Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

has anyone gotten this latest update to there OS? it just popped up in my updates and I did it, but I can't tell what the battery life is because my battery was just about dead when I installed it. Just wondering if it's anything substantial

Hi installed 10.7.3 on my MBA and DEFINITELY seeing lower operating temps and longer battery life. Sorry no 'scientific' data but there is a real and substantial benefit.

I have a MBP 13.3" (early 2011), and after installing 10.7.3 (Combo update - 1.2GB), my battery life is *MUCH* better.

Example:

I left my house today at 4:15pm, used it for about 2 hours at my in-laws, came home, used for another 45-50 minutes, and have 63% remaining

Previously it would have been dead or near dead.

I haven't tested with video (ESPN3/WatchESPN or Slingbox), but I'll have a chance this week.

Other improvements are many fewer spinning rainbow wheels (like 1/5-1/10) and faster performance on battery.

I cannot validate "cooler temps" - it's darn hot sitting on my lap (Apple censors - REALLY?).

Thanks for this! I am getting better battery life after doing this while doing low level browsing. I discovered something similar after logging into migration assistant and progressing through it until it "closes all other programs" and then backing out.

It's happening to me as well. I think i might have to call apple care, but I'm afraid they are going to tell me that I should take it in. I *just* bought this macbook pro from our local Apple store less than a month ago. When I first started using it I didn't notice the problem. it seemed like I could get a good 7 hours with the ac adapter. within the last two weeks I noticed power related issues. Last night I went downstairs to do homework and i took my macbook pro with me without the ac adapter.Within only 5 minutes on battery it was already down to 88% (and this was after having my laptop on ac dapter ALL day. After having problems with it the day before I had tried to shutdown the laptop and let it charge with everything closed. I had only a couple processes running and I had checked the activity monitor and even checked in Terminal process command-line to see what was running. nothing looked abnormal.

So last night, downstairs, I was only able to get in about 4 hours on battery power(and that was down to the point that the message popped up and said you need to plug it in). To compare this, my old hp from 2007(the one that was replaced with this new macbook pro with the i7 processor) which only has a tiny about HD left and SINGLE-core processor, weighs about 5X more than the macbook pro, and had only 768 MB of RAM-ran about four hours on battery. This doesn't seem right to me. As soon as I plugged in the adapter power it went to 20% and then it went up to about 75% in less than 10 minutes of charging!

I should also maybe mention that I have noticed in the last month, when my macbook pro charging, it has lately been triggering the circuit breaker on my circuit. In my bathroom nextdoor (which shares the circuit with my office) the outlet has one of those reset buttons and i keep hearing this loud clicking sound coming from the bathroom. Thank god we had a circuit breaker and not a fusebox or we'd be in trouble. the button keeps resetting the line in the bathroom because I guess there is some kind of surge when I charge my laptop. I tried unplugging almost everything that runs on the same circuit, and i experimented to see what was causing it. I mean, i only had a couple things in use when I was charging, but it did initially help when I unplugged the other computer i have. But then lately, I've had it happen again. and it only starts happening when I have my macbook pro plugged in to ac power. this clicking noise in the wall has not once happened when the laptop is unplugged. maybe this isn't related, but i find it very suspicious.

I'd just like to thank everyone for getting this thread back on topic, and for taking the time to experiment and share their results. I'm sure their are plenty of people following this thread who appreciate it.

I'm on 10.7.2 considering the upgrade to 10.7.3. Down to 4 to 4.5 hours of Safari and Openoffice time before I'm all dead - Early 2011 15" MBP. Nothing of note installed or running.

Okay, after 10.7.3 update, SMC reset, and logout/login trick, I got 5 hours of continues use with Chrome running a few tabs. I did absolutely no video though. My meter says 10% remaining, but that's dropping fast. I don't think 10.7.3 is any different than 10.7.2.

Three charges with 10.7.3 and very careful use gives about 5 hours. Use it nornally 1/3 screen brightness, Pages, Internet and a bit of video, this drops the life down to 3hrs, not good, SL gave me 7hrs easy. Conclusion, still very very poor Apple.

I didn't see one note in the 10.7.3 update description about fixing the battery issue. I really hope that they're going to fix this in 10.7.4, but that could be months away, if they even do anything about it. I'm not holding my breath.

By the way, have we had multiple confirmations that 10.6.7 doesn't mess with the battery? I know 10.6.8 is no good, but I'm reluctant to leave 10.6.6 that is working so well. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", they say.

Heading for 250 k views. Not bad. Since Lion killed my late 2008 MacBook unibody C2D from almost 4 hours to slightly over 1 (one) hour I am a bit more than disappointed. It was too late to go back when I realised it (2 weeks no travelling). Lion 3 didn't bring any improvement.

Actually it would be time for a new machine but that won't happen with Lion. So my question is, would it be possible to remove Lion from a new MBP and install SL? Or are the new ones kind of locked for lion?

papalapapp wrote:

Actually it would be time for a new machine but that won't happen with Lion. So my question is, would it be possible to remove Lion from a new MBP and install SL? Or are the new ones kind of locked for lion?

I beleive that new ones only run Lion and canot go back to Snow Leopard. But are plenty of near new ones on ebay and such that will if you want go back to Snow like some. Two my nieces got new MBPs for xmas and one very good battery, one poor. same shop, exact time. is a problem for sure that new combo update not fixed. they going to apple shop tomorrow to demand replace one.

Thanks for your reply. That doesn't sound good. I was hoping to just throw in my SL install disc and be happy again. Well, I might also buy one and have it replaced again and again until I get a "good" one. Digital cherry picking...

boyfromoz wrote:

I beleive that new ones only run Lion and canot go back to Snow Leopard.

This may sound sacrilegious in the Temple of Steve, but I happen to have an external FW HDD that I used with my old Feb'08 MBP that croaked in Xmas. It has two partitions: one is a clone of the MBP's internal HDD with 10.5.8/Leopard and the second was a testbench of 10.6.2/Snow Leopard. A few weeks back I had it plugged on my current Oct'11 MBP that came with 10.7.2/Lion factory installed, and I accidentally started the Startup Volume applet in System Preferences and much to my surprise, both partitions were eligible as startup volumes. Tested both and true indeed, the latest generation MBP booted without errors from either.

I did not do any extensive testing and I'm sure the fancy multitouch trackpad probably had limited functionality with the old 10.5 OS that was compiled way before the hardware was even invented. But I did go as far as opening Console and found no unexpected error messages regarding the startup.

So downgrade *may* work. As discussed elsewhere, use an external HDD as a testbench. Heck, if you have the time, try and see if the SL Migration Utility works backwards!

Courcoul wrote:

boyfromoz wrote:

I beleive that new ones only run Lion and canot go back to Snow Leopard.

This may sound sacrilegious in the Temple of Steve, but I happen to have an external FW HDD that I used with my old Feb'08 MBP that croaked in Xmas. It has two partitions: one is a clone of the MBP's internal HDD with 10.5.8/Leopard and the second was a testbench of 10.6.2/Snow Leopard. A few weeks back I had it plugged on my current Oct'11 MBP that came with 10.7.2/Lion factory installed, and I accidentally started the Startup Volume applet in System Preferences and much to my surprise, both partitions were eligible as startup volumes. Tested both and true indeed, the latest generation MBP booted without errors from either.

I did not do any extensive testing and I'm sure the fancy multitouch trackpad probably had limited functionality with the old 10.5 OS that was compiled way before the hardware was even invented. But I did go as far as opening Console and found no unexpected error messages regarding the startup.

So downgrade *may* work. As discussed elsewhere, use an external HDD as a testbench. Heck, if you have the time, try and see if the SL Migration Utility works backwards!

That's not bad to say. it is of lot of help to others i would believe and is very much worth a try on ext disc. my macbook is older so no good for me to test and Lion runs very well. just versions and no arrow on bars annoy me, b=mainly versions but will get used to them. mainly sort out niece's macbook first but they want lion and never used Snow leopard, so no use telling them to try back.lol

thank you for this

Another update. As per my friend's recommendation, I uninstalled the ever popular GFX Card Status and only had Safari running (WiFi). I enabled 'Automatic Graphic Switching' in System Preferences and let my Mac do its thing. Battery life seemed better, I actually got 6 hours from the battery, and my battery health seems to have increased as well. I recommend having only essential programs running while you use your battery. Also, I've stopped using any third party apps like iStat Menus which takes up resources as well. I've never really had heat problems (thank God) so I don't feel the need to monitor it anymore. I come to rely more on the built in apps for things like battery life/health instead of third party apps like Coconut Battery, etc.. I trust the Mac's built in System Report more. I would suggest a lot of you out there do the same.