Lion is draining battery twice as fast as snow leopard

I had the same issue, but when the the system finished re-index, the battery estimaiton returned to the normal.

Daniel

double up the number of bateries and u are back in business

I'm having the same issues too, so I reset my SMC like everyone recommended and now my MBP when I logged back Spotlight was re-indexing it'self. Which is something I haven't seen in the forums. And now a 94% battery is telling me that I have 3 hours and 13 minutes. WORSE than prior to the SMC reset. I am also using gfxcardstatus and I'm on the Intel integrated chip. Oh, now it says 2:51....

I'm going to reset the SMC again and hope that everything gets back in line. :S. I hoe this bug will be fixed soon.

Note, the reset SMC directions are NOT the same as the reset the power directions. Resetting the power is Ctrl+Option+shift+Power. You'll see the full directions on:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3200038?answerId=15699337022#15699337022

It is resetting the power that works for several people. As for spotlight reindexing, be patient. Or just stop it indexing, by adding your hard drive to the Privacy section of Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Spotlight, and use FindAnyFile instead:

http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

When you need to search content of text files, use TextWrangler:

http://www.barebones.com/

And then only reindex Spotlight when you have time.

I already reset the power twice using those instructions by plugging in and using Ctrl + Option + Shift + Power.

Also Spotlight stopped indexing after 2 minutes - almost as if it realized that I already re-indexed back when I installed. I didn't tell it to stop, it just did itself. I'm now getting some pretty weird fluctuations in battery life, I can't really tell how much time I really have.

How old is your battery? How many cycles has it gone through according to Apple menu -> About This Mac -> More info?

New - this machine is only 5 months old after replacing my 4,1. Wow...they sure changed the About this Mac in Lion as well. 53 cycles (the computer travels with me a bunch to work). Coconut Battery reports that I'm still at 99% capacity.

I'm just going to have to test it out when I have the time to be infront of it for a long period of time and see how long it really does last.

Back to the original poster's issue, which is battery life. Aside from Spotlight indexing (which is, for the most part, a one-time thing), I don't see any mention in this thread of CPU utilization.

If you were to run Activity Monitor (located in /Applications/Utilities), and click on the "% CPU" column twice (descending sort), are there any processes that are showing consistently 10, 20, 30%, or higher?

Since you bought your MBP a month ago, you may not have a lot of third-party application installed, but an app that isn't 100% Lion-compatible may be causing a CPU drain, which generates more heat and will definitely impact battery life.

No, nothing in the CPU utilization column adds up to around 15%. Makes me think something behind the scenes in the OS is causing it.

I have tested this with no apps other than Safari running and it still happens.

The CPU utlization is what is causing the battery life to drop IMO.

Please read https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3200038?answerId=15699337022#15699337022

Looks like the issue has to do with the update resetting the power manager wrong, and doing it via hardware fixes issues.

So I just realized that my Activity Monitor was not showing all of the processes. I think I've found the culprit. Its a process called launchd. After a few minutes of using a web browser or iTunes this launchd process starts to constantly run at over 45%. Even after I quit the browsers and iTunes this process remains at 46%. I've tried to force quit that process but that does not work.

Finally fixed my troubles. I opened up the Console app. Found that a service that was running the Billings Pro Server was constantly failing. This is what was causing the launchd process to keep firing making the CPU usage go up.

I've been having this issue since Lion install as well (11 mbp). I've reset power (as previously mentioned), zapped pram, and then finally called support. Who had me do the same thing. Still showing only about 2 hours of charge on a full charge. The support person instructed me to calibrate the battery again. For the record, my CPU usage is less than 4% total. I suspect a bug, not a hardware issue. My wife's noticed diminished battery on her macbook as well since Lion install (09 macbook). I also have the remaining life indicator bouncing all over the place, from 4 hours to less than one etc. I'm well past spotlight and timemachine indexing, so disk spinning shouldn't really be a consideration.

Oh..

Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 6817

Cycle Count: 29

Condition: Normal

With all due respect to dysmike and Dustin, this thread has been hijacked from the original poster (PhangirloftheOpera) -

I'm not a moderator but recommend you start a separate thread so everyone can get the assistance they need.