Michael Empric
Level 1 (5 points)

Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

After upgrading to Lion, my MacBook Pro battery life has been severly affected. After 1.5 hours of light web browsing, my battery has decreased to 40% from 100% after charging all night.

 

Notes: Spotlight completed indexing the hard drive over night, and the laptop remained plugged in charging. The fans seem to be running normally, not at a higher rate. The backlight is at 50% brightness.

 

Thoughts?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7), 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB Ram

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 7:02 AM

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Michael Empric

Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

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  • by Sir Allan,

    Sir Allan Sir Allan Jul 27, 2011 10:41 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 27, 2011 10:41 PM in response to Michael Empric

    Same here:

     

    On a Macbook Pro 15”, medio 2010

     

    Got 2 hours on a 100% full one, no apps running :-(

  • by bertmbp49,

    bertmbp49 bertmbp49 Jul 27, 2011 11:39 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 27, 2011 11:39 PM in response to Michael Empric

    I had the low battery life problem with my MBP 15 inch, from June 2011, it dropped to three and a half houres.

    I read in the forum about Skype, as soon as I stopped Skype, battery life changed, without reloading,

    from 3 houres to 8.15.

    So Skype(maybe in combination with Lion) was the problem.

     

    bert

  • by saerts73,

    saerts73 saerts73 Jul 27, 2011 11:55 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 27, 2011 11:55 PM in response to Michael Empric

    hmm, I'm gonna check if Skype is the issue of my poor battery life...

  • by Prodactief.nu,

    Prodactief.nu Prodactief.nu Jul 28, 2011 12:38 AM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 28, 2011 12:38 AM in response to Michael Empric

    Same here i own a Macbook Pro 15 inch, i7, 8 gb ram, 1333 mhz DDR3. My first Mac after 2 decades of Windows....

    I Loved my macbook until the "update" to Lion.

    Worked this morning for 1,5 hours and battery goes from full to 12 minute remaning and gets really hot.

     

    Please solve this or will need a downgrade to get rid of Lion, i just loved the qualities before Lion!

     

    Anyone any ideas?

  • by Prodactief.nu,

    Prodactief.nu Prodactief.nu Jul 28, 2011 12:40 AM in response to bertmbp49
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 28, 2011 12:40 AM in response to bertmbp49

    I don't use skipe at all and have the same bad battery performance.

  • by jesslorenzo,

    jesslorenzo jesslorenzo Jul 28, 2011 1:31 AM in response to Prodactief.nu
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 28, 2011 1:31 AM in response to Prodactief.nu

    Same here.... its my first mac after a long time. If this is not fixed soon, will have to go back to snow leapard.

  • by fabriziocardinale,

    fabriziocardinale fabriziocardinale Jul 28, 2011 1:52 AM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 28, 2011 1:52 AM in response to Michael Empric

    Same here.  With my brand new I7 MBP I never got more than 5 hours in the battery life estimation... but I never even got this 5 hours

  • by jesslorenzo,

    jesslorenzo jesslorenzo Jul 28, 2011 2:08 AM in response to fabriziocardinale
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 28, 2011 2:08 AM in response to fabriziocardinale

    MBP 15' I7 2011.  After a few charging cycles, I noticed the average life of a full charge is barely 3hrs with normal workload. This includes a few vids in youtube, surfing, typing a document on Word.

  • by Wick_sk,

    Wick_sk Wick_sk Jul 28, 2011 2:11 AM in response to jesslorenzo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 28, 2011 2:11 AM in response to jesslorenzo

    Yep it is getting worse for me too. I wonder - did anyone try a clean install? I upgraded my 2010 15" MacBook Pro so was wonderign whether anyone with  clean install has the same issue? I can't do clean install now - don't have my backups here but it is worth a try...

  • by William Kucharski,

    William Kucharski William Kucharski Jul 28, 2011 2:19 AM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 6 (15,232 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 28, 2011 2:19 AM in response to Michael Empric

    I'm getting better battery life with Lion than I ever saw with Snow Leopard.

     

    At first I thought it was just a miscalculation, so I ran it down to poweroff and it was very close to the estimate, which is at least 30 minutes more than I saw with 10.6.8.

     

    2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo MBP.

  • by Wick_sk,

    Wick_sk Wick_sk Jul 28, 2011 2:21 AM in response to William Kucharski
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 28, 2011 2:21 AM in response to William Kucharski

    Upgrade or clean install?

  • by William Kucharski,

    William Kucharski William Kucharski Jul 28, 2011 2:24 AM in response to Wick_sk
    Level 6 (15,232 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 28, 2011 2:24 AM in response to Wick_sk

    Upgrade.

     

    I also notice most people complaining of poor battery life are viewing something encoded with Flash, and Adobe has been a bit wishy-washy as to whether Flash is more processor-intensive in Lion compared to Snow Leopard.

     

    If so, that alone may be the reason people are seeing reduced battery life.

  • by Davon Semris,

    Davon Semris Davon Semris Jul 28, 2011 3:50 AM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (6 points)
    iPhone
    Jul 28, 2011 3:50 AM in response to Michael Empric

    We should indeed wait for 10.7.1.

     

    I did some testing myself, trying to find the drain culprit...

     

    Apart from other stuff I thought Spotlight (https://discussions.apple.com/message/15771076#15771076) and Flash were causing the problem. But after the testing I have to admit it doesn't matter at all if Spotlight is off or Flash is not installed... It doesn't matter if you reset power control either.

     

    Hopefully 10.7.1 will be out soon.

  • by Pixelation,

    Pixelation Pixelation Jul 28, 2011 7:29 AM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Jul 28, 2011 7:29 AM in response to Michael Empric

    Just found this thread, and I'm (unfortunately) glad to see I'm not the only one having this issue.

     

    This is my set up:

     

    Model Identifier:          MacBookPro4,1

    Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo

    Processor Speed:          2.5 GHz

    Number of Processors:          1

    Total Number of Cores:          2

    L2 Cache:          6 MB

    Memory:          4 GB

     

    I haven't had a chance to monitor how quickly my battery has been dropping, but I know it's been a significant drop.

     

    I pulled up the specs on my battery just a moment ago and this is what coconutBattery reported:

     

    Battery Charge:

    Current charge: 4382 mAh

    Maximum charge: 5032 mAh

    86% Battery life

     

    Battery Capacity:
    Current capacity: 5032 mAh

    Design capacity: 5300 mAh

     

    Details:

    Battery loadcycles: 218

    Battery temp: 87.0F

    Battery power usage: 30.7 Watt

     

    And like everyone else here, I've seen a major drop since upgrading to Lion. I can only assume it's a software issue. I know my battery (and the Mac itself) are old, but I was still seeing at least 3 hrs of life, now I'm only getting around an hour or so. Battery dies off very quickly in sleep mode too.

  • by Nick1100,

    Nick1100 Nick1100 Jul 28, 2011 7:52 AM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 28, 2011 7:52 AM in response to Michael Empric

    Yup, add me to the list. I bought a 2011 2.7 Ghz 13" Macbook Pro right before Lion came out and was enjoying at least 6 hours of battery life with normal use under Snow Leopard. Now I get less than 3 hrs after upgrading to Lion. I reset the SMC and calibrated the battery ( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1490 ) but neither made a difference. Absolutely terrible.

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