Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

My computer has 9 hours estimated. I've never seen more than 4! This 10.7.3 update seems to have done the trick. or at least I hope so!

I can install 10.7.3 beta since I use Lion for test purpose only. Results will be posted here

I can only wish that reinstalling the OS could help battery life.  I get 3 hours out of a 2011 Macbook Pro, not even close to the advertised 7.  After reinstalling the OS after wiping the hard drive, the same results. Maybe I should just go back to Snow Leopard, because Apple has clearly not designed the OS with battery life in mind?  I'm scheduling a Genius Bar reservation tomorrow, I wonder how that will go... hopefully it'll go well enough that I won't have to complain here again.  But yeah, some of the tips here are great, like using gfxcardstatus to check whether it's using discrete or integrated graphics.  For me, it's using integrated graphics, WiFi on and Safari running, Dashboard and Migration Assistant (because I've been restoring from a backup since the reinstall just happened).

10.7.3 beta installed as promised and so far .... so (very) good  

... to be continued

DrChandra,

This was the post I was waiting for.  I can live with 2-3 hours of battery life for a month or so but if they weren't going to issue a fix in the forseeable future I was going to downgrade to SL.  Thanks!!!!!!

tim

I too am very excited about this.

Could people who have 10.7.3 be a bit more detailed for us waiting for the official update etc.

Like, how long it lasted before, how long it lasts now.

Estimations any more precise?

Thanks,

Tom.

10.7.3 update - running on second full charge, general use as before.  Was getting 2 to 2.5hrs max under 10.7.2, got 4.5hrs on the first full charge - this was timed use not from the estimates. 

second charge indicated 7:11hrs on boot, been running this afternoon typical use again for 3hrs with 4:18hrs reported to go.

Will keep you all posted..........

Sounds like 10.7.3 fixes some of the issues with battery usage.  In any case, I just got my battery replaced by the Apple Genius, which was nice, so hopefully 10.7.3 fixes what's left with the software issues.  In the meantime, I guess I'd better keep a power adapter around at all times

I have a brand new MBP with the same symptoms and and same battery problem.  I'm so disapointed with the issue that I actually called Apple and requested a return shipping label.  I just downloaded the beta and will be observing the results closely. 

I don't know what happened, butin the last 2 weeks my brand new MBP with a solid-state drive went from over 5hrs of battery life to just over 2hrs. I didn't download anything particular nor have I changed my usage habits on the computer. I brought it into Apple who ran "diagnostics" and said the battery was "fine" but it's clearly not. I upgraded the software as well the other day so I should be up to date.

Anyone have ideas? Help?!!

The beta seems to have alleviated the issue a little bit after I did a SMC and PMU reset (Control option shift and power button for SMC, Command option shift and power button for PMC).  Should start to see something after 5-10 seconds or so of holding these buttons down after the startup chime.  Battery life went from 2.5 to 5 hours.  So while it's not as good as Snow Leopard, I'm happy enough that I probably won't downgrade to Snow Leopard.... I did get 7 on Snow Leopard, but well, you give some, you get some.  The features of Lion are too good to pass up for pure battery life.  10.7.2 seems to have been a real battery hog, and depending on the applications you ran, it used the discrete graphics card too generously.  Also, disabling Flash helped with the battery life too, as the plugin wasn't chewing up CPU cycles as it was idling in the background.

running 10.6.8 and noticing i've lost 4% of my total battery capacity only after 12 cycles (initially 6851 back in Sept, now 6611), should I take this in to the store and have them replace my battery? Or am I experiencing normal battery?

Thanks in advance for any insight

I've had this same problem before; however, I let my computer loose all its charge, and then re-charged it. It worked for me!

Hello there,

I too had the same problem. I own a Late 2010 11" Macbook Air, and it seems to have been mended by the update to 10.7.3

On SL, I got pretty close to the advertised 5hrs with wlan browsing, sometimes even more, depending on the brightness of the screen. After startup, I used to get an estimate of 7hrs before launching any apps.

On 10.7.2., I never got over an 4hrs estimate after a full charge, and no more than 2.5-3hrs of actual browsing time (even with a dimmed screen and flash deinstalled).

(Note: I too thought, that the time for an complete charge had dropped under Lion, but at that time didn't think anything of it.)

What I did:

1. Install 10.7.3 beta (If you do this, you won't be able to revert to 10.7.2!)

2. Let the battery drain completely, Macbook shuts down

3. Recharge it completely (which took forever, about 2.5 hrs)

4. Reset SMC

After that, I got an estimate of over 7hrs after startup again. Now, I have been browsing for 2hrs, flash is installed. The percentage is down to 63%. The battery life pattern seems to have reverted to the behaviour under SL.

Looks promising. I am logging with the MiniBatteryLogger to measure what I can get out of a full charge.

I don't know if it was the update, or the resetting of the battery and subsequent SMC-reset (I also reset the PRAM earlier under 10.7.2), but it seems to have done the trick.

Success to all of you.

Did any of you who installed the 10.7.3 beta (especially with newer machines) run a benchmark test to see whether you had to "give a little to gain a little"?