Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Csound1. The other absolute constant from prior tests is that any apps that ZAP my battery, 100% of the time, also show the AMD Radeon HD display switch.

Why you not use gfxCardStatus?

Hi - I upgraded my MBP 13' last week, and had the same issue -- machine running very hot and when I looked at the acitivy monitor the USB Print and Storage Center was using 100% of the CPU. Stopped the process and everything returned to normal. Stayed that way through normal use for a few days and now for no apparent reason that process has shown back up, again using 100% (or more, don't ask me how) of the CPU. And and my normally cold machine is red hot again. Do you happen to know what that process is? All I've been able to come up from scrounging around online is a Belkin router application that allows you to connect devices to the routher via USB. And as I AM using a Belkin router that might make sense, even though I've never connected anything to it via USB; I only print wirelessly and have no interest in accessing the storage on the router.  Are you also using a Belkin router?

Hi everybody,

Posting here for the 3rd time or so...

I've been doing some kind of proper benchmarking today, starting with full charghe and the testing a full battery usage withouth limitations to my normal office activity, and turned out to have a battery life of more or less 5:10, which to me is quite fine, considering the large use of skype (call and chat), video on YouTube, etc.

So, I started using the MBP 13" (mid 2011) at 2:30pm, advertised battery was 4h55' (6h21' in safe mode).

Now it's 6:41pm and I get 15% left, advertised 0h49' , which is really fine to me, considering I used wi-fi most of the time, screen half dimmed and a little light beneath the keys as well.

Btw, my MacBook Pro came with native SL, and was upgraded to Lion then. I've also done downgrading to SL (10.6.8) twice, just to find out that the situation was exactly the same, so got back to Lion which to me has nice features (trackpad and Mail above all).

Also, to me the battery life has eventually been consistent with what Apple is specifying in the MBP page, which is as follows:

"Wireless web testing conducted by Apple in October 2011 using preproduction 2.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i7–based 13-inch MacBook Pro units, preproduction 2.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7–based 15-inch MacBook Pro units, and preproduction 2.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7–based 17-inch MacBook Pro units. The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 50%. Battery life varies by use and configuration."

For the first time since switching to Lion, hence, I must say I find myself not that disappointed about battery life (as I had actually stated before).

Cheers

ML, Started tests with battery life showing 7 hrs or so.

I started GFXCartStatus 2.1 to integrated only. I let it settle and Battery was showing 6hrs and 50 mins or so.

Starting Twitter, iPhoto now have little impact on battery life now so the switching issue is definitely something to cause this nonsense. AWESOME. I am even showing 5hrs and 45 mins with VMWARE running - YAHOO.. Best I got before was 2hrs 45! or less!!

However, inadvertently, GFXCardStatus may have highlighted a bug. I've seen it FIVE times now, each with Twitter, iPhoto and Vmware. I rebooted in between to make clean tests. It does it every time!

With GFXCardStatus set to integrated only, after I SHUT DOWN (after running individually) twitter, iPhoto or VMWARE, GFXCardStatus switched to Discrete (Big D in status bar) and I confirmed by going to system report. The battery life thus went DOWN again by 2-3 hours after I closed any of these applications. That's VERY strange. Even assuming Twitter, iPhoto and VMware had a bug, shutting down the apps, Apple should clean up, no? GFXStatus correctly stopped these apps switching into Discrete at startup but didn't stop them doing the opposite at shut down. Strange observation but what does it mean? GFXCardStatus could have the bug! However, it's ominous considering the symptoms we are  having don't you think?

Also, to confirm - AFTER (LOL) I shut down iPhoto, battery life went from 6hrs 30 mins to 3hrs 30 mins (and the D is in status bar for GFXCardStatus). I then went to the GFXCardstatus and toggled to Dynamic and the for integrated switch came back - and so did battery life - back to now 6hrs and 30 mins.

Could it be a fluke or could this be a bug with GFXCardStatus. Boy, if Apple showed even the slightest bit of interest, I have the most reproducible set of "issues" on the planet!

Oh well.. At least I know how to FAKE LION into giving me what I want in terms of over 6 hours battery life. Can't see why LION can't do it itself. I've reported the bugs to Apple 6 weeks ago BTW.

OK, So, LION running GFXCardStatus set to integrated - FIXES whatever is wrong with YOU. I've been running for nearly 2 hours and  I have 69% Battery remaining and SHOWING 4hrs and 40 mins remaining. I am currently running... WAIT FOR IT ;

Mac MAIL

SAFARI (Two sessions, 8 tabs)

Adium

Mac Ical

VMWARE (2 active Virtual machines running XP)

Skype

ITunes

Iphoto

MS Word

MS Excel

MS Powerpoint

Twitter

Google Music

DropBox

EverNote

I have not minimized the apps, they are all running. Before, I never got passed any one of Twitter, Iphoto or Skype before I'd drop to not much more than 2-3 hours from a full charge.

BINGO. Now, what does Apple need to do to fix it? Or what options should they give us.

Franc_Iphone wrote:

 

With GFXCardStatus set to integrated only, after I SHUT DOWN (after running individually) twitter, iPhoto or VMWARE, GFXCardStatus switched to Discrete (Big D in status bar) and I confirmed by going to system report.

 

 

I had the same bug. First of all be sure that you disable automatic graphics switching in system settings. Then I discovered that if you are switching graphic cards in gfxCardStatus while discrete card application is already running, that is the reason of wrong gfxCardStatus behaviour. So try to close all apps first, then set to "Integrated Only". In my case it helped.

lesliefromstockton-on-tees wrote:

 

Sorry McDave, your logic is also ill founded.  I have a new Macbook Pro, only Lion installed with Pages, that's all.  Battery life is half what it was under SL.  I do not use the battery monitor, I have been actual logging use.

 

 

Safari, Mail and Pages use, 30% screen brightness, keyboard lights off, still crap.

Possibly.  There seems to be some headway for those with GPU settings adjustments though I'm unsure as there were similar queries from people without discrete GPUs (can't recall if you were one).

I'm backing the memory-leak line myself as some of the screenshots show horrendous virtual memory figures for mundane apps.  OSX typically 'takes out the trash' i.e. frees up un-allocated memory automatically which makes for lazy programming, iOS on the other hand doesn't so I wonder if that's changed and is causing problems.

The memory leak would show as a progressive swallowing of all real memory and and increase in virtual memory.  I would expect it to be a slow failure upon cold reboot, faster with multiple Open at Login apps and almost instant after a resume or waking from sleep.

Could you open Activity Monitor at login, set it to show system memory (and virtual memory), sort by real memory and post a screen-shot?

Also, please post your Safari version number?

Safari version number is Version 5.1.1 (7534.51.22)

Screen capture on boot as reqested!

GFXCardStatus does have bugs. From the app's website:

"Known Issues (Working on it!)   

• Power source-based switching doesn't work if the machine is sleeping when the power source is changed.
• Occasionally, when on Integrated Only, after all discrete-triggering apps have been quit, the machine will switch to Discrete Only."

Leslie

Please take this as constructive and not critical, but you had previously posted that you only have Lion plus Pages installed and that you run only Safari, Mail and Pages, but I notice you are also running Sophos anti-virus.

Have you tried disabling Sophos (if that is possible) and rebooting?

It would be interesting to see if that is causing your battery problems.

Also, can you run Console (in the Applications>Utilities folder, or just type Console into Spotlight and launch it from there) and post a acreen shot?

Disable Sophos and see how it works then.

Even 10.6.8 is  a battery eater. I am happy with 10.6.6. I will try to upgrade again in another 3 months if apple comes up ( honestly) with a patch to fix it.

I happy to have 8-10 hrs on citrix client connected to office.  I  had very good image about Apple product for quality but Lion shattered everything and the worst part is that Apple is not honest in accepting the fault.

Anyone seeing any improvements after the latest EFI update?

Just done all the updates so too early to tell. However, I am typing this and at 80% battery, it's showing 6 hours and 5 mins... That's a good sign but then we've all seen the battery life leap after some major system jig..

Fingers crossed though.

(p.s. My MAC MAIL seems to be fixed from what I can see)....