look at the default View of My Processes, but look at All Processes (I set this for Hierarchically, so I can see what processes subprocesses are associated with).
The Energy tab, in Activity Monitor is a good view, but not all processes—especially not all Background processes—seem to be “instrumented” for Energy Use.
Additionally, look at the CPU tab, since the more CPU a process uses, the more energy it uses. (Similarly, the more memory operations and storage operations use more energy. Unfortunately, Activity Monitor doesn’t give us the rates of such use, so this is difficult to ascertain. However, such energy use is usually rather ignorable, compared to CPU and GPU use.)
The normal OS background “housekeeping” tasks will “settle down” after a day or two of continuous work, depending upon how large your various (photo, Mail, etc.) libraries are, and how many files you have.
However, there is also the potential for various third party processes to go “out of whack”, with a major new OS!
Using Activity Monitor, as outlined, above, will help you spot such “errant” tasks, as well.
Some of these third party tasks may “settle down” after some time, while some may never “settle down”!
Many third party programs may need to be upgraded, themselves, to be compatible with this major OS upgrade!
This worked for me. Thank you for sharing!
My computer battery was draining within an hour. Looked at Activity Monitor and saw that Google Chrome Helper was using 98% CPU. Once I uninstalled Google Chrome and Forced quit the process in the Activity monitor, it was all better.
After that I did notice what looked like other processes that were in queued and taking up a lot of CPU. "Photoanlaysisd" & "Photolibraryd" were all taking up a total of 98% GPU, probably because they were so backed up. But now, the fan has stopped running continually on my laptop, and its back to having a quiet and fast running Mac.
Welcome, aubeone and @All, to Apple Support Communities!
I have no way of knowing whether the Operating System (OS) “took out” your battery.
However, especially for future reference, this is what is well known, by those of us that are “old timers”:
You can run Activity Monitor, with the View set to All Processes to see what is running on your system, and how much CPU or GPU or Energy they are using. (Note: it appears that not all background processes have been “instrumented” for Energy use. So, the listing of All Processes using significant Energy is likely incomplete. However, since the majority of Energy use is generally due to CPU and GPU use, these will show up under the CPU tab, in Activity Monitor. That being said, though, the total Energy Impact is not dependent upon having all programs “instrumented” for Energy use.)
The Activity Monitor is a good tool for seeing what is going on “under the hood” of your computer.
Any time you wonder what might be going on, on you computer, that might be affecting its responsiveness, Energy use, Heating, etc.; the Activity Monitor can, usually, help you get an idea of what is going on.
(Unfortunately, if your computer has hardware faults, Activity Monitor is not the best tool for recognizing such issues.)
I had the same problem with my 2019 16" MacBookPro: after upgrading Catalina to Big Sur the battery discharge time dropped from nearly 8 hours to just about an hour. Checking the Activity Monitor revealed that one of the processes was using 125% of CPU time (I have no idea what this number could mean as it showed that CPU was used 25% more than its designed capacity). It was not clear what the process was as it only contained letters in the name, something like cebd, but I do not remember the name of the process exactly. Upon calling Apple support and quoting the process name I received a response that this could be related to iCloud. Thus, the advice was:
As a result the process taking 125% of CPU disappeared from my Activity Monitor and the battery life now is back to what it was prior to upgrade to Big Sur. I apologise if I missed some details in the above as I did not record them at the time, but the above should give an idea of a possible solution.
Welcome, ElevatiAnn and @All, to Apple Support Communities!
This is what is well known, by those of us that are “old timers”:
You can run Activity Monitor, with the View set to All Processes to see what is running on your system, and how much CPU or GPU or Energy they are using. (Note: it appears that not all background processes have been “instrumented” for Energy use. So, the listing of All Processes using significant Energy is likely incomplete. However, since the majority of Energy use is generally due to CPU and GPU use, these will show up under the CPU tab, in Activity Monitor. That being said, though, the total Energy Impact is not dependent upon having all programs “instrumented” for Energy use.)
The Activity Monitor is a good tool for seeing what is going on “under the hood” of your computer.
Any time you wonder what might be going on, on you computer, that might be affecting its responsiveness, Energy use, Heating, etc.; the Activity Monitor can, usually, help you get an idea of what is going on.
macOS Big Sur battery drain issue
