Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

I'd just like to chime in to say I have the same problem.  I just bought a 15" 2.5ghz Macbook Pro, installed an OWC SATA III Extrme Pro SSD (which should increase battery life) and find myself suffering through rapid battery decline as well.  Come on Apple... I just bought a $2700 computer and I get less than half of your "7 hour wireless web at 50% brightness" test results as your website claims.  Please formally acknowledge this problem and provide a fix asap.  This thread is 1,600 replies long... and I bet those are only 10% of the public that bought these computers and know about these forums and contribute to them...

Danger722 wrote:

Please formally acknowledge this problem and provide a fix asap.  This thread is 1,600 replies long... and I bet those are only 10% of the public that bought these computers and know about these forums and contribute to them...

They will not be acknowledging anything here as it is a user to user forum. To contact Apple you need to voice your displeasure at

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

It is impossiblt to start talking percentages as Lion has been downloaded over 6 million times and then add all new machines sold with Lion on them, compared to people voicing their issues in a Troubleshooting Forum and it gets thrown out of perspective. But that is not saying there is no issue. Just some have and most don't. No doubt if a fix is coming it will be in a future update which will be released when ready. No good Apple updating a system if it's not yet ready to address any and all the issues that they may need to address.

Good Luck

Don't worry about kernel task, it's perfectly normal - in fact with 345MB of real memory quite low (it often goes up to 600-700).  I don't know what system Csound1 is running, but it can't be MacOs.

Redarm wrote:

 

Don't worry about kernel task, it's perfectly normal - in fact with 345MB of real memory quite low (it often goes up to 600-700).  I don't know what system Csound1 is running, but it can't be MacOs.

I said:

"your battery appears normal, there are no abnormal loads, time for Apple to take a look"

and your point was?

B_Cally wrote:

 

I forgot to mention i have a root Process named Kernel_task that is hogging on average 409MB of RAM an almost constant thread count of 87 and cpu % of 1 - 2.7 %.

Csound1 wrote: Kill the task in Activity Monitor, observe whether or not battery life estimates improve.

Just having a bit of fun at your expense

Redarm wrote:

 

B_Cally wrote:

 

I forgot to mention i have a root Process named Kernel_task that is hogging on average 409MB of RAM an almost constant thread count of 87 and cpu % of 1 - 2.7 %.

Csound1 wrote: Kill the task in Activity Monitor, observe whether or not battery life estimates improve.

Just having a bit of fun at your expense

Happy to amuse you

I have a thought but am wondering if it could really be this simple.

Since upgrading to Lion, I too have experienced about half the battery life that I did immediately before. All the diagnostics on batter are fine, etc. Its obviously a Lion issue. I've posted previously on that.

But also since upgrading to Lion, my fans don't sleep at all. Never. They are always on at least the low level. Previously, they would sleep if the computer was idle or not working hard. Now they are always on. Always.

I don't have the problem fo them ramping up to high speed for no reason that some have (mine kick up to higher speeds as usual) but I do have the problem that they are always on and running if the computer is. There are other threads on this fan issue post-Lion upgrade.

Obviously constant fan operation will impact battery life. The question is whether or not normally operating fans would bring battery life bak within previous/normal ranges.

I've done all the PRAM and SMC resets to no avail. Wondering if anyone else has considered this fan issue as it relates to the diminished battery life.

Any Apple engineers out there listening?

Interesting point in regards to the fans.  Is there any easy way to test this theory?

Is there any software that allows the user to control fan activity... or would this be too risky and possibly lead to overheating/permanent damage?

You can use SMC FanControl

This will allow you to reduce the fan speed, and in accordance with Newton's 2nd Law of Thermodynamics you can also use it to fry your Mac if you choose.

I had the same fan issue when i "upgraded". After a clean install the problem went away. as a side note: the problem wasn't that the fans were acting up, it was the machine was running too hot and the fans were just responding appropriately.

first i used migration assistent with the clean install. temps and fan use went down, but battery performance was still inferior to SL. Next I tried a clean install without using migration assistent. I've noticed better battery life, but still not as good as SL. Honestly, I'm not noticing much system improvment vs clean install + migration assistent.

Csound1 wrote:

 

Newton's 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

Don't you mean Clausius?

Redarm wrote:

 

Don't you mean Clausius?

No

Newtons Second law of Thermodynamics

I think the person who wrote this blog mixed a couple of things up:

The Second Law of Thermodynamics by Rudolf Clausius

and

Newton's Second Law

The person who wrote that blog clearly has no idea what they're talking about.

Oh, I see, is it because he's German?