Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

Hi Aswick. I may have not fully understood your numbers. When you said you had 43% then it dropped to 30% over a 30 minute period, and then you had 58% which dropped to 48% over a 30 minute period, that looks to me to be around 4.3% and 3.3% every 10 minutes, respectively. But, if you're seeing 6% every 10 minutes, that would suggest I'm not reading the percentages you posted properly as being associated with remaining battery time. No worries. Bottom line is that ML does use more current than before, which is why it's draining faster. The thing we don't have an answer for yet (and hopefully Apple does when they role out 10.8.3) is why?.

I'm also running 8GB in my 13" 2011 MBP, with an average of 800 to 900 mAh when sitting idle on Lion. Of course if you have a 15" or 17" MBP, I would expect a slightly higher current simply due to the increased screen size. But without other people posting their idle current usage, it's hard to establish a baseline.

ScratchSF: Sorry for my frustrations coming through in my post. I do appreciate your help with this. As much as I like ML, I may have to take your approach and resort to going back to Lion to save my battery. I am very surprised Apple doesn't have better support for recent hardware like yours (only a year old).

The lack of support is quite stunning, really. And the 250,000 views that this thread has had indicates the extent of this problem.

I came to this post today because my battery is now shot--the "Genius" says I need a new one for my mid-2009 MBP 13" which my Apple Store will charge $170 to replace. No explanation as to why a "revolutionary battery" designed to maintain "80% of its original capacity at up to 1000 full charge and discharge cycles" is sitting at 72% after half as many cycles, and no explanation as to why a replacement battery that Apple says will cost $129 comes in at $170. So, I'm frustrated, but my Mac is 2 years older than so many seeking help here to no avail, despite such thorough and creative approaches proffered by the support community.

Welcome, A-3 and g8 (has anyone sunk a battleship, yet?)

B4 i C1 named D7, I'll move on....

Sorry to hear about the hissing noise, A-3, but... cool! (yet scary). Do adapters at the Apple Store trigger the hiss too? Easy check when you go in to ask for a logic board replacement as recommended by Apple according to Beisarius on page 193. (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4135250?start=2880&tstart=0)

In the good old days I would have asked you to remove the battery and run on power only but the days of non-serviceable electronics are upon us, much as they fight it at ifixit.com.

Does "Safe Boot" change anything? I haven't seen comments to this effect.

The claim you're not running anything that taxes the processor makes me ask. I expect no change in behavior, but what the ****.

You may have something different going on since clean instals of Lion appear to fix many people, but not you.

The same awful battery life is exhibited even in OS 10.6, which so far as I recall, no one has complained about. You may be an inadvertant red herring with a problem exclusive to you.

For everyone else,

Is the battery life similarly awful when booted from recovery disks or recovery partition?

(might have to let it run an hour and when you boot to ML see if an hour is gone from teh time remaining or substantially less.)

Hi ScratchSF,

Thanks so much for taking the time to help out! 🙂

Here are the test results!

Approx. 2 minute increments starting from 82%

2:09 min/sec = 81%

2:20 min/sec = 80%

1:04 min/sec = 79%

0:45 sec = 77% (suddenly dropped by 2%)...what?!

As you can see here....I'm really not doing anything. And even if I was doing something...the battery can't drain this quickly. I remember using Logic Pro (Digital Audio Workstation) and working/editing audio files/playing around with midi....doing sound design (which uses a lot of CPU)...and the battery NEVER drained this quickly...in fact...I was getting 5-6 hours of battery life on approximately 60-70% battery in Lion. The battery on my Macbook Pro used to be the "wow factor" for me.

Here is a picture of my stats in Coconut Battery...

Keep in mind that I just replaced my battery 3 weeks ago and I've only used my computer about 7 times since then.

The condition of my battery says its normal and I only have 8 cycle counts! 😕

Hi Bill Jacobs2,

Haha thanks so much! Yes, I concur....cool but scary. Actually....let's just say scary and annoying!

I've already replaced my Logic Board...would you think they would replace it again? So far, Apple has been so considerate to me and I have to give them credit for keeping most of their customers happy. The senior advisors are really nice and the genius bar replaced my Logic Board and my Battery without having me pay a dime. I have to thank them for that, but unfortunately, it's not their fault that my computer is still having problems. Yes, I am a little frustrated and I'm sure everyone else on this forum is, too...but..I just hope there is a fix for this...otherwise I'd have to sell my 7 month old MBP.

I just recently tried out connecting different 85W adapters (I have a 17" MBP) and I still hear the hissing noise.

I've also tried out the "Safe Boot" with the advisor over the phone...but still no luck.

I think my issues are considered to be more hardware rather than software, but it's just weird that I started noticing the issue when I updated to mountain lion. I'm just confused. :\

A-3, thank for posting the information. It is definitely puzzling because there is one thing that just doesn't make any sense. So, I'm going to ask you to post some additional information.

First, here's what makes sense. in the bottom image, your current battery capacity is 6458 mAh. And your current usage is -1111 mA, with a voltage of 11686 mV. So, when we take the absolute value of mA and multiply it by the mV, we get 12.95 watts, which is consistent with the Battery Power Usage reported by Coconut Battery at 13.0 watts. So, that's good because it's consistent.

Now, if you're averaging -1111 mA and you have 6458 mAh in capacity remaining, you should be able to get around almost 6 hours of battery life; which is computed by taking 6458 (mAh) and dividing it by 1111 (mA) for a total of 5.8 (hours). BUT, you are seeing the battery percentage drop by 1% every 2 minutes, this would only give you just over 3 hours of battery life. AND, your screen capture shows that the OS is reporting 1:51 remaining. So, somewhere, the OS isn't calculating something right OR the battery drain is greater than the 1111 mA reported OR the battery capacity is wrong. Not sure what would cause this behavior..., yet. But, depending on the additional readings you provide, we might have a major clue...

So, I Need your help again: In addition to reporting the change in percentage with every 1% drop, can you also report the current usage (mA) and the capacity ramining (mAh) with every change in percentage? You can do screen shots, or you can just report the values.

My current working Hypothisis - Is this really a Battery Charging issue?

The more I participate in this thread, the more I am leaning toward this being a Battery Charging issue rather than a Battery Usage issue.

I say this for lots of reasons. First, I noticed that it takes longer to charge my battery in Lion that it took when I was on ML. This is important because Lithium Polymer batteries are very particular about how they are charged. And, an improperly charged battery could result in the two problems reported in this thread - diminished battery capacity as observed by the battery draining quickly and a drop in battery health from 100% to a number far less than 100% within just a few charging cycles.

In addition to my personal observation about the charging time on the various OSes, another big clue appears to come from A-3's posting which doesn't make sense in terms of the percentage drop per minute or the remaining time as computed by the OS. It's not clear how the remaining time is computed - whether it is derived solely from amperage (mA) remaining, or if their algorithm also considers the voltage level of the battery. Since both values are used (or should be used) in charging, it is possible that both are used in determining reaining time.

One final reason I lean in this direction - that it is a battery charging issue - is because Apple's FAQ on batteries gives advice that runs counter to the advice given by manufacturers of LiPo batteries. I don't want to get into a p*ssing match about whether Apple is right or wrong. Anyone who can look at Google can find what the manufacturers say and what Apple says. So, if Apple is right and they have "special" batteries, that's one thing. But if they are treating LiPo batteries in a similar to NiCd or NiMH batteries (in terms of how they are charging them), then that would be a problem.

In either case, this hypothisis is relatively easy to test; but it will take someone who is on ML and having the issue to do it. It will also take someone on Lion (or ML) not having the issue.

First, report your battery capacity (mAh), current usage (mA), % remaining, and reported time remaining in 10 minute increments. This will enable us to determine if the change in mAh over a period of time is consistent with the reported draw (mA) on the battery over that period. Note: When on battery power, mA will be a negative number.

Second, drain your battery to something less than 80%. Then put it on the charger, every 10 minutes check and see what the reported current usage is (mA) and the charged capacity (mAh). The mA value will be a positive number. Do this until the battery is 100% charged and the mA changed to 0. Also capture the total amount of time it took to charge the battery. Note: When your battery is charging, mA will be a positive number.

Depending on what we find in these two experiments, we'll know if what is really going on is a Charging Issue or not.

P.S. Hey Apple, if this really does turn out to be the problem and this helps you sole it; how about you throw a few 13" Retina MBP's my way!? :-)

One more thing: When capturing the metrics for Charging, also capture the mV values. Thanks.

I started the timer to watch how quick my battery drains. Starting at 55% it took 2hrs 30mins to drop to 8%. That is pretty crazy!! There has to be a fix for this!

55 to 8% = a 47% drop in 2.5 hours, suggesting a battery life of 5.3 hours (under current conditions) what were you expecting?

I used to get about 7 hours. I'm going to try this again starting at 100%.

dopeboy503 wrote:

I used to get about 7 hours. I'm going to try this again starting at 100%.

Post back

Not sure if this is related, after disapointments with poor battery life on Macbook Air 13" with ML, swapped to Macbook pro 15" Retina now battery completely died -- after 3 months. Battery is reading 0%, will not charge, Condition: Replace Battery. 25 cycles!

Took it to the Apple shop Sunday after speaking to Apple support, who agreed the battery has failed. It is now Wednesday and still they have not replaced the battery. 3-4 days later!!

I called yesterday (Tuesday), as I have lots of work to get on with, and they said, don't hassle us, we'll call you when it's ready --- how long does it take to replace the battery.

And this is on top of the wifi-bluetooth MBPR problems.

Apple what's going on?

Paul

Alright, so my battery lasted about 4 hours. Before I timed how long I could use my laptop, the battery was calibrated. It started at 97%

Had to run some errends so I had to turned my macbook off, once I picked it back up (notice the lost of 6% while being on sleep mode)

This is it. The battery percentage, time and stopwatch are all inclued in the pictures. My battery used to last much longer.