Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

i went back to SL as well. but id didnt change the problem i had with lion. i still got 2-3 hours doing web browsing, watching some youtube. nothing crazy!

I too also just rolled back to Snow leopard from a preinstalled Lion machine (went into the store, asked for rollback). However, now getting another problem, none of the function keys work anymore! Can't adjust backlight for keyboard and monitor, no volume control, etc. Any one have any ideas how to get these working again?

@hsuuperman Probably something went wrong during OS installation. Reinstall OS, don't waist too much time on troubleshooting. If problem reoccurred than there is something wrong with the hardware, take it back to the store.

@DrChandra, what do you think possibly occurred? I had a preinstalled Lion MBP and they rolled back to SL for me back at the store. They had mentioned that the new machines with Lion preinstalled don't work too well with SL, do you know if there's any truth to that? In the few hours that i've gotten SL back on the laptop i've also found that it's running quite hot, even with graphics manually set to integrated.

Thanks in advance for any insight

Apple just emailed me and requested an appointment call to ask questions about the low battery life in my macbook pro.

I am glad that they are trying to solve this issue and I hoping I will be able to give them all the info they need to solve this.

@jesslorenzo  Since many of us noticed that battery capacity droped (in my case 4-5%) after going to Lion form SL and back would you put that on the agenda when you meet Apple tech. I'm not sure why but it seems that this bug is doing the damage to the batery.

@DrChandra: I've spoken to them and they have sent me an application that will run to measure the telemetry of my macbook pro. It's very extensive.  When I tried running it, it compiled 3megs worth of logs after a 30 second telemetry monitor.

I have also directed them towards this thread. I am hoping they also monitor this so they can gain insights to the different situations.  They agreed that the issue is complicated and they are also trying to get more data to address the problem.

I found the apple tech support very scincere and accomodating. They have not yet found the soluntion but I could tell that they are really trying to resolve this problem.  I'm enclosing the correspondence for transparency purposes.

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Brian (Deleted) <deleted @apple.com>

          Subject:           Information requested by Apple Engineering

          Date:           September 11, 2011 8:08:13 AM GMT+08:00

          To:           Jess Lorenzo <>

Hello Jess,

My name is Brian (deleted surname)  and I work with a team of AppleCare Advisors who follow up on cases for Apple Engineering.

Engineering requested I ask you a few questions regarding low battery life on your MacBook Pro since upgrading to Lion.

I am contacting you via email because I have not been able to identify a working telephone number for you.

Please let me know the best time and number to reach you using the information below.

Thank you,

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Thanks for responding to this issue Brian.

I live int he Philippines.  The best way to reach me is thru my cell phone.  +Deleted phone

If you are unable to reach me, you can also ask questions via email or facetime.  My facetime address is the same as my email.

I really hope Apple addresses this power issue.  Many of the problems I am encountering can also be seen in this thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3194235

Thanks and God Bless

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Hi Jess,

Here is the application I mentioned on our call. I will talk to you tomorrow (tonight).

<attached app>

Thank you,

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I got it.

Thanks Brian.  I'll re-enable dashboard and try to work with the Lion as it normally is.

Will talk to you tomorrow.

Just got a 15" Macbook with 2.3GHz Core i7 Quad core Sandy bridge. Battery life was never more than 3 hours (even when the computer was idle). The left side of the air vent (especially near the display brightness buttons) remained extremely hot like a hot-plate, used for cooking (literally).

The temporary remedy of repairing Disk permission worked. (read this on this forum):

I am re-iterating the steps for convenience.

Step 1:Boot into lion recovery (Command + R) when the apple logo shows up at boot-up

Step 2: Start Disk Utility

Step 3: Click on "Macintosh HD" on the left pane

Step 4: Click on "Repair Disk Permissions" button on the right pane

Step 5: Reboot.

check for software updates. i installed the security update and it seems to help.

I have FOUND the problem - APPLE - NOTE.... It's the trackpad, killing the battery....

I could not understand, why, after I applied the security update this morning, I was getting over 8 hrs 30 mins battery life. PERFECT. But surely, Apple hadn't sneakily fixed this in the security update?

Then I realized another difference, this morning I was at home and using my bluetooth mouse and wired keyboard. Last week I was on vacation and only had the MAC itself. So for fun, I started scrolling with the trackpad on the MAC itself. Just scrolling this page.... Whilst i have been writing this my battery was at a pretty constant 7 hrs and 55 mins... OK, now I am going to just scroll up and down for 2 mins using my bluetooth mouse...  It dropped quickly to 6hrs but that's OK.. Now I am typing I am back up to 7 hours and 45 mins... OK. NOW I am going to scroll with my track pad. EXACTLY the same speed as the bluetooth mouse. For 2 mins.. here goies... Within 2 mins, it dropped from 7hrs 45s to 4 hrs 30 , to 3 hrs 30 to now 2 hrs and 48 mins... OUCH....

Now I am typing, I am quickly back up to 7hrs ans 28 mins... Now the bluetooth again... Sure, it drops to 5 hrs 45 mins BUT not 2 hrs 48......

Now APPLE. OVER TO YOU agian... CHECK out the TRACKPAD

OK, so no doubt, usng the trackpad on my new MACKBOOK Pro is killing the battery 300-400% over just using a bluetooth mouse. There are many other things that kill it too (searching spotfire with the keyboard in finder for instance) but I'm hoping, if you all have the same experience, Apple may be able to diagnose that whatever LION is doing differently with regards the trackpad - because it's so large an impact, they will find is having the same impact elsewhere within this O/S with other stuff. It's all too much of a coincidence to me!

I am charging my old macbook as I'm 99% sure my old trackpad didn't have this issue.

Franc_Iphone wrote:

I was getting over 8 hrs 30 mins battery life.

It's hard to believe you got 8.5 hrs. from one charge in Lion (as long as it's not asleep).

Did you really get over 8 1/2 hrs., or did it just display that in the battery menu?

Redarm, fair question. No i was not getting 8hrs 30 mins. I should have said SHOWING whilst I was working. I have been comparing the visible battery life, not actual since my 3 1/2 years experience with MAC, visible mostly makes actual unless I change what I'm working on or viewing etc., I am comparing only to what I've been seeing since I have had the new MAC. I figure also, since the battery life is so erratic, I am trying to isolate things that make it go down quickly and by a large number!

The fact that after this update and if I don't use the touchpad, I am showing and it looks getting nearly, twice as much as I was last week. Sorry, I should have been clearer. i've just tested my wifes MACBOOK Pro which is still SL and whilst heavy use of the touchpad does impact the battery life, it's only about 40% whereas I am see close to 200% + impact.

With zip all else running on my machine, and typing away here (if that's all I did), I am showing nearly 9 hours after a full charge. As soon as I touch the touchpad, it starts headed to 2-3 hours.

I've been through many posts on the subject of Lion battery issues now, and tried many of the offered solutions.

What finally seems to have worked for me is the solution to this  issue:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15687180#15687180

You might try opening your console log to see if there's a lot of activity there, as you might have this issue too. My fans are quieter, the machine is cooler (2010 mbp) and the battery time is back.

What it's showing is an approximation.  It's more or less saying if you keep on doing this you should get that many hours.  That's why it fluctuates.

The real question is how many hours did you get with a full charge.  I can't get more than 5.5 hrs doing more or less nothing at all, or a mere 2.5 hrs. going about my business as usual (which included discrete graphics card, trackpad, etc.).

SnowLeopard gave me ca. 5 - 6 hrs. with all the same processes (Lion 2.5 hrs.) and upwards from there.

Same question to Ben: how long does you MacBook run on a full charge, when you say "battery time is back"?