Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Gunnerjoe wrote:

 

Hi All,

 

Brand New MacBook Pro 17" running SnowLeapard 10.6.8.

 

Looking at istat  http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatpro/  Current charge : 55%  Time Left:  52 Minutes.

 

Wow that needs fixed!

 

Joe

That looks normal, what is the battery health (post the numbers from System Report, not istat)

Our Mac Book's Daddy Passed Away Today.

I posted several times when this thread first started as my early Early 2011 17" MBP was having the same issues as everyone here is experiencing.

Through a variety of actions I have almost eliminated the problem.  I say almost, because there are some things that still kill my battery life and they seem all to be related to triggering the discrete graphics card.  Examples include websites using Flash, running the app 'Path Finder' and connecting a projector.

The actions I took were:

1. SMC reset
2. PRAM and NVRAM reset
3. Several battery calibrations.
4. Re-installed Lion and migrated data from Time Machine without migrating 'Settings' and 'Other files'

These actions got me from around 3 hours on a full charge to 4-5 hours. I think a lot of people here have tried the above with varying degrees of success.

A final action I took, at the suggestion of another poster, was to take a look at Console (just type Console into Spotlight and you will find it).  I have not read anything about people trying this.

I was getting literally hundreds of error messages a minute related to apps that I had not launched and that did not appear in Activity Monitor.

These included, for example, TweetDeck and CiscoAnytimeConnect.

After removing the offending apps and deleting all related files, my battery life has risen to a consistent 5.5 - 6 hours doing normal tasks with Wi-Fi on.

I recently watched a 2 hour movie in iTunes in fullscreen mode starting with a full charge (albeit with Wi-Fi off) and at the end of the movie I still had 85% battery left.

I fully agree that Apple needs to be working on this (and I am sure they are...), particularly regarding how the discrete graphics card operates. I also think there are a lot of third party app developers that have released software that they have not properly validated with Lion.  The apps are either very CPU inefficient or, as I discovered through Console, are running background tasks even when not launched and are consuming a lot of battery power...

i did the shift+alt+ctrl+power reset while my macbook pro 13" (osx-lion) was plugged. the light did turn green but once i turned my mac back on, it remained at the same battery level! this is so frustrating

Hello,

Battery Health 100%

55% battery - 52 minutes runtime left looks normal, NO!

Just some simple math will tell you that I'm only getting 2 hours of battery life.

Joe

If you were charging at the time that's 52 minutes to a full charge, post the full results from the system report, there is not enough here to go on.

Was not charging at the time, 52 minutes until it was dead. I have a detailed power test post on the previous page total runtime there was 1:48

=================================

Battery Information:

  Model Information:

  Serial Number:    C0113140E2YDGKMAX

  Manufacturer:    DP

  Device name:    bq20z451

  Pack Lot Code:    0000

  PCB Lot Code:    0000

  Firmware Version:    0406

  Hardware Revision:    0001

  Cell Revision:    1102

  Charge Information:

  Charge remaining (mAh):    5129

  Fully charged:    No

  Charging:    Yes

  Full charge capacity (mAh):    8573

  Health Information:

  Cycle count:    16

  Condition:    Normal

  Battery Installed:    Yes

  Amperage (mA):    1746

  Voltage (mV):    11788

System Power Settings:

  AC Power:

  System Sleep Timer (Minutes):    0

  Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes):    0

  Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    60

  Wake On AC Change:    No

  Wake On Clamshell Open:    Yes

  Wake On LAN:    Yes

  Current Power Source:    Yes

  Display Sleep Uses Dim:    Yes

  GPUSwitch:    2

  Battery Power:

  System Sleep Timer (Minutes):    20

  Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes):    10

  Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    15

  Wake On AC Change:    No

  Wake On Clamshell Open:    Yes

  Display Sleep Uses Dim:    Yes

  GPUSwitch:    2

  Reduce Brightness:    Yes

Hardware Configuration:

  UPS Installed:    No

AC Charger Information:

  Connected:    Yes

  ID:    0x0100

  Wattage (W):    85

  Revision:    0x0000

  Family:    0x0085

  Serial Number:    0x00196d15

  Charging:    Yes

===========================

Thanks,

Joe

OK,

You need to do this fully charged, looking at the difference between max capacity and current charge only tells me the battery is not charged. Charge to 100%, observe the difference between 'Full charge capacity (mAh):' and 'Charge remaining (mAh):'

A perfect battery would have no difference at all.

so i have just got on osx lion yesterday and i noticed the drastic decrease in battery life from 7-9 hrs to 3-4 hours which is pretty bad and i have the version 10.7.1 so i hope with the release of 10.7.2 apple could address this problem because it is becoming very annoying APPLE CREATE A FIX FOR ALL OF US i havent done a calibration in about 3-4 months (got my macbook in february) so the calibration will be my last hope (tried resetting the SMC that doesnt work) i think 95% of us here on this forum has the same problem so APPLE PLZ CREATE A FIX ASAP !!!

Hello,

Fully charged:

Charge Information:

  Charge remaining (mAh):    8523

  Fully charged:    Yes

  Charging:    No

  Full charge capacity (mAh):    8523

Thanks

Joe

!! 8523? Wow... I've got a pretty new MBP (less than one month old) and max I have at full charge is 6849, is something wrong w/mine?

wow 8523 thats superb mine is about 5306 after 9 months when i first got it it was around 6700 sooo 8523 ??? uhhh idk thats great !

with that complicated solution, it is probably easier to buy a new laptop local apple store told me that my battery was for the original settings of os x now that i moved to lion that is what is killing it eventhough i changed it again ! not fun!!

Gunnerjoe wrote:

 

Hello,

 

Fully charged:

 

Charge Information:

  Charge remaining (mAh):    8523

  Fully charged:    Yes

  Charging:    No

  Full charge capacity (mAh):    8523

 

Thanks

 

Joe

There is nothing wrong with your battery.

davie22 wrote:

 

so i have just got on osx lion yesterday and i noticed the drastic decrease in battery life from 7-9 hrs to 3-4 hours which is pretty bad and i have the version 10.7.1 so i hope with the release of 10.7.2 apple could address this problem because it is becoming very annoying APPLE CREATE A FIX FOR ALL OF US i havent done a calibration in about 3-4 months (got my macbook in february) so the calibration will be my last hope (tried resetting the SMC that doesnt work) i think 95% of us here on this forum has the same problem so APPLE PLZ CREATE A FIX ASAP !!!

Where did you get those figures, from the estimation provided by the little icon on the top right or did you actually run the computer for 13 hours (9+4) while testing.

The indicator is purely an estimate, if you have not run the computer down several times as a test you have no idea what your battery life is.