Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Had you done an upgrade originally and encountered the poor battery life then decided to do a clean install?  Or did you clean install and have never seen the battery issue?

Landon

I am again reinstalling the Lion. Make a boot OSX Lion from my usb drive. Then, I watch closely the battery performance. I can say that clean install is improving the battery life.

So I conclude that the battery issue occurs when we upgrade from SL to Lion. So far with a clean install the battery life is comparable with Snow Leopard.

So I suggest to those who still in battery issue to perform clean install. Make sure do timemachine backup first, then do clean install. After that use migration assistance to restore user seting and files.

Till now, with settings and files been restored, the battery performance is still comparable with SL.

I now did a clean re-install of Lion os x. I don't think Clean re-install alone won't give my battery life back. After that , I still had a low battery life. So check which graphic card my MBP 2011 is using while it is using Battery. I found out it was still using AMD card. So I installed gfxCardStatus and switched to Intel graphic card and now everything is working well. Get the same battery life I used to have with SL.

I would recommend (if your MBP has two graphics card or )

first Check which graphic card is using with Battery On

and later decide whether or not to install gfxCardStatus

Now after more than two cycles ( about 2 days) ,I am pretty sure gfxCardstatus fixed my battery drain. Before that, my laptop was getting hot and fan was running most of the time while Battery is on.

Btw, I can't use 4GB USB drive to make a bootable Lion drive. I have to burn a DVD.  Don't panic if you can't find your Library in Time Machine , it is hidden. I did LOL

Yes originally did an upgrade and had battery issues. Reverted to SL for two weeks. Then dd an erase and install of Lion and. Battery issue disappeared. Have not had to do a SMC reset to date so seems that upgrade from SL to Lion was the source of my battery issues. Note, I did not use migration assist to restore anything to new Lion install. Reinstalled all apps from scratch. Thus far ( 3 days ) on Lion and battery is equal to runtime on SL.

As in the case of this post, upgrade from SL to Lion has been seen to cause issues with higher operating temperatures resultant in increased cooling fan speeds and consequently lowered battery life due to added power consumption.  In our experience we noticed this on several of our Macbook Pro's however it did not affect iMac's at all...

After reading this and several other posts along these lines, this is what solved the problem for us:

1. Backup all data... We did not use TimeMachine Backup as I did not want to risk bringing anything over from SL...  We manually backed up all Data to external drive...  We use DropBox paid account for data storage, makes data restoration a cinch and for our needs well worth the cost... 
2. We use Lastpass for password mangement and XMarks for browser bookmark backup/management makes restoration of browser configurations a no brianer... (and works across all browsers)
3. We also use MobileMe which enables backup of mail settings and keychains for now, as this service is going away... 
4. Reformat your boot partition...
5. Perform a fresh install of Lion... 30 min.
6. Reload your data from backup... 
   Copy over or install Dropbox and sync...  Go home and to sleep.  This could take days...  ours took 5 hours due to other machines on the LAN with Dropbox which can do LAN sync in place of WAN if local resources are visible to the Dropbox...
7. Configure system settings...  1 hour or with MobileMe sync...  5 min. (mail was still a little quirky... and required some account and settings tweaking)
8. Install gfxCardStatus to manage your intgrated and discrete video (only if you have dual video cards...) Integrated will consume less power and seems to reduce heat load on machine...
9. Install Fan control or SMC Fan Control to monitor and tweak fan speeds...
10. Install bjango iStat Pro Widget to monitor your new performance...
11. Perform an SMC Reset:  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US
12. Perform a PRAM and NVRAM Reset:  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
13. Reload your applications... (To save time, we chose to load the main ones and then load others as we needed them, as otherwise this could take a several hours per machine)
14. Enjoy a Lion system as it performs like SL with the newer features...

After this proceedure on several systems, this is our experience:

Temperatures are now back to normal 2000 RPM instaed of 3500, and CPU heat down to 115 deg. F.

Battery Life now back to 5.5 - 6.5 hours depending on battery health and background processes per each machine...  (Even when on SL, we never got more than 8 hours in our environment)

Note: high temps and fan speeds still occur when transferring large amounts of data over LAN or WIFI, and or when playing flash video in any browser (the Adobe Flash plug-in has serious issues I think)...  This occurs on all our Mac systems including desktops...

Hope this helps...

Thanks for a possible solution.  It is sad we need to do all this for a software upgrade?  I don't understand why Apple did not catch this on testing.  We pay a lot of money for our computers and should not have to go through this with each major upgrade.

Probably they are too busy looking over the fence at Samsungs!

The only valid solution is Apple OS Patch which will fix this and all user input should be a single click!

A part from being a free testers for Apple now we should fix their bugs too! No way!

Snow Leopard works like a charm.

Two days ago I went to Apple (large) store in Sydney, Australia. I spoke to one of their "genius" (what an irony). It turns to be that "genius" is just an arrogant kid with very limited listening skills and no idea what I was talking about. I was hoping to trigger any bell in his dummy head and to see a single sparkle of interest for this problem but in vain. At the end all that I've got from this peacock in blue shirt is statement that he is happy that I know what is the problem then he turned around looking for the next naive customer to show off his faders. 

Since we have no real solution follow workaround.

1. Backup your data (carbon copy)

2. Do random test of your backup

3. Install Snow Leopard

4. Restore your data

5. Keep contacting Apple about this problem

First post and new to MAC.  Was tired of Windows based computers and the short life of them ( maybe 2-3 years ).  Finally got a MAC after seeing friends and family have them for 7-10 years with no issues. 

So I purchased a MacBook Pro 13" with Snow Leopard about 6 weeks ago.  The computer ran Cool, Was Lightening FAST, and had the advertised 8-9 hours of battery life.

Upgraded to Lion.  It now runs HOT......IS WINDOWS SLOW.....and get maybe if I am lucky 3 hours of battery life.  And I did not add anything to it.  Just a couple of bookmarks, about a dozen pics, etc. 

This Weekend, I am hoping to go back to Snow Leopard and see if I can revert back to my original COOL, FAST, Long Battery Life Computer !!!

Quick Question:  Those that did switch back to Snow Leopard, did your battery life improve ??  Did your MAC run cooler and faster like before ??

Thanks in advance and I look forward to hearing from you experienced Mac owners !!!

I upgraded to Lion few hours after it was launched, had the problems with the battery and over heating like everyone else. The battery life before Lion was about 7:30 hours, with Lion it dropped to around 2:30 - 3:00. When I downgraded to SL, the battery improved but I never got my 7:30 hours back. So I believe that Lion affected my battery in a way or another.

Did you recaliberate your battery by completely discharging and recharging two or three times?

yes i did and nothing improved. now i get 4 hours max with SL.

I cleaned install Lion and now I realized my battery count is about 105 and at 36% battery life, the voltage is about 11V . I checked my friends Mac and they are about 12 V at charge. You can also compare your Ampere and Voltage with your friends and you will see whether your battery is degraded or not.

@nitroexpress

Yes, battery is almost the same as it was before Lion. I said almost since I haven't done any real test except coconut results, but overall it's good.

@shiriajin

Reset your PRAM and NVRAM:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

It will also take several complete charge and discharge cycles to completely re-calibarate the battery.

According to Apple, the batteries are precalibrated so calibrations or recalibrating is not necessary and probably will do nothing to help this issue.