Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

A bit of caution with tools like gfxCardStatus.  If you force integrated graphics after something is already runing on discrete graphics, you may wind up with both GPUs running and even more power drain. A number of folks have reported worse battery life when trying this.

Same happen with me. My battery health reduced 4% (frm 92 to 88 in 2 weeks - calibrated) after upgrading to Lion. And guess what, I can't revive the battery health even after downgrading to SL.

I don't think this is coincident. Anyone else experience same problem similar to me, Lion killing BATTERY HEALTH and BATTERY LIFE?

I'm on the same boat. Went back to SL and the battery is acting up the same way.

The macbook is only three months old with very low usage. If I take it to the Apple store what can they possibly do? Would I be wasting my time going to the Genius? Are the goig to replace the laptop, battery?

I don't know... I'm not sure what to do at this point.

After a few phone calls to Apple support they asked me to go to the store, what is tomorrow. My main complaint is battery life (lost about 5% of maximum capacity in only 2 weeks). Ultimately I don't want to waist any more time on this and I want a new battery.

I installed back Lion so they can "have real picture".

I'll keep you posted guys.

Cheers

Hi DrChandra,

I think I'm going to do the same. I'll also reinstall Lion along with it's original box and take it to tha apple store.

It'll be a little difficult for me to explain what the problem is because I can't talk very well.

I've printed most of the posts here to show them, maybe it'll help.

Regards

Marcos_G wrote:

 

Hi DrChandra,

I think I'm going to do the same. I'll also reinstall Lion along with it's original box and take it to tha apple store.

? What original box ?

The apple box that the computer came with, plus the power cord. Just like when I first bought it three months ago.

Marcos_G wrote:

 

The apple box that the computer came with, plus the power cord. Just like when I first bought it three months ago.

Oh, apologies, I mistakenly assumed you were referring to returning Lion.

No apologies needed, my fault for not been more specific. I Just want to show them that is a very new laptop and I take good care of it. This kind of problem shouldn't be happening to an almost brand new computer. And I really shouldn't go around and do all of those trobleshoulting in order to get the battery right. I've spent enough time doing all that's been sugested here.

I have to help my wife and kids with their homework, thats where the time I've spent on this should have been gone.

Sorry for my bad mood folks

I agree with you Marcos, a lot of us here have very long days in the office with often many things to do after work at home. The last thing you want on top of that is to troubleshoot product for Super Rich (sadly, non liable due to some small prints) corporations such as Apple and Microsoft.

Bill Gates should be liable for making half of the planet installing VISTA, wasting billions of hours and dollars of the customers and after all made them to pay for Windows Seven. Where else on Earth you make customers to pay for your lousy work and fixes and ask them to trust you with your new product!!!

No one expect that product such as OS is bug free immediately but a bit of honesty and communication from the maker would be nice.

In all my communication with Apple non of them even remotely mentioned that they are aware of this issue. We all know that is not the truth simply BS.

I'm writing this on my MBP with Lion installed for purpose of taking it back to the store so they can assess "this misterious issue". Battery is absolutely crazy. All open applications are Chrome with a single window (this post) and Mail that checks on 5min. Battery shows 84% of charge and keeps changing every 5 seconds. It goes between 5.15 down do 2.30, 3.20 and so on.

I'll post my Apple Store experience latter today.

Hi everyone,

I installed Apple's EFI Update 2.2 for MBP and it seems my battery life is extended.  The update does not mention any power fix.  It is suppose to address issues with thunderbolt and enable Internet recovery for Lion.  It is not included with the systems update which meant I had to download it manually.

After the update, my power started to hover between 6.5 to 7hrs.  After one battery cycle or two.

Is apple trying to solve this problem without letting us know? hmmmmm. ;-)

Here is the link for the download... good luck:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1450

I hope this does fix the problem. I've only had my 15 inch for 3 weeks and I only get around 2.5 hours max. I've calibrated the battery and only have 17 cycles. Battery health is hovering around 95 percent. I'm thoroughly disappointed with this issue and I don't know how it became a problem in the first place.

I can confirm the 2.2 update does fix the problem, for a few hours and then, after the next charge, or some other unknown event, it goes back to normal.There is NO rhyme nor reason but a YO YO battery life is the norm until Apple fix it.

@Franc:  YoYo battery life is a good description of this issue.  I have yet to see update 2.2's effect int he next couple of days/cycles. I'm hoping this is it.

Will post what I find here.  Good luck to all of us.

As promised, here is the report after my visit to Sydney Apple store in regards to lost battery capacity after Lion upgrade.

My MBP is two months old and before Lion upgrade it was showing 96% of maximum capacity. After 2 weeks of using Lion, maximum capacity dropped down to 91%. Each time I used coconutBattery to do the test.

"Blue" guy in the shop was genuinely polite and interested in hearing details   He used Network boot and connected to one of their serves to check my battery. It did not take long to see that my battery capacity was at 95.7% of designed capacity. There is no need to go too much in details here. What I could see it was enough so I can make a conclusion that my battery is OK and that makes me happy.

It seems that coconutBattery does not produce accurate results. To question Apple results, it would border with pure paranoia and I'm not going that way.  My battery is in good condition and hasn't been damaged by Lion.

-----------------------------------------------

Back to Lion battery consumption. I put back Lion as explained above and last night there were updates. After completing the updated I used my machine only for a couple of hours. Time display is still quite erratic but percentage is going down bit slower (not sure, more feeling). It's too early to make any conclusion, did you notice any change?

Cheers