Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Same with me, the tester volunteer. Now my macbook pro 13 mid 2010 has decressed battery life... around 3 hours. With SL my mac can go the whole day.. 8-9 hours with wifi. Crazy apple!!! If I know I wont upgrade to Lion.

Same problem here.

MacBook 5,1 late 2008 alu model. 2.4Ghz with 4gb of Ram. I used to easily get 4 hours of battery life when working on my machine. Since the OS Lion update things have gone the wrong way.

I whould be happy if I get 2 hours off a fully charged battery when just running word and my screem dimmed to the lowest visible option.

My battery is in good condition since I don't use it that much. And logically my battery wouldn't suddenly degrade in quality since the installation of OS Lion. Check out my battery info:

Battery Information:

 

  Model Information:

  Serial Number:          9G9070AUR13DB

  Manufacturer:          DP

  Device Name:          bq20z951

  Pack Lot Code:          0

  PCB Lot Code:          0

  Firmware Version:          002a

  Hardware Revision:          5

  Cell Revision:          100

  Charge Information:

  Charge Remaining (mAh):          3579

  Fully Charged:          No

  Charging:          Yes

  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):          3892

  Health Information:

  Cycle Count:          161

  Condition:          Normal

  Battery Installed:          Yes

  Amperage (mA):          430

  Voltage (mV):          12512

 

Rumor goes that this problem is caused by faulty graphics card drivers, which cause it to get hotter. I have that feeling as well that my MacBook is hotter when ideling. Activity monitor doesn't show anything special. I really hope Apple does something about this problem. I don't often use my MacBook on battery, but when I need to I need it for long times.

I paid 1600 euros for this machine and I expect that a reputable company like Apple will do something to solve this problem for such a priced machine.

EDIT: Also noticed that charging the battery takes much longer than before.

By extending this discussions we can give a false hope to all new comers that there is a solution at the end. Please don't waist your time (and money), go back to SL (snow leopard) and enjoy your computer to the maximum potential. Don't be a free tester for a super reach corporate nest.

They (Apple) will find a solution be sure about it, they are just not honest enough to admit because fear of losing extra profit.

I am back on SL and my MBP (May 11) has "endless" battery life, it's quiet and not hot. 

Yes DrChandra, installing lion is more like participating in a beta release than doing an upgrade. And, perhaps Apple is more windows like on this upgrade than what we are used yo, myself since 2004. BUT,  I am staying with Lion. I did get an improvement in fan noise and battery life from this post; Agreed that length of post makes a bit difficult to find actionable items, but REALLY!, what did you expect?.

Honestly, the only person to blame is my self! After being through this with Seattle Lords (Me, Vista) not sure what was on my mind?

Golden rule: Wait for SP1 or what ever is the equivalent.

what is the equivalent of SP1 in OS Lion? thanks

Dear everybody,

I sincerely appreciate the concern for this issue, as my new MBP is still not running 7 hours(it is better, but not right yet), but am tired of getting emails from this forum. I have unchecked every box in the email preferences for the forums but still get an email from each new post. Any ideas on how to resolve this? Thanks.

I removed the option to show the Dashboard as a space in Mission Control in System Preferences - might not work for you but it gave me back noticeable battery life.

I would like to affirm mydogmandy's alternative/action.  I also removed the dashboard access from mission control and it improved the battery life

On the right column of this page you should see Actions and an option to stop receiving notifications.  You must be logged in for this to appear.

I have done the same.  The thread has gone way offtrack unfortunately.

Thank you Landon. I missed the obvious.  I feel like this is the first actual resolution to a problem in this particular thread, unfortunately.

You should also uncheck this forum topic in the Forum Management link on the right column in your personal Apple account profile.  You can reach it by clicking on your handle in blue.  For some reason, one deletion often isn't sufficient.

I thought the thread useful up to the point where it became impossible to determine if people were seeing real results from their clever workarounds to the power problem or just imagining them.  One reason is that the problem is more profound than batteries holding charges or not; that was just the symptom that named the thread.

Everyone assumed 1.7.1 would solve the problem once and for all, but it has not according to the trade journals that monitor these things.  So will there be a 1.7.2?  Absolutely.  When?  Sometime.  Ask Apple.

I had this problem since upgrading to lion, after putting up with it for a last few weeks I finally got fed up and rang through to support yesterday, tried the usual of resetting SMC and NVM, no go.  They then referred me to go to a local service provider to get it diagnosed.

I had previously made a USB install of Lion so before I went to the local service provider I completely erased the drive and did a pristine install from the USB, lo and behold battery life back to normal.  I think the upgrade over SL is the problem here, at least for me.   I had previously tried a reinstall of lion over the existing install and exactly the same problems, but erasing the drive then reinstalling seemed to work, obviously backup first.

Regards,

Stephen...

@stephen:  yes, I agree. My problem was solved when I did a fresh install of Lion.  This means backing up to time machine and restoring is not the same.  Restoring only brings back the previous Lion installation.... I found that out the hard way.

Format, Fresh install, update to 10.7.1, manually copy documents from the backup.

@jesslorenzo: But this means, I'll have to re-install all my programs manually, right?

I went back to Snow Leopard yesterday after my battery-time went down to 2 hrs.

Snow Leopard is definitely running smoother and faster on my 2009 MBP. The battery time though has improved only a little. Now I get 3,5 hrs (with all apps shut down and no Youtube etc.).  Before my upgrade to Lion I had over 6 hrs with Dropbox and Calendar Bar running. Apple has ruined my Macbook.