Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

What annoys us all more is Apples silence. I can reproduce the problem from 6 hours to 3 hours with the launching of 1 app. Now Apple, that is not hard to diagnose.

 

I can only agree on that. In light of the fact that Apple has recognized the iPhone 4S battery problem relatively quickly and that Apple engineers are obviously contacting affected customers in order to investigate the issue, it is very disappointing that the Macbook battery drain with Lion seems to be ignored completely since months.

Even if Apple has no clue about a possible cause of the problem yet, it would be nice to be heard.

In the same boat as everyone else above, wanted to add my voice to the call for Apple to address these issues.

Hardware:

MBP 13" (May 2011)

OSX 10.7.2

4 GB memory

2.3 GHz i5

Used to estimate 7-8 hours of battery life remaining on a full charge, now never exceeds 3:30.  Haven't timed the fuctional battery, but it's remarkably shorter.

Solutions tried already:

- Reset the SMC

- Reset PRAM/NVRAM (as suggested by some help article I read)

I got temporary results (the battery estimate shoots up upon first powering on), but upon opening any App (especially web browsers), the estimate plummets.  I am not using my computer any differently than I did before the battery life shortened.

This reminds me starkly of 2006, when I bought a brand new Vaio running XP (which I chose for extreme battery life) and upgraded to Vista 4 months later, only to find my battery life reduced by two-thirds.  Apple, I thought you were better than this?

I got tired of Apple's "non-response" to this issue and finally downgraded my 2010 MBP back to Snow Leopard over the weekend and since then I've had zero crashes and normal battery life restored. Lion is the buggest OS I've used since Vista. Apple should be ashamed.

My experience and the evidence posted in the thread points to this issue being caused by 3rd party software that has not been properly (re-)coded or developed for Lion.

I wouldn't be pointing the finger at Apple for "non-response" or claiming that they should be "ashamed", I would be finding out the software that is causing the problem and calling out the developer's of that software.

In my case the two culprits were Cisco Anytime Connect VPN client and Path Finder. Once I addressed these (deleted the former, only used the latter sparingly or on mains power), my early 2011 MBP went from 2 hours on a full charge to 6+ hours on a full charge.

Thanks FastTJR, the problem also exists with Iphoto, doing nothing, sitting their minimized. And your point is then?

@FastTJR: nope. Either you trust what I've written before or you don't. Either ways the approach to solve this issue you have just suggested didn't work for most of other users here nor for me. Therfore I am wasting time even being polite and explainig you why I don't trust what you are trying to claim (this is a dejavù).

That said goodbye and thank you for not stalking people trying to get solved a real Lion issue by Apple.

PS The hint on how to get aware of what my system loads at login was really necessary (it was sarcasm, for the chronicles).

So since you're pointing the finger solely at 3rd party developers, explain how folks in this same thread, including myself have tried using only apple apps, safari, mail, iphoto, etc and yet still experienced abnormal battery life? Just because a method you tried appears to work, doesn't mean it applies to all other apple hardware. There are several cases of your "solution" being applied in this thread only for the user to come back a day or so later and report the issue still exists. As a customer, the least they can do is acknowledge there's a problem. The support bulletin referenced earlier in this thread is not an admission of that but rather shifting the blame on developers. Its also widely documented the numerous issues users experience with Lion, outside of this battery one. In my personal experience I never had this many issues until I upgraded to Lion so I stand by what I said.

JuiceZ,

You're absolutely right.

Lion is not your bride, your son, your daughter, your best friend... it's a piece of software, and Apple is not a perfect company (Jobs has quite a different perspective on it all now, I assure you.) No personal offence should be taken here if others cannot make their products work. And this isn't the first time.

I put Lion on three separate MacBook Pro's, didn't install or run third party software, and ran Safari and Mail with about a 3 hour battery life.

Apple has a problem. Period.

marysplacestudio wrote:

 

I put Lion on three separate MacBook Pro's, didn't install or run third party software, and ran Safari and Mail with about a 3 hour battery life.

 

Apple has a problem. Period.

It is exactly what we are all keep saying.

About Lion, I like it apart of this battery issue and I didn't experience so many stability problems as other are claiming, at least not more than with SL (in my experience the worst one was Leopard 10.5).

Following a total Lion re-install last night downloaded from Apple, only running Apple software, my battery life is reporting 6hrs.  I am monitoring actual use on one charge since doing this and will report back.  So far normal use, bit of online banking, emails and stuff, standby all day and i have 6:16hrs left!

lesliefromstockton-on-tees wrote:

 

Following a total Lion re-install last night downloaded from Apple, only running Apple software, my battery life is reporting 6hrs.  I am monitoring actual use on one charge since doing this and will report back.  So far normal use, bit of online banking, emails and stuff, standby all day and i have 6:16hrs left!

That sounds awesome: if you keep your laptop in sleep mode for about 12 hours the battry life calculator will tell you that it will last more time than prior the sleep was triggered… Isn't that incredible or what?

I have skype running and other apple software - safari (facebook and google reader tabs open), ichat, mail and itunes.

After unplugging the ac power, it showed 5.30 hrs and within a minutes changed to 4.30 hrs and then again in next 2 minutes showed 5.05 hrs remaining.  Let's see how long it lasts.

Same problem here:  2010 Macbook Pro "upgraded" to Lion last weekend.  2 1/2 hours battery life now, where before I could get 5 or 6 hours.  I've tried the things mentioned on this thread to no avail.

This problem has been occuring since July and Apple still hasn't fixed it?  I guess I'll have to restore back to Snow Leopard this weekend.

First time poster here, but I have been reading this thread for a long time, and I wanted to share my experiences with you.

BACKSTORY

When I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion on my 13 Inch 2010 MacBook Pro...I too lost my battery life.  It went from 6-7 to 2-3 hours.  I tried everything...nothing worked.  I tried installing Lion without upgrading from 10.6.8...battery was still the same. The other day I restored my MacBook to 10.6.3 using my recovery disks that shipped with the unit when I purchased it.  Battery life seemed better (3-4 hours), but I wanted the security of 10.6.8 and the app store, so I upgraded to 10.6.8.  Battery issues returned....2-3 hours again.  By this time I realized that I might as well upgrade to Lion through the AppStore...I really liked the new features like full screen apps, and the touchpad gestures.  After the upgrade to Lion...battery life was crummy again...2-3 hours.

POSSIBLE FIX

As I went through my applications folder on my NAS Server I stumbled upon an application I had not used for awhile called Watts.  It is battery calibration software.  It helps you to monitor and recalibrate your battery (you can do this without the software also) for optimal performance.  Anyways, once I installed the software and recalibrated my battery life went back up to 6-7 hours again. I'm not sure if this will work for everyone, but I just wanted to share my experiences.

http://binarytricks.com/- Free for 30 Days.

Or do it without Watts (see below)

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/9036.html