Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Poikkeus wrote:

 

Do you want to know why MBP battery life under Lion is so disappointing? Read on.

 

1. SL: 10.6.0 to 10.6.6. With Snow Leopard, the battery life was, for many, stable and relatively long lasting. One could use Safari for about seven hours, no problem.

2. SL 10.6.8 and Lion. With the 10.6.8 upgrade and Lion, things changed. Using Safari might leave you with a battery of around three to five hours, depending on screen brightness. But why the decline in battery life? In April and May '11, Apple released several firmware upgrades. Just after the firmware updates, the latest set of battery problems started happening.

 

In all likelihood, the upgrades were in preparation for the power-hungry Lion, which uses a variety of full-screen applications and the iOS Mission Control. Lion was released in July.

 

In short, 10.6.8 and related firmware upgrades increased energy requirements, but also decreased MBP battery life as a result. 

 

What Apple intends to do about this is another issue. (Maybe reduce promised battery life to four hours?)

There's something I can't grasp in your thesis.

Do you think it is a firmware problem? If it is so, it wouldn't explain why people downgrading to SL 10..6.7 are getting better battery performances than under Lion 10.7.x.

Assuming that they've done those firmware upgrades you're talking about. I can't understand how the two things are correlated: if an user would do those firmware upgrades and then downgrade to an older OS X version, those new low-levels routines that ***** up more battery will still be used by the OS.

To me the problem could be related with some new hardware driver being used since 10.6.8

milwaukee_bronze wrote:

 

So after I calmed down a little and put my rational head back on,

 

Have you ever tried with chamomile? Some say it is also very helpfull with other disorders intestine related.

Has anyone tried running their OS, using as little of the new UI features as possible? No full-screen, no spaces, etc.

I've been working this way since first thing this morning, intensively running InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop CS5.5, Acrobat Pro, Mail, Chrome (multiple tabs), Calendar, MS Word, a time logging app and streaming music through iTunes (using WiFi), plus three or four other apps and several background utilities. The laptop is connected to a 27" Thunderbolt Apple display, I am running the Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad (so Bluetooth is also on) and I've not shut down the unit since yesterday morning.

I'm running a 2011 MBP 17 with 8GB RAM.

Interestlingly, the fan hasn't been howling at all today (over 7 working hours, and at its worst there's a low, steady murmur) and nothing's been hanging as it usually has after a few hours, since installing Lion and using its new UI features. I can no longer heat my lunch on the laptop, as it's been running a lot cooler that it has for weeks.

This is probably another one of Apple's stinkers, like Antennagate, where they know there's a potential problem even before launch, but ask for neither permission or forgiveness . I'm sure they're working on the best possible cure (and will give it to us as soon as it's in a respectable state).

I avoid using the battery as much as I can these days, because I can only imagine what damage this high drain rate is doing to it, but I found it so interesting today that avoiding the sexy new UI features seems to tax my MBP far less now.

Would love to know if it makes a difference to anyone else.

Yes, I have. I don't use full screen or spaces. And still terrible battery life once I start simple browsing.

2007 MacBook Pro...same issues here.  It has always run hot, but it get's ridiculously hot now... fully charged new battery dead in a hour of web browsing or iTunes use.  Find a fix and get it out to us apple... this is pretty poor.

Rayced wrote:

 

There's something I can't grasp in your thesis.

Firmware is simply a set of sofrware instructions that are "read-only" on a computer. But ultimately, firmware is just software.

Frankly, I don't have any information relating to battery improvements relative to 10.6.7. However, we do know that the recent battery issues are strongly correlated with 10.6.8 - which, tellingly, was released along with a SMC Firmware Update. The System Management Controller deals with power, sleep, and devices.

How can a user downgrade to SL and improve battery performance? Typically, the user will have to either partition a drive and install SL on the blank segment, or do a fresh install on on the drive. In either case, the result is that the Lion segment of the HD is erased and replaced with other software. SMC problem solved.

I'm not ruling out the idea that the battery problem could be related to "some new hardware driver." But given the fact that the 10.6.8 Firmware release was (1) an SMC update and (2) strongly correlated with battery power loss, I think we've found the smoking gun.

I don't think it is firmware related. Why? the firmware updates were only for certain models. My model (late 2010) has no update since well before then, and has the same battery life problem.

alainca1,

Do you use Lion? If so, then the Firmware update related to 10.6.8 was applied to your MBP, or the same changes happened with your Lion upgrade.

If you don't use Lion, then I'd have to agree that your battery woes are from elsewhere.

I still think the issues is in the Kernel, maybe the AppleIntelCPUPowerManagemnt.kext file. I think powermanagement is not optimized which is causing computers to run hotter and drain more battery.

I am using LIon.

Perhaps I am reading the information wrong on the following page: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1237

The latest MBP firmware for my model, mid 2010, is version 1.9, released August 26, 2010.

The November 2011 updated firmware you are refering to only applies to late 2011 models.

The latest firmware for early 2011 models is from October 2011.

So I completed the first 2 tests

Clean SL 10.6.7 vs Clean 10.7.2

I gotta tell you all, They are so close in drain over a 2hour period that I am starting to believe this is a software thing introduced by "upgrading" from SL to Lion.

I have started to test on my standard partition and will see how the performance is here.

I have tried to be as controlled as I can IE:

Screen Brightness 50%, Keyboard Brightness: 100% same apps running (no tinkering with subsystems).

I can verify that OpenGL apps:  IE: Twitter and Firefox do trigger Discrete in SL as they do in Lion so clearly this is not the direct cause of the problem. 

I will let you know the outcome of all test and find a way to upload my geeky excel sheet.  ;-(

C.

milwaukee_bronze,

Keep up the good work. I look forward to your upcoming results!

alainca1,

I think we might have a misunderstanding.

I did not refer to the November 2011 firmware. I stated that the relevant firmware was applied either in the 10.6.8 Firmware, or with the Lion update. Apparently, your system was altered as a result of the Lion installation.

Poikkeus wrote:

 

Firmware is simply a set of sofrware instructions that are "read-only" on a computer. But ultimately, firmware is just software.

 

Frankly, I don't have any information relating to battery improvements relative to 10.6.7. However, we do know that the recent battery issues are strongly correlated with 10.6.8 - which, tellingly, was released along with a SMC Firmware Update. The System Management Controller deals with power, sleep, and devices.

 

How can a user downgrade to SL and improve battery performance? Typically, the user will have to either partition a drive and install SL on the blank segment, or do a fresh install on on the drive. In either case, the result is that the Lion segment of the HD is erased and replaced with other software. SMC problem solved.

 

I'm not ruling out the idea that the battery problem could be related to "some new hardware driver." But given the fact that the 10.6.8 Firmware release was (1) an SMC update and (2) strongly correlated with battery power loss, I think we've found the smoking gun.

If I remeber well there was a big improvement in OpenGL performance with 10.6.8. It could be that too.

ubergreg wrote:

 

Has anyone tried running their OS, using as little of the new UI features as possible? No full-screen, no spaces, etc.

 

I've been working this way since first thing this morning, intensively running InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop CS5.5, Acrobat Pro, Mail, Chrome (multiple tabs), Calendar, MS Word, a time logging app and streaming music through iTunes (using WiFi), plus three or four other apps and several background utilities. The laptop is connected to a 27" Thunderbolt Apple display, I am running the Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad (so Bluetooth is also on) and I've not shut down the unit since yesterday morning.

 

I'm running a 2011 MBP 17 with 8GB RAM.

 

Interestlingly, the fan hasn't been howling at all today (over 7 working hours, and at its worst there's a low, steady murmur) and nothing's been hanging as it usually has after a few hours, since installing Lion and using its new UI features. I can no longer heat my lunch on the laptop, as it's been running a lot cooler that it has for weeks.

 

This is probably another one of Apple's stinkers, like Antennagate, where they know there's a potential problem even before launch, but ask for neither permission or forgiveness . I'm sure they're working on the best possible cure (and will give it to us as soon as it's in a respectable state).

 

I avoid using the battery as much as I can these days, because I can only imagine what damage this high drain rate is doing to it, but I found it so interesting today that avoiding the sexy new UI features seems to tax my MBP far less now.

 

Would love to know if it makes a difference to anyone else.

Yup, I've noticed the same thing as well.

Rayced wrote:

 

If I remeber well there was a big improvement in OpenGL performance with 10.6.8. It could be that too.

That makes complete sense to me. Good call!