Michael Empric
Level 1 (5 points)

Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

After upgrading to Lion, my MacBook Pro battery life has been severly affected. After 1.5 hours of light web browsing, my battery has decreased to 40% from 100% after charging all night.

 

Notes: Spotlight completed indexing the hard drive over night, and the laptop remained plugged in charging. The fans seem to be running normally, not at a higher rate. The backlight is at 50% brightness.

 

Thoughts?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7), 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB Ram

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 7:02 AM

Close
Michael Empric

Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

first Previous Page 112 of 177 last Next

  • by winter_bob,

    winter_bob winter_bob Dec 16, 2011 7:18 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 16, 2011 7:18 PM in response to Michael Empric

    so, has anyone tried this

    http://www.tuaw.com/2011/12/16/apple-seeds-os-x-lion-10-7-3-to-testers/

    yet? is battery improved? does CPU performance suffer?

     

    another thing: I notice that on my 15" 2.2Ghz i7 8Gb 128GbSSD HiRes whenever I move the mouse (using the trackpad) CPU usage goes up to more than twice its idle value (usually from 1% to ~4%). checking with "iStat Menus 3" while moving the cursor I see two processes "SystemUiServer" and "WindowServer" consuming about 3% and 4% (of their threads) respectively. that looks like an awful lot just to move the cursor around, doesn't it?

     

    has anyone else noticed that? has anyone tried  "light web browsing" battery duration tests without using the trackpad (or mouse)? (I know it sounds strange, but browsing can certainly be automated; and it wouldn't surprise me if apple's tests were automated, which could account for the discrepancy we're noticing).

  • by marysplacestudio,

    marysplacestudio marysplacestudio Dec 16, 2011 8:02 PM in response to winter_bob
    Level 2 (401 points)
    Dec 16, 2011 8:02 PM in response to winter_bob

    There was some banter from users of 10.7.3b, but it kind of fizzled out.

     

    What is the consensus.... did this version of Lion help battery life?

  • by mulligans missus,

    mulligans missus mulligans missus Dec 16, 2011 8:24 PM in response to marysplacestudio
    Level 2 (370 points)
    Dec 16, 2011 8:24 PM in response to marysplacestudio

    marysplacestudio wrote:

     

    There was some banter from users of 10.7.3b, but it kind of fizzled out.

     

    What is the consensus.... did this version of Lion help battery life?

    It was being beta tested, very hard to get a line on it without speculating, which is against the Terms Of Use of these forums that we agreed to. Have to wait for the official relase when Apple are ready to have it released.

  • by marysplacestudio,

    marysplacestudio marysplacestudio Dec 16, 2011 9:20 PM in response to mulligans missus
    Level 2 (401 points)
    Dec 16, 2011 9:20 PM in response to mulligans missus

    Yes, of course, you're right.

  • by asoksevil,

    asoksevil asoksevil Dec 17, 2011 3:44 AM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 17, 2011 3:44 AM in response to Michael Empric

    BTW, did any of you guys notic a recent increased of CPU usage while streaming flash videos? When I had Snow Leopard, I could easily watch any HD flash video from YouTube without kicking too much my fans, but with Lion almost every video I watch my fans go crazy.

  • by nc440,

    nc440 nc440 Dec 17, 2011 7:55 AM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 17, 2011 7:55 AM in response to Michael Empric

    I actually went out and bought a new battery for my 2.2 Ghz Macbook Pro running Lion 10.7.2 with 4 G RAM. I'm down to 50% battery after 60 minutes of my toddler playing a game that appears to use very few system resources.

  • by junkhouseblues,

    junkhouseblues junkhouseblues Dec 17, 2011 8:41 AM in response to asoksevil
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 17, 2011 8:41 AM in response to asoksevil

    Yes, I have the same problem when I am watching shows on comedy central's website..

  • by CraigieMann,

    CraigieMann CraigieMann Dec 18, 2011 6:25 AM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 18, 2011 6:25 AM in response to Michael Empric

    My Macbook is on fire today... only running the usual stuff, safari, mail, itunes etc. and it's pretty much burning my leg. Battery woeful as usual.

     

    I went into the Apple Store in Liverpool the other day and they said they were oblivious to the issue....

  • by A.Muaz,

    A.Muaz A.Muaz Dec 18, 2011 12:14 PM in response to CraigieMann
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 18, 2011 12:14 PM in response to CraigieMann

    I have the same Problem, from the tinniest things it's getting extremely hot !!! which makes the fans go crazy, and that takes more battery ...

     

    but I recommend you not to put it on your laps, as you should always provide a flat surface beneath for the fans to work properly.

  • by A.Muaz,

    A.Muaz A.Muaz Dec 18, 2011 12:16 PM in response to nc440
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 18, 2011 12:16 PM in response to nc440

    The fault is not from your battery, it's from the system, it's taking too much battery power, as in; it is using more battery than usual, because there are programs, documents or pages running in the background !

     

    so keep holding on till a new update is issued !

  • by CT,

    CT CT Dec 19, 2011 6:15 AM in response to A.Muaz
    Level 6 (17,883 points)
    Notebooks
    Dec 19, 2011 6:15 AM in response to A.Muaz

    http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

     

    You're welcome!

  • by ReDRuMxxx,

    ReDRuMxxx ReDRuMxxx Dec 19, 2011 1:31 PM in response to CT
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Notebooks
    Dec 19, 2011 1:31 PM in response to CT

    What's the point of this last post?

     

    BTW, my Macbook is still overheating. This is starting to be extremely annoying...

  • by papalapapp,

    papalapapp papalapapp Dec 20, 2011 4:30 AM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (95 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 20, 2011 4:30 AM in response to Michael Empric

    Just an observation from me. Today I did a photo shoot with my Nikon D70. I had no apps running and ony plugged in the camera to fetch the photos via Finder. So every few photos taken, I repeatedly connected the camera to my MacBook, looked at the pictures and transferred them to the HD.

     

    The MB got quite hot which isn't a suprise due to the data volume of the images. But after the session, the MacBook wouldn't cool down and the fans kept running high. I haven't seen my MB this hot ever.

     

    I let the MB sit for over 4 hours so see if it would regulate itself down, but nothing changed. After a re-start the fans calmed down again.

  • by Redarm,

    Redarm Redarm Dec 20, 2011 4:55 AM in response to papalapapp
    Level 4 (2,600 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 20, 2011 4:55 AM in response to papalapapp

    In this case you should make a note of the process running at a high CPU %age by opening "Aktivitätsanzeige" in /Programme/Dienstprogramme, selecting "Alle Prozesse" at the top right and clicking on "% CPU" to put them in order of CPU usage.  There should be one that uses around or over 100%, which would be the culprit.

  • by papalapapp,

    papalapapp papalapapp Dec 20, 2011 5:17 AM in response to Redarm
    Level 1 (95 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 20, 2011 5:17 AM in response to Redarm

    Yes, I thought of that the moment I hit the restart button but then it was too late. (It was a very busy day and I was focussing on my actual work.)

first Previous Page 112 of 177 last Next