Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

James from Dasmarinas wrote:

Oh. Darn! This made me sad. 😟 But thanks for enlightening me. I guess the only choice I have is to wait for 10.8.3.

I know your feelings about this. Even me i felt the same as yours. Yes, We shall wait and see on 10.8.3, Hope it's all positive results 🙂

I'm waiting for public release as well. I downgraded to Lion and must be 100% certine that the new ML update would solve the battery issue before i upgrade.

As can be seen from the pic, my battery is broken in. It had dropped to 95% health after 35 or so cycles. Following my last calibration, and a few more cycles, it went up to 99.3. Very typical Li Ion behavior and in line with batteryuniversity explanations. Usage is as per theory, never let it drop to 0 frequently, avoid constant rapid drains (such as video)- in which case I may plug. Avoid parasitic drain (plugged in non stop usage) and for the rest, it is as disconnected as my iphone.

Beisarius wrote:

As can be seen from the pic, my battery is broken in. It had dropped to 95% health after 35 or so cycles. Following my last calibration, and a few more cycles, it went up to 99.3. Very typical Li Ion behavior and in line with batteryuniversity explanations. Usage is as per theory, never let it drop to 0 frequently, avoid constant rapid drains (such as video)- in which case I may plug. Avoid parasitic drain (plugged in non stop usage) and for the rest, it is as disconnected as my iphone.

This is OS X Lion?

Actually i have the solution to boost up the battery lifetime when using mountain lion 10.8.2 🙂 lol it makes me happy. From 3 hrs battery performance, it's back to 7 hrs. It's a simple trick, go in system preferences; select i cloud, deselect everything and sign out from it. Secondly, go to notifications, select your necessary applications and the remaining put them in the category "not in notification center". As such these apps will stop appearing on the notification bar and save battery life..

Once these steps are done.. Your battery life will boost up to 7hrs 🙂

I agree with this solution....It helped me when I had battery issues. I also disabled notification center. I can easily get 5 hours from my 11" Air. I'm on ML 10.8.2.

It is indeed Mountain Lion.

FOr some people iClous turnoff never worked, but that is also the crowd I suspect has defective batteries. anywhere up to 10% of new units out there should have off the shelf defective Li Ion batteries. That is easiest established by replacing the battery and back to specs.

I seem to be having the same problem with my battery- I just installed Mountain Lion last night on my MacBook Pro 13 inch 2009- (which I had replaced this fall in addition to a new hard drive). I had to turn off the notification center in order to et even 3 hours out of my battery life. It's sad because I like the new system but my classes are 4 hours long and not all the classrooms have power adapters near the seats. I'm really disappointed with it.

JMEvans wrote:

I seem to be having the same problem with my battery- I just installed Mountain Lion last night on my MacBook Pro 13 inch 2009- (which I had replaced this fall in addition to a new hard drive). I had to turn off the notification center in order to et even 3 hours out of my battery life. It's sad because I like the new system but my classes are 4 hours long and not all the classrooms have power adapters near the seats. I'm really disappointed with it.

this was confirmed to be a solution by someone else, i also think that flashplayer is a huge battery killer....

I'm not very computer literate. What does the flashplayer do? Is there a way to make it not kill the battery as much?

JMEvans wrote:

I'm not very computer literate. What does the flashplayer do? Is there a way to make it not kill the battery as much?

It doesn't come preinstalled in your macbook pro unless you install it or you have installed google chrome!! It's what you need to watch youtube videos so if you remove it you won't be able to watch youtube videos.

Also, there are webistes/games that needs flashplayer to show properly.

karnish8 wrote:

Actually i have the solution to boost up the battery lifetime when using mountain lion 10.8.2 🙂 lol it makes me happy. From 3 hrs battery performance, it's back to 7 hrs. It's a simple trick, go in system preferences; select i cloud, deselect everything and sign out from it. Secondly, go to notifications, select your necessary applications and the remaining put them in the category "not in notification center". As such these apps will stop appearing on the notification bar and save battery life..

Once these steps are done.. Your battery life will boost up to 7hrs 🙂

Hi Karnish,

Is this method still working for you?

It is amazing how we are going through all the troubles, and Apple doesn't even acknowledge the problem. 😢

Simply put, the problem occurs only when you reinstall/upgrade the OS. The best solution is obvious, stay conservative. Obviously, this doesn't apply to those who have jumped the ship and joined the sorry list.

Shouldn't we asking why should we change the settings when everything was working wonderfully before the upgrade? I had Chrome installed on 10.7.1, and it was still solid 6-7 hrs working with MATLAB, Dropbox, surfing, mail etc. Now it is doomed.

Another noticeable difference is the fickleness of battery .... it changes its mind every minute about how much charged/minutes left etc. This was much more consistent on the original OS, be it 10.7 or 10.8 (I have two macbooks lads, 2X sufferer) ....

Can't confirm.

Has anyone installed the SMC Firmware update 1.8 for the Air? It seems to be battery related.... has it helped (just asking before I install it 🙂 ) ?