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

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Michael Empric

Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

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  • by CreativeSmith,

    CreativeSmith CreativeSmith Jul 23, 2011 3:58 PM in response to alexius82
    Level 3 (887 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 23, 2011 3:58 PM in response to alexius82

    I was being facetious or perhaps sarcastic when I suggested it was an error.

     

    Clearly, for you, for me, for all of us, the battery-life of our machines is not what it was, nor what it should be.

     

    I agree, it would be nice if Apple let us know that they're aware of the problem. It would be even nicer if they did something about it.

  • by alexius82,

    alexius82 alexius82 Jul 23, 2011 3:59 PM in response to Matt Hanks
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 3:59 PM in response to Matt Hanks

    some macbook users? All of us!!

  • by Sictransit,

    Sictransit Sictransit Jul 23, 2011 4:05 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 23, 2011 4:05 PM in response to Michael Empric

    My Macbook pro runs hotter now and the battery drains pretty fast... they should include options to disable unecessary visual effects to help save battery life.

  • by SRINATHSADDA,

    SRINATHSADDA SRINATHSADDA Jul 23, 2011 4:07 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (120 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 4:07 PM in response to Michael Empric

    Activity Monitor is an application included with Mac OS X that can be used to view running processes and other system information. It is located at /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.

     

    1. Check Startup Items

    2. Check Extensions, Helper Modules etc.

    3. Check Location Services (yes, now in Lion)

     

    Take a look on these articles:

     

    [ Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance ]

    [ Tips for maximizing your battery charge ]

    [ Apple Batteries Life Time ]

  • by CreativeSmith,

    CreativeSmith CreativeSmith Jul 23, 2011 4:09 PM in response to Sictransit
    Level 3 (887 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 23, 2011 4:09 PM in response to Sictransit

    What we should all do is take a quick visit to the OS X Feedback page.

    There, one can leave a detailed report on this and other OS X related issues.

    I did it. Took just a couple of minutes. Worth the effort for everyone.

  • by elis.gitin,

    elis.gitin elis.gitin Jul 23, 2011 4:20 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 4:20 PM in response to Michael Empric

    i am so disappointed to see my battery going from 8-9h to 3-4h. if i use skype it's even worse. i don't get it. did anyone have this problem before with 10.6?

  • by DGaryC,

    DGaryC DGaryC Jul 23, 2011 4:47 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 4:47 PM in response to Michael Empric

    I can't believe it! I installed Lion on my 2010 MBP and my battery life dropped to 2 hours. I read all the forums and waited for Spotlight to finish indexing. I also did the 'complete drain battery - full charge' cycle. But still battery life was abyssmal.

    THEN I noticed in Activity Monitor that 'USB PRINTER AND STORAGE CENTER' was using 100% of the processor. I quit the process and watched as my battery monitor climbed steadily from 1 hour to 5.5 hours remaining. The odd thing is that I don't use USB on the MBP. It's all wireless.

  • by paulorsoares,

    paulorsoares paulorsoares Jul 23, 2011 5:06 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 5:06 PM in response to Michael Empric

    Macbook Air 13" 2010 here.

     

    Used to get 6-7 hours on Snow Leopard. Now, I get only 4 on Lion. Already did SMC reset but problem remains.

  • by SilvaSurfer06,

    SilvaSurfer06 SilvaSurfer06 Jul 23, 2011 6:52 PM in response to PhangirloftheOpera
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 6:52 PM in response to PhangirloftheOpera

    This actually worked for me as well...  Battery life went back up almost to the normal...  Thanks a lot bud for sharing this information. 

  • by alexius82,

    alexius82 alexius82 Jul 23, 2011 7:00 PM in response to SilvaSurfer06
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 7:00 PM in response to SilvaSurfer06

    what exactly did you do? some say to reset smc by pressing together  Control+Shift + Command + power, others say Control+Shift + Option + Power!

  • by SilvaSurfer06,

    SilvaSurfer06 SilvaSurfer06 Jul 23, 2011 7:57 PM in response to alexius82
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 7:57 PM in response to alexius82

    I used the  control+shift+option+power once the laptop has been turned off.  So, shut down the laptop then follow the instruction and hold it down for 10 seconds.  Mine has made a tremendous change since that was down.  I unplugged it about 30 minutes ago or more and I have 94% left.  When I check how much time is remaining it goes between 9:12 hours left and 7:25 hours depending on what I am doing.  But it worked...  Hopefully it will work for you too!!!  Good luck

  • by Dustin Mcgrew,

    Dustin Mcgrew Dustin Mcgrew Jul 23, 2011 8:13 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 8:13 PM in response to Michael Empric

    So here's what I've found while monitoring the CPU usage in Activity Monitor...

     

    • I restart the computer, and let the CPU settle to around < 1% usage.
    • I open the App Store, browse around a little bit, CPU usage is around 1-6% most of the time. I quit the App Store and the CPU usage returns to around 1%. I also openned the Twitter and Sparrow apps. With all of those apps in "idle" state the CPU usage is still around 1%.
    • Now here's where it goes haywire... As soon as I open ANY WEB BROWSER (Chrome, Safari, or Firefox) my CPU usage instantly goes up to 15% and stays there, even when I'm not interacting with the browser. Now here's what's even crazier.. when I quit these browsers the CPU usage does NOT return back to 1%. It stays around 15% and the back of my MacBook starts to get really hot and the fans start spinning like crazy.

     

    VERY ODD! Hope it gets fixed soon.

  • by Pokono,

    Pokono Pokono Jul 23, 2011 8:14 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 8:14 PM in response to Michael Empric

    Resetting the SMC worked for me!

    Thanks to all

  • by Dustin Mcgrew,

    Dustin Mcgrew Dustin Mcgrew Jul 23, 2011 8:16 PM in response to Pokono
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 8:16 PM in response to Pokono

    SMC has not worked at all for me. Are you guys sure it is working? Try opening a web browser and see what happens. Everytime I open Chrome, Firefox, or Safari my CPU starts going nuts.

  • by hemamalini,

    hemamalini hemamalini Jul 23, 2011 8:17 PM in response to Michael Empric
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 8:17 PM in response to Michael Empric

    I am having same problem.  Please explain what happens when you use contro +shift+option + power.

    I am still not clear. I tried both option and hoping that it would increase the battery life which was horribe after lion upgrade

     

    I  see  2.56 hrs with 34% battery while doing simple browsing. I hope that apple will fix this issue.

     

    I love my MAC.

     

    Thanks for all your suggestions/insterest in resolving this issue.

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