Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Thank you "MacDave" for calling me a Troll! It seems that more points some users have next to their name, it means that Apple is going to be defended to the last drop of their blood!

I have no Apple points but I've got my first PC in 1987 and since then most of the time I'm surrounded with computers. I work in a high-tech environment as IT professional but on this forum I see myself as an individual who spent nice amount of money on something that was not advertised correctly and try to find help or answer how to fix this.

I am really surprised how many people here are so happy to act as advocates for $400 billion empire for their own money. You can call me a troll or whatever you like but read this and think about it!

With SL prior to the last update as a reference point it's not so hard to make a conclusion that something is wrong, no need to be tech savvy. I’ve tried clean install with only Apple core applications and battery failed again. Do I really need to spend any more time on third party apps while Apple stuff still pose the problem.

I can't calculate the total of money that I spent since 1987 on IT equipment but I can tell you that I don't want to be anymore a free-tester for my own money. Apple said 7 hours and we all know that was achievable and under what conditions. Now, we can’t get even close to that under the same conditions it’s simple as that.

MacDave, unless you work for Apple I really don’t see why would you advocate for them (sadly many more on this forum). Franc and me just want so say that we need to keep pressure on them until they find a solution.

Sincerely yours

Dr Chandra (the Troll)

MacDave: you're the only one here claiming a longer battery life after installing Lion.

Please post your stats to prove your argument.

Possibly compared to Snow Leopard's ones, as many other users are doing.

It'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Haven't chimed in on this thread in a while. Just noticed my battery life drop from cycle 10 to cycle 11 by a much larger amount than expected even though running SL (6858 to 6728). Is this a normal loss of full charge capacity or should I be concerned?

I am getting fairly decent battery life on a downgraded machine from a preinstalled Lion to SL though. Averaging about 6-7 hours while using Chrome for browsing and with some occasional other apps in the background (word, excel).

Rayced wrote:

 

MacDave: you're the only one here claiming a longer battery life after installing Lion.

That's not true; I was (among the?) first to claim that and stand by it.

My MacBook Pro 5,1 went from an average of 3.5 to 4 hours under SL to 4.5 - 5 hours under Lion.

Déjà vu - 6 points

@Kucharski: though I guess you were using a third party software under SL which you haven't ported on Lion install.

(sarcatic mode off)

Rayced wrote:

 

MacDave: you're the only one here claiming a longer battery life after installing Lion.

Please post your stats to prove your argument.

Possibly compared to Snow Leopard's ones, as many other users are doing.

It'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I have had no discernable change in battery life since upgrading to Lion, so you're claim is not supported here either.

...And my axe!

But seriously guys, some of us have a real problem, and a lot of other people don't.  This thread is about the problem its title addresses.  Thank you commenters, for pointing out that your battery life has either improved or not changed -- something that tells us the problem is not universal -- but that doesn't take away from my experience, or the fact that this thread is at 64 pages now for a reason.

It's good to be skeptical, but to make comments when you're not experiencing the problem yourself is not at all helpful.

csound1, thanks for taking the time to help.

After a safe reboot, I was getting 3hrs 31mins shown.

After the normal reboot, I am getting about 5hrs again. Here are the two log files.

At most times CPU usage was 97% idle.

1st Image showing 60 processes is SAFE MODE.

THis one is normal mode. 65 processes

Ilhan Kudeki wrote:

 

...And my axe!

 

 

But seriously guys, some of us have a real problem, and a lot of other people don't.  This thread is about the problem its title addresses.  Thank you commenters, for pointing out that your battery life has either improved or not changed -- something that tells us the problem is not universal -- but that doesn't take away from my experience, or the fact that this thread is at 64 pages now for a reason.

 

It's good to be skeptical, but to make comments when you're not experiencing the problem yourself is not at all helpful.

I'm not skeptical, I'm pointing out that it is not universal so there must be a definable cause, and that cause should be able to be located using the Activity Monitor, and some time.

Franc_Iphone wrote:

 

csound1, thanks for taking the time to help.

 

After a safe reboot, I was getting 3hrs 31mins shown.

 

After the normal reboot, I am getting about 5hrs again. Here are the two log files.

 

At most times CPU usage was 97% idle.

 

1st Image showing 60 processes is SAFE MODE.

THis one is normal mode. 65 processes

You'll have to run for a few days to see if this is permanent or not

Thanks again Csound1. Sadly, I just cannot run the machine in these modes, given my work needs.

However, can I ask you a question. I have been doing benchmarks (from 10000 user/seat mainframes to comparison of PC's, mobile devices etc., for over 20+ years. I get the principals of testing, clean environments, reptitive environments et al.

So;

I can make my Macbook go from 7 hours to 3 hours (I've tested to full drain) by starting just one application of many that have this same symptom. Lets pick one, Twitter, the one from the Apple App Store that you could get as well. The exact same 7 hrs to 3 hours happens when I start and stop Iphoto on it's own as well. So. with nothing else running, I get this symptom for each app. Reproducible over and over again. Let us assume Iphoto and Twitter have the same "bad code" or something that others have hinted at. Running either of these, after the first 20 seconds, the CPU % IDle on my machine is about 97%. Disk acitivty is also neglible. What would you "guess" is the problem and what could I look for. I can start/stop either Twitter and IPhoto if that helps but if the activity monitor shows almost zip in terms of usage, what the heck else can I look for? If I stop either app, battery life shoots back up to 7 hours.

Franc_Iphone wrote:

 

Thanks again Csound1. Sadly, I just cannot run the machine in these modes, given my work needs.

I meant to run it in normal mode from now on, if the battery useage increases then another look will be needed.

Csound1 or anyone else, any comments on my main question, below;

I can make my Macbook go from 7 hours to 3 hours (I've tested to full drain) by starting just one application of many that have this same symptom. Lets pick one, Twitter, the one from the Apple App Store that you could get as well. The exact same 7 hrs to 3 hours happens when I start and stop Iphoto on it's own as well. So. with nothing else running, I get this symptom for each app. Reproducible over and over again. Let us assume Iphoto and Twitter have the same "bad code" or something that others have hinted at. Running either of these, after the first 20 seconds, the CPU % IDle on my machine is about 97%. Disk acitivty is also neglible. What would you "guess" is the problem and what could I look for. I can start/stop either Twitter and IPhoto if that helps but if the activity monitor shows almost zip in terms of usage, what the heck else can I look for? If I stop either app, battery life shoots back up to 7 hours.

Here's the image with just Iphoto running (Minimized), taking 2 hours from the battery life;

I know that when I found the high CPU usage caused, in that case, by Google Talk (video), the process only showed very intermittently and I was lucky to notice it.  But the core temperature was reaching 93C, so something was clearly amiss.

Maybe, apart from Activity Monitor, your system log in Console might show up something, like activity by Twitter, or in my case, Skype, trying to connect even when the computer lid is closed overnight.

Anybody with a definite problem would be as well to take these logs and post them to Apple on their bug report form.