Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Agreed, but I think others have already verified that this tends to result in a better expereince.

I will let you all know when complete...  Although this may take a few days to prepare and test.

THANK YOU to the Below poster!  The GFXCardStatus app has saved my battery life!  I run Skype for work communications and what you described below is EXACTLY what was happening to me (Skype forcing the Graphics card to run on discrete instead of Integrated)!  I now have 12 different applicants running, iTunes playing, Skype, etc. and 80% brightness and now I am getting 5 Hours even with all of that running!  Thank you Sir!

I have a two week old MPB 15" 2.2 with SSD. Was getting HORRIBLE battery life like many here - approx 1.5 hours from full charge. Apart from lion software - which still seems to be causing some issues compared with Snow Leopard, my solution was as follows:

1. Install GFXCardStatus as many have mentioned and ensure that in preferences check the power source-based switching box and force integrated graphics on battery power (http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus)

2. Reset SMC by following steps outlined in forum (thanks PhangirloftheOpera). With power cord connected power down laptop, then hold down SHIFT CTRL OPTION along with power button for around 10 seconds. Not sure on all models but the light indicator on my power cable flashed after around 5 seconds.

After following these steps battery life has gone from 1.5 hours to around 7. Still not good enough that this forum as 1388 replies yet no fix yet via Lion update.

Good luck all

Hmmmm... I instaled the GFXCardStatus app, set it up to integrated, reset the SMC as well, and I still don't see any improvement.

The only time when I saw and improvement was when I run the last software update - after that my battery life jumped to 11 (eleven) hours, then went gradually to seven, five, and now is back to four!

MBP 15", i7, bought two months ago.

I also use GFXCardStatus(switched to integrated Intel graphics) reseted SMC but the battery live of my MBP 15", i5, Mid 2010 went down from 8 hrs to 3,5 hrs since I installed Lion.

Thanks! This solution worked for me!

... I have a MBP from early 2011(feb-march).

Only difference is that I am handling the videocard switch manually, If I change my preferences to do the change based on power supply, my fan goes crazy and never stops. but doing the change manually works like a charm.

Battery went from ~2.5h to ~5.5h

Thanks andy!

Before the Lion upgrade, my June 2010 MBP 13" easily managed ten hours of use. I only ever listen to iTunes, type in TextEdit and surf the web. Those same activities under Lion yielded 2 hours. I grew increasingly tired with my 80% hit on battery performance that I reformatted and reinstalled SL 10.6.8 two nights ago.

Under 10.6.8 I'm back up to my ten hour benchmark. So if there's a problem with the latest SL update, it isn't affecting everyone equally. My battery performance is the same as it was under 10.6.7.

It's great to have my old computer back. It runs like new again.

WFSReturnee wrote:

 

[...] I reformatted and reinstalled SL 10.6.8 two nights ago.

 

[...]It's great to have my old computer back. It runs like new again.

Well,  those who have an "old" computer have the posibility to go back to the previous OS. But the other ones, like me, who bought recenlty a MBP do not have this choice.

Apple, please do something about this! Or, at least, please be so kind and stop advertising the "up to seven hours of wireless web browsing". I know, four hours is less than seven, but so is five minutes.

Or, as a last resort, give us the possibility to downgrade our OS to SL - honestly, I do not care too much about full screen apps (which I rarely use anyway), but the battery life is much more important.

As a recent MBP owner I thought the option to go to SL might be a solution (if it were available), but although I couldn't care less about launchpad or full screen apps or any of the cosmetic bits and pieces, I also use Lion's new version of Fault Vault to encrypt the entire Internal HDD and my external HDDs and this is one superb feature of the OS I wouldn't want to lose.

So the only solution for me would be a proper update....      

WFSReturnee wrote:

 

Before the Lion upgrade, my June 2010 MBP 13" easily managed ten hours of use. I only ever listen to iTunes, type in TextEdit and surf the web. Those same activities under Lion yielded 2 hours. I grew increasingly tired with my 80% hit on battery performance that I reformatted and reinstalled SL 10.6.8 two nights ago.

 

Under 10.6.8 I'm back up to my ten hour benchmark. So if there's a problem with the latest SL update, it isn't affecting everyone equally. My battery performance is the same as it was under 10.6.7.

 

It's great to have my old computer back. It runs like new again.

That sounds interesting. People downgrading to 10.6.8 were claiming the same battery drain as under Lion 10.7.x.

BTW I got a better battery performance under Lion after repairing permissions with the resetpassword utility booting from the recovery disk.

Users using Filevault 2 to encrypt their internal disks should first choose diskutility (after booting from recovery disk), and unlock the encrypted disk (right click on its greyed out icon in the lists and then choose to unlock, insert the admin password to unlock it).

reporting problem after updating to lion 10.7.3 (mac book pro early 2011 13")

- after update battery life tremendously decreased! with lion 10.7.2 I had about 8 to 9 hours of battery time, after the update battery is empty after 4 hours (just surfing in the web!)

hope 10.7.4 will fix this ****!

10.7.3?   beta copy?

I also got my MBP 13'' with SSD i7 2.8G processor etc 2-3 weeks ago.

I didnt know that there was a problem with the OS therefore in the 5th day of my Mac's arrival, I took it to Apple Store Genius Bar (apple care) to ask the battery case.. Even in standby mode or sleep mode it consumes 25% in a day (my very old Win7 Acer even consumes less than 10% a day with a 5 yrs old battery)

In the apple store, they told me that they replaced the battery and I checked it after taking it back; honestly there was no improvement!!!

So I think that means, even apple doesnt know that there is a problem with the Lion OS...

kapanmc wrote:

 

Even in standby mode or sleep mode it consumes 25% in a day (my very old Win7 Acer even consumes less than 10% a day with a 5 yrs old battery)

 

You get 96 hours out of a battery that Apple says you get 7 hours out of and you are complaining? I would sell it on ebay for ten grand!!!!  (25% in a day - 24hrs X 4 = 96 hours) And you got 2400 hours out of the Acer? IGive me the name of your Power supplier!!! lol

GFXCardStatus also showed me the power hog: Firefox!  I shut down Firefox and the graphics processor went back to Integrated.  I opened all the same web sites in Safari and it stayed on Integrated.  Something in Firefox is forcing the dedicated graphics processor to stay on.  Much better battery life without Firefox.

I don't think Apple's 7 hours is when the mac is sleeping. Kapanmc is talking about sleep mode consumption.. Also you have added one extra zero for Acer calculation... lol