Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

I have identified a Western Digital service my problem: causing NVIDIA GT 330M to spin up and stop Macbook Pro (i7 2 core) from falling back to Intel Graphics.

WDQuickView is the offending service - was starting at login for me and machine was starting in NVIDIA mode - stopping the service dropped me back to Intel Graphics. If i manually run this WDQuickView it kicks into NVIDIA again so it is consistent. As long as this service was running NVIDIA was engaged.

This service was installed when I first used/installed a WD external USB drive.

Disabling this has taken my bettery life (MBP 17/512SSD/8GB/i7 dual core) from 3 hours to 5.5 - not quite where I was before Lion installed but way better.

Ilhan Kudeki wrote:

 

I still don't understand how you think the issue is with GPU switching when I'm getting the exact same drops in battery life on my MacBook Pro 13" (early 2011 model) which has only an integrated GPU.

I'm sure it is two different issues. The problem with the GPU switching was on SL too, it is not new. I have 2 macbook pro's, one is 13" 2010 (one video card) other one is 15" 2011 (two video cards). After installing Lion I have noticed 30% less battery life on both of them (using gfxCardStatus on MBP 2011, and no flash on both of MBPs). Just using Safari on MBP 2011 I get 5 hours only (advertised 7 hours by Apple), on MBP 2010 - 7 hours ( advertised 9). With SL I had even more than advertised. So it is definitely Lion issue, maybe it's because Lion have absolutely new memory management and uses much more memory than SL (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3193912)

And I feel that it could be fixed by apple only in future models of MBP by using new battery with increased capacity or using other new hardware.

p.s. sorry for my English

Hi guys,

I've been following this thread since its very beginning, I've tried every solution with no actual benefit for my battery life. I have a MacBook Pro (bought june 2011, native OS SL, then upgraded to Lion). As everybody here states, battery has dropped down by half in normal, and I mean on an average everyday life usage, which for me means (on a normal session):

- web browsing on wi-fi using multiple browsers (safari, chrome, firefox)

- typing in word

- using excel spreadsheets

- doing some editing in Photoshop

- plugging my iPhone/iPad/iPod for sync and backup

I must be honest: I would have bet that the issue was affecting Lion on every environment, and was also pretty unlikely to believe that there were users not experiencing this issue. Until yesterday, when a trusted friend of mine (IT employee) told me he's experiencing full 6 hours session with his everyday use of MacBook Pro 2011 (Lion-native, bought refurbished from Apple).

I haven't had the chance to verify the info personally through a benchmark, nor to verify the actual version of his MBP, but I'm quite sure I can trust my friend's report.

I just thought it might have been useful to share this info because I doubt that those who follow this thread ever had the chance to bump into a normally working Lion battery (although somebody was mentioning his father's MBP lasting much longer than his own): my friend's experience, if reliable, would actually confirm that not all MBP are affected, and that - if so - Lion is not the problem in itself (which is also confirmed by the evidence that both 13'' and 15''-17'' environments are affected, regardless of the number of video cards involved...).

I apologize with the experts for the lack of technicality in my words. Hope this helps (at least to give us a hope).

I agree. I have MacBookAir (early 2011) and I am experiencing almost half battery life.

Over 100,000 hits so far , not bad for non existing problem.

Question: Is there anyone who installed clean SL including all recent updates (no longer than 2-3 weeks ago) and how's battery performance?

I'd like to be sure that everything is still OK with SL before I make switch back.

Thanks

DrChandra, I actually spent 4 hours doing a clean install of Snow Leopard and copied over all my files and reinstalled my apps, only to find that the reduced battery life persisted.   I have no idea why a clean install wouldn't fix the problem, but it didn't for me.  So I reloaded my SuperDuper backup of Lion as I had gotten used to its features.

It seems that recent updates for SL kill battery too. Is SL with no updates solution if you want battery to last over 6-7 hours? All this ***** and it's nothing than a massive co..up by Apple.

Been testing SL, 10.7.2 since it came out using a spreadsheet to log working time rather than rely on anything else.  To my amazement, I am only getting 2.5 to 3hrs average use before the battery dies.  This is with the screen at about 30% brightness and the keyboard lights off.  Use is typical, Safari, Pages, Excel etc.

Not good!

Someone setup a Facebook pages, this thread now has over 100,000 hits!

Not happy but at least I can have my Macbook Pro on my lap now -the case temperature is a lot lower with 10.7.2.

4% health lost in 6 weeks!

Les

It seems that recent updates for SL kill battery too. Is SL with no updates solution if you want battery to last over 6-7 hours? All this ***** and it's nothing than a massive co..up by Apple.

Hm... For the first time a while, I took my laptop on the road. I was doing some writing in Adobe Contribute for website content, and I got 2.5 hours before my better was getting close to the end.

Maybe there is something in the SL update that is draining batteries too, now, or maybe Contribute is just a battery-blood sucker.

Or maybe Apple has integrated some spy-ware to keep track of all users for the coming "roundup" of civilians.

:-)

Dear APPLE, please explain, why on SL, after recent updates, with CPU percentage at most 1 to 3 % usage, no disk activity and no internet activity, screen brightness low etc.,, WHY is the battery being drained so fat.

I've seen many things drain batterys and extensive CPU is one of them but I rarely see batterys drain so fast when even the sytem confirms it's not in the slightest bit busy.

Thanks,

.

If no one wants to start the fresh Facebook page we can hook up to this: http://www.facebook.com/pages/MacBook-Pro-13-inch-battery-issues-not-meeting-mar keting-hype/131305050274380

I went back to clean install of  SL and now getting 8-9 hrs battery life.  I am afraid to upgrade to 10.6.8. I am fine with 10.6.6.

Have backup before if you decide to go ahead!

I have been following this thread from the beginning and I too upgraded my Snow Leopard 2011 MacBook Pro to Lion all the way to 10.7.1. The battery life meant I couldn't use it in class so I went back to Snow Leopard fresh install. I installed from disk and then updated immediately to 10.6.8 I noticed the battery life was about 6 hours instead of the 7-8 I had been used to. I then reset the SMC and then reset the PRAM and lo and behold the battery life is back to 7-8 hours and it lasts me all day at school. Also that is not a "It says 7-8 in the bar" that is a real "ran it to 0% at school" test. Hope this helps!