Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Be careful with 10.7.3!  On my MacBook Pro 2010 model the Intel speed step functionality was lost with this version, essentially restricting the system frequency to its lowest value.  Benchmarks run on other systems with this Beta version seem to indicate that the two kernel extensions associated with ACPI management are at fault.  Those of you witnessing better battery life under these conditions are doing so only because the CPU is not raising its frequency or voltage under load!

ssn637,

is the voltage/cpu drop only when on battery power, or does it also happen when you are plugged in? I can tolerate compromised performance for extended battery life if we can get max processing power when plugged in.

Thanks

Information regarding 10.7.3 is confidential!  For those of you who have access to the developer forums here's the link to the discussion regarding the speed step issue:

https://devforums.apple.com/message/585143#585143 

Not even sure if I'm allowed to post this...

I would also add that the source of the upgrde is unvalidated.  no way to verify this update has not been "tampered" with vs. one picked up from Apple Dev. program.

Plus, based on the speedstep thread, it dosn't sound like this solves the situation, just that another issue alleviates the symptoms.

Come on Apple, fix our woes!

Message was edited by: milwaukee_bronze

OK, I have a late 2011 MBP 15" with Lion.  Was getting horrible battery life 2.5 hours on average. 

Heres the weird thing:  As of today I am getting 5+ hours of battery life.  THE ONLY THING THAT CHANGED is today Firefox asked me if I wanted to upgrade (to 8.0.1) and I said yes. 

I almost exclusively use Safari and was getting 2.5 hours even on days when I would not use Firefox at all.  

Anyway, for those at wits end I guess all I'm saying is check to make sure Firefox is up to date (because it worked for me).  I'm going do a full charge and time it again just to make sure it's not a fluke.

tim

EDIT: for clarity

I have been following this for sometime (well, since upgrading to Lion when it first came out). I don't do all the programming jazz as I am not a computer programmer, but when something is doable, and I don't think it will cause more damage, I give it a try.

I have been to the genious bar more than once and the only "find" was that Carbonite is sucking up all my CPU so I only run that when not on the computer.

Today, there was a post that someone upgraded to Firefox 8. I don't use F.F. except for one application that doesn't work with any other browser, but I did updated it and all of a sudden my computer is flying; like the old days of SL.

Recently I upgraded to 8 on RAM (2009 MB pro) and got some speed improvement, but not a ton.

Battery is reading 4:40 on a full charge. Certainly not the 7 hours advertised, but better then the 2-3 I usually have.

I know this is not the entire answer, but if it helps keep us sane until a real solution is sent out it is worth the two minutes it takes to download the updated F.F.

And in the amount of time I have posted this the battery is down to 2:47. Sigh.

milwaukee_bronze is absolutely right. Anyone who wants to try 10.7.3 beta and "devforums" is not the source of the file please be aware of a potential risk.

There is definitely improvement in battery performance based purely on my standard usage which is pretty repetitive (ocb). If you want to try 10.7.3 do it in some form of test environment rather than on your main machine.

There is a spark of hope but no solution for Lion horrible battery performance!

milwaukee_bronze wrote:

 

I would also add that the source of the upgrde is unvalidated.  no way to verify this update has not been "tampered" with vs. one picked up from Apple Dev. program.

 

Plus, based on the speedstep thread, it dosn't sound like this solves the situation, just that another issue alleviates the symptoms.

 

Come on Apple, fix our woes!

 

Message was edited by: milwaukee_bronze

Glad to see things are sounding more promising.  Back in SL 10.6.6 world I have been surfing the internet, downloading 300mb of podcasts, listening to itunes with mail open and even sent out 3 emails for the past 90 minutes and at 83% of battery life.  I think it would take a lot to bring me back up to date, especially since this forum is focused on Macbook Pro and I just have the white mid '10 regular macbook (are there others out there?) so can't be suffering dual graphics card issues being the hog as you guys do with your Pros.  Lion is a great desktop OS! Boo now at 82% with 6:34 remaining.

I  have been following this thread because my late model 2008 MBP unibody also has been having only 2 hour or so battery life and racing fans since upgrading to Lion.

However i installed FF 8.1 a few days ago when the application alerted me to the new version.

I cannort say I have seen improvement although, I confess I have not run my MBP sans power cord since noticing the power drain with Lion.

Will start testing ...

Would love to know  that FF was the culprit but somehow I suspect the problem is multifactorial.

The 10.7.3 update sounds promising- will wait until it is officially released.

Have to think that these hundreds if not thousands of emails in this and related threads have gone un noticed at Apple.

Barbara Passman3 wrote:

 

 

However i installed FF 8.1 a few days ago when the application alerted me to the new version.

I cannort say I have seen improvement although, I confess I have not run my MBP sans power cord since noticing the power drain with Lion.

 

Would love to know  that FF was the culprit but somehow I suspect the problem is multifactorial.

Yes it would be hard to imagine Firefox being the cause of battery drain, given that most people don't use it, and therefore wouldn't see the battery drain issues. Hopefully all will be remedied soon, of course noboby knows when the next Lion update will be available, but remember that SL had 8 versions, and Tiger 11, so things do get ironed out with new OSs.

Good Luck

Just did another test on my Early 2008 (non-unibody) MBP. I dunno how, but I'm seeing some better life out of it.

Tonight's test conludes of the following:

• Starting with a full 100% charge on the battery.
• Setting the Stopwatch function on my iPhone 4 (running iOS 5.0.1)
• Starting the stopwatch immeditally after disconnecting the laptop from the charger/power adaptor
• Used the laptop under normal conditions (Web browsing, editing a Word doc, using Twitter app, and e-mail*)
• Let the battery cycle until the "Low battery warning" pops up (press the "Lap" button on the stopwatch)
• Record the time until laptop powers off

This is was my results:

100% to "10-minute warning": 2:54:13.4

Warning to Shut Down: 11:12.5

Total Battery Life: 3:05:26.0

OS Version: Mac OS X "Lion": 10.7.2 (Build 11C74)

I'm looking foward to seeing wat happens with 10.7.3 when it's released. I have a spare hard drive which has 10.6.8. I'm half-tempted to partition it and attempt to install Lion and the 10.7.3. Beta on it.. hmmm

Any one that have tried to solve the problem by monitoring the ampere usage ( under systems report ) and then one after one turn off/quit "unnecessary" processes in the activity control?

This is however way over my head to try as I would probably turn off something essential....:-)

Maybe some one with better knowledge would like to try this and then report.

It might help to find in what "area" the battery draining occurs.

Just received my new 15" MBP a few days ago and was unaware of this problem before I ordered it.  I just did a second test with only Chrome (no applications) and I clocked in at 4 hours. Will keep checking back here.

I would like to add that, in addition to poor batery life, my macbook pro (15" mid 2011) gets extemely hot, especially if it hasn't been restarted for a longer period of time. No particularly "heavy" processes showing up in acitivity monitor (set to "all"). A restart makes it run cooler.

This REALLY *****.

orangecookie, like you I got my 15" MBP last Friday not knowing anything about this ... I'm a Mac guy from way back but I've been back and forth between PC and Mac, this last stretch lasted 10+ years so I was hoping for a nice Welcome Back to Mac when I got my laptop.

I reset the PRAM after getting some really bad battery drains from my first two full charges. The last charge I was using Skype and began with the battery at 91%, and after a 1 hour call I had 33% remaining - not cool!

So after reading this post, I tried the PRAM reset and with 19% remaining last night, before reset I had 33 minutes remaining, and after reset 1hr 42m!

Hoping Apple will fix this issue with the next release, will keep checking back also.