Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

to the questions on running snow leopard on the new macbook pros.....

supposedly you can only run lion on them.

also, they came pre-installed with lion and they gave you no install cds. they told me I could download lion for free if i needed to on the app store....hhahaa.! i wouldn't pay a dime for Lion and its stinky quality! I do kind of like the launch pad and the motion swipes. but all in all...I'm not impressed with lion. I've been through panther, tiger, i briefly used leopard, experimented on snow leopard.....and they were ALL better than lion. now.... when it comes to some of the concepts for Lion OSX i think they have some good ideas....it is just the execution part that needs some work!!

I will say that so far, well....let me becareful saying this because i might need to get a defective battery replaced on my macbook pro, that regular windows power pcs don't hold a candle to the apple hardware. case closed. i didn't just go out and get a laptop. I took a year researching for a new laptop even though my old HP laptop was being held together with ducktape! my HP (a 2007 model) had only two years of use because it was sitting around in a box most of the time not being used. two years of use and it was already falling apart. while my apple powerbook g4 lasted me 6 whole years!!! and it did give me 7 hours or more of battery life. sometimes I would forget to charge the thing because it lasted so freaking long.

another compliment i would make to apple is I like the new ac adapter magnetic connector. it is way better than the older one that had that male receptor with a coil that got warped each time you would plug it in. that was one of the things that eventually led to my powerbook's death. not from years of use, but from the ac adapter plug getting stuck in the port and having to be manually removed by taking the whole computer apart.

so all in all, apple is doing great in the area of hardware, but software...no.

and most of this hardware is being assembled in China. not in the usa. Most of the software is created in the US, some of it in Europe, Basically two continents combined can't even get half the job done right. why don't we just have China do everything? (that was sarcasm)

Maybe if they moved the hardware aspect to the US and Europe people would come to appreciate the process more. They would learn all that goes into it. I didn't fully appreciate computers until I opened one up for the first time (my old powerbook). That's when I knew I wanted to study computers.

-----regarding my battery issue. I'm going to make a backup of my virtual machine on norton ghost. and then back up my mac with something else.

I hate to say it, but I will have to go apple care.

rennyz27 wrote:

... 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.

Although it appears to be falling out of favor from the powers that be, as evidenced by being buried in the Applications folder and no longer preassigned to a function key, the Dashboard is still there and is still running. A Dashboard widget is a full blown process and many of them are constantly updating info or doing some form of processing, thus consuming resources (CPU cycles, bandwidth, etc.). So as you rampage thru the system in search of "wasteful" apps, do not forget to disable or uninstall widgets you do not need or use.

Yup... I've disabled Dashboard completely using a bunch of Terminal commands, but thank you...

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?

New Macs come Lion-preloaded. If, however, you have an old installation disk or USB stick for Snow Leopard, or a friend with SL installed on his or her Mac, you should be able to do a complete, clean install -- first, absolutely deleting Lion, and then installing Snow Leopard from the other medium. People have complained that Lion leaves behind residue, but it's not magical: it can be deleted, too. Use Disk Utility to wipe your volumes, then install SL from the third source, then put back all your other files (which you have of course first saved to Time Machine or a hard drive). It takes time but it's doable.

When Lion fried my MB Air in July, I had Apple replace the logic board and SSD; it also reinstalled Lion, which I no longer wanted. I deleted Lion and did a new SL install in one day, using the USB stick that came with the Air (SL 10.6.5), upgrading back to 10.6.8, and then replacing my file structure and files (which took the longest time). Just be patient, keep good notes, use a reliable system mapper (I like Daisy Disk). My battery life is okay, nothing spectacular (too many processes running in background, just as I like it), but I haven't had any subsequent problems with overheating on my Air. (I never installed Lion on my MBP, glad I didn't.)

It's too bad that Apple doesn't maintain complete online archives of past operating systems, as you really don't want to go the peer-to-peer route and download an unknown application as important and intimate as an OS. Find a friend or make a new one who has SL available.

So where's OS 10.8 or 11.0 to erase the bad taste that Lion's leaving behind pretty much everywhere? Apple is resilient, it can do it. Needs to, to protect the brand.

MacBook Pro was badly affected with the Lion install initially but with the update to 10.7.3, battery life is considerably improved without having conditioned the battery yet (later to-day because the battery didn't run down yesterday which it normally would have). No other changes (no gfx)

Running Google Chrome as my preferred browser.

Pleased.............

After backing up and installing 10.7.3, I've been doing some testing using Franc's login prodecedure and, using firefox, the mbp has managed a whopping 5 hours using netflix with another half an hour of youtube as long as I keep gfxCardStatus running the show. Conditioned the battery (which had taken a large hit with the daily charging) and things are looking very good. Looks like this is managing nearly double the battery life when using silverlight than my previous white macbook.

A Note: I always use fan control because every macbook's I've ever used from 2004 - 2011 gets incredibly hot to the touch even when well ventilated, i.e. the harddrive in my white macbook was eaten in 9 months.

Hey All,

I must say, in general my system seems to be running longer than pre-update. I haven't had a chance to make a full test and time the depletion but hopefully will have time for that tonight.

In the meantime, I know this will not apply to all suffering with the issue, but, Apple released a 2.x update for some 2010 models today. My MBP is on that list for a 2.6 update.

Just wondering if anyone else has picked one up for their system and has it got "hidden" benefits to our battery related woes?

I will not update the EFI until I have performed a test on 10.7.3 and then throw the EFI on for one further run through.... But 1.9 -> 2.6 seems like a big jump just for Lion Wireless recovery???

Ok just to share my findings on 10.7.3.

I had moved to SL after Lion battery problems became evident and no fix in site, however with the release of 10.7.3 I've done the bundle upgrade and while I nocticed some improvement I still wasn't 100% happy. My early 2011 MBP was running around 13-14W on light use (browsing on WIFI etc) so I then decided to do some more playing around and do a battery discharge and SMC reset. I also have gfxCardStatus enabled and is runnign on integrated whilest on battery.

After doing both these procedures my MBP is now running at 9-10W on the same use and reported battery life is back to what I was getting on SL, however as I've found out this means nothing so will be logging my battery usage and seeing what happens, buuuut....my battery is showing 55% full and reporting 4:07 hours left while working, yes it does fluctuates down depending on what I do that is to be expected, so far so good.

I've uploaded a screenshot of the before and after. For the battery discharge I closed out of all applications when I was runnign on reserve and let it go to sleep then left it for 2 hours then started charging after the 2 hours. I then started back up so I could log the battery usage with Battery Monitor App, I performed the SMC Reset after discharging the battery for 2 hours and just after I plugged the charger back in.

https://www.dropbox.com/gallery/11701782/1/mbp2011_battery?h=75f329

What app do you use for logging your battery usage?

I think it's called battery monitor, I found it in the app store

milwaukee_bronze wrote:

Hey All,

Just wondering if anyone else has picked one up for their system and has it got "hidden" benefits to our battery related woes?

I will not update the EFI until I have performed a test on 10.7.3 and then throw the EFI on for one further run through.... But 1.9 -> 2.6 seems like a big jump just for Lion Wireless recovery???

not on nieces mbp. both got them ship with Lion. one hold 7 hours or more tha other about 3. no change to either with 10.7.3 or firmware update, but they really only for wireless troubles. took 3 hour battery one back to Apple and they simlpy replace it. so no Lion problem but battery problem and needs to be fixed soon. will see how long new one last.

As some of you remember I was on SL 10.6.7 until Lion 10.7.3 simply SL battery life was great. Since I had both OS installed (dual boot) I could make fair decision what is better for me and my MB (subjective 100%) and Lion was not even close to SL performance.

When Lion 10.7.3 was released I and read some of the posts where people could see some positive signs I decided to give a solid try to Lion 10.7.3

I did clean install (MBP 2011, 8GB RAM, SSD) with full update straight after. Later on I added only basics such as Sophos, Chrome, Skype, Adium, MS Office and not much more. Most of the time I run constantly are Chrome, iCal, Mail, Sophos and Skype only when I need to make a call (Skype kills SL and Lion).

What can I say after almost 2 weeks? Battery life is much improved, I'd say almost 85% (maybe more) of SL. It's good enough that I switched to Lion as the only Apple OS on my machine. I like Lion because it's good OS and it brings a lot of better functionality.

While I was writing this Adium, Chrome, iCal, Mail, Quicksilver, Sophos were running. Screen brightness was on 6 bars, keyboard on two, wifi on and battery was showing pretty good estimation (pic).

PS No widgets.

Hello DrChandra,

I've been following this thread from 6 or 7 months ago and your comments are a of good reference for me.

I've got a 2011 MacBook Pro 15" and, as many other users, I switched from SL to Lion and noticed, immediately, the drastic battery life reduction. As I'm doing transoceanic flights at least once a month and I need to work on the flight, for me that's important.

I lived a very bad experience when returning back to SL from Lion (different archive structure for Mail, backups from TimeMachine not compatible, ...) and, in any case, I won't live that again.

It really pays my atention your evolution! You seem to have accepted that Lion battery duration will never be the one of SL and you just accept it, isn't it?

Now, I normally have 7 hours in SL (all under control: no bluetooth, no wifi, low screen brightness, no keyboard backlight, no flash, gfxcard, coconutbattery on the background to check consumption, etc, etc) and, anyway, under these conditions, I think battery should last more than this!

So, my question is: if i return back to Lion, what would I find? 5 hours? Not for me!!!

As you said, I'll wait one or two years for a really major battery improvement and then I'll renew my mac!

Bst Rgds!

I just recently bought a 13" MBP and have returned it twice and going for my third tomm.
The battery life is not at all what I expected....feel like I've gotten an HP disguised as a MBP!

Can anyone tell me what is happening to my macbook pro? Coconut Battery says it is 18 weeks old and has had 47 load cycles. Its current capacity is 5222 mAh, and design 5770 (90%). It is the 13 inch MBP 2.8 GHz. iSTAT NANO says the same, and I have always been careful about the temperature. I don't know what's wrong.