Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

The 2011 MBA clarification is important, for two reason. the Intel graphic chipset is quite different- and the older Intel 3000 cannot match the Intel 4000 on ML, both in terms of thermal or power consumption. Then there is the Intel chip.

How long to try the machine? I would try if for two weeks, including doing backups. Initial backup files indexing is a hog on system ressources.

The ROM was indeed just an example, many other things can mismatch fromt he factory (factories). Do not forget that some got Samsung screens or Sharp. Others got Samsung SSDs but not the rest. if an SSD is faulty (thay are believed to have 10% failure rate), such as its control module, then the MBA MBP CPU is spending energy trying to access that drive. Again it may not be intuitive in some cases, a slowdown of read may not be obvious unless tested. Then there is the faulty batteries, also rated at 10%.

Yes Kirby, if a genius cannot help you, you escalate. Do not worry about fixes, it is not your job. You do a fresh install and PROVE it only gets 2-3 hours on a FRESH INSTALL. Avoid importing your settings- as they cannot validate software vs hardware glitch. Go at the Genius Bar.

If issue still there you escalate with an Apple Sr advisor on the phone. They will send you a diagnostic software, and extract data. They will also have access to your repair eforts at the store. For my unit, were it to only get 2-3 hours it would mean over 2000 Mah drain or 16 watts consumption, or twice what you see in the attached pic. If you have double the figures, get it replaced or the battery.

You're going to hate me. My MBA is mid 2012, my wife's Macbook Pro is mid 2011.

Sorry for the mix up.

But I have good news for me, and hopefully for others.

When I bought my MBA (mid-2012) I got a free upgrade to Mountain Lion. The upgrade came about a month later, sometime in August 2012 I think. I upgraded directly to it. That's when I started having issues with the battery. The % charged would go down by 1% every minute or two until after around 3 or 3.5 hours the computer would shut off. This was with me running nothing but Safari, or nothing at all, and the cpu running normally, not spiked.

I tried lots of stuff suggested on this board, but nothing worked. So I reformatted my hard drive and installed a fresh version of Lion over the Internet. Everything went back to normal. That's a very short synopsis of my issue and how I worked around the "battery" issue (by giving up on ML.)

So this time, instead of doing an upgrade install, created a bootable SD card with ML on it (check out Youtube for some great instructions.) I then wiped my hard drive and did a full, fresh, clean, install of ML. Not an upgrade. Everything is running nice and fast. I let my MBA site for about 3 hours on the charger to let things settle.

Then I did the following to test:

I turned off power nap

I turned off the screen saver

I set the screen to never turn off

I turned off the "slightly dim" setting for when on battery power.

I turned off power nap

I then set the screen to 50% brightness

I then unplugged my MBA.

After about 2 hours it became obvious that everything was fine. I was right at 80% power, maybe 79 or 78%. I forget exactly because it was obvious I wasn't having the issue any more.

I've been using my "new" MBA, "ML Edition" this week and the power issue hasn't come back. Even after installing my apps again.

So, if you had the same, extreme, power issue. Try an SSD reformat and fresh install before giving up.

Woohoo!

Thanks for all the good posts!

Glad we can help. Noone will hate you. We just think you are a dork. 😁 And that maybe your wife should post here for advice. She would have seen the tips and resolve it before even asking. 😝

We assumed you tried a fresh install. Upgrade is asking for trouble.

Found out it was a failure logic board and they also replaced the battery to be safe. I would suggest getting yours checked guys.

another one with hardware failure that exhonorates ML

Wanted to report a few things after my repair. My battery life is back to abyssmal and now my laptop's running the fans at full speed with large amounts of noise for no reason ( when just doing simple things like browsing the web ). It's several months old, but not even close to a year. I can't take this anymore and am just returning it for a full refund. I don't have time to keep driving to the Apple store as it's relatively far away.

SleepyKirby wrote:

Wanted to report a few things after my repair. My battery life is back to abyssmal and now my laptop's running the fans at full speed with large amounts of noise for no reason ( when just doing simple things like browsing the web ). It's several months old, but not even close to a year. I can't take this anymore and am just returning it for a full refund. I don't have time to keep driving to the Apple store as it's relatively far away.

If i don't see improvement with battery life using soon to be released OS X Mavericks, then i'm going to consider samsung or asus in my next laptop purchase.

Mavericks (OSX 10.9) Initial Impressions (and impact on battery life/health)

Downloaded and installed Mavericks today. Now that I have some experience and confidence with TimeMachine restores, I figured I could always revert back if needed. So far, I see no reason to revert back.

Battery charge metrics seem to suggest that I will get about 45-60 minutes more battery life over the maximum I received using ML (10.8.4). (As a note, I got the best battery life on 10.8.4. 10.8.5 was a decrease and I reverted back to 10.8.4). At this point, all I have to go on is the Battery Health App and the OSX battery estimates. A true test would require my spending several hours working the machine - which I'll save for another day.

I have watched the battery %, and I can say that it drops at a rate of 1% per 5 minutes. This would translate into 8.33 hours. Given an esitmate of 8:12 (from OSX) and an assumption of a linear slope, that would suggest that the estimate is correct. This rate is lower than what I experienced with ML 10.8.0. Of course, if I do more than edit a message in a browser, the numbers can drop quite a bit, as one would expect.

Second, a ML annoyance may be gone or reduced When I used ML, when my laptop went to sleep, the battery charge would drop even if the computer was plugged into the AC. This drop did not occur on Lion. It does not seem to be occurring on Mavericks. I need to let the machine sleep overnight to be sure. But previously, with ML, just closing the lid for 30 minutes would result in a drain. I'm not longer seeing it in such a short interval.

Given that Mavericks is free, for anyone still having a battery issue, it might be worth making a back up and then doing the upgrade and sharing your results.

One suggestion: When you perform the install itself, try to do so wired (not wireless). Not sure if that makes a difference, but if people start to have problems, it will eliminate one variable.

Good luck all!

bApTizE wrote:

If i don't see improvement with battery life using soon to be released OS X Mavericks, then i'm going to consider samsung or asus in my next laptop purchase.

Before you do, try to spend some time with Windows 8. I upgraded my windows machine to 8 and had to find another tool called Classic Shell to make it more palatable (e.g., look more like Windows 7 or XP). Perhaps it's purely personal taste.

For the last couple of years my Mid 2010 Macbook Pro would only give 4.5 hours or so of battery. I used to get 8+ when I first bought it. One of the updates (10.7 or 10.8, can't remember which) took it down to 4.5 hours.

Installed Mavericks, and once the Spotlight indexing finished I unplugged my cable and saw the battery life was at 8+ hours. Back where it was when I bought it!

So Mavericks was the answer for me. Thank goodness, the poor battery life was making want to sell it.

So far not much real change so far on my Macbook Air late 2010 11'. I use a wired connection and get around 2-3 hours which is an improvement from the 1-2 hours on Mountain Lion when it was last installed but I've had the same on ML at the very best of times. I'm hoping that after the fresh install up from Snow Leopard, it needs time to settle in and maybe there will be improvement after a few battery drains. Though as I'm writing this I see that the battery is holding steady, my excitement at having a reliable Macbook again is growing.

MAVERICK is definately better, I've been on it for a couple of months and was early in my criticism for now what is over 2 years of "half" battery life. Whilst in reality, I don't get 8 hours still, I do regularly get 6 *and* you can click on the battery icon to see what apps "suck" CPU / battery. This works well but means you have to keep an eye on it (I wish the icon would turn red when a "App using signcant CPU" is added to the list.

However, I would say both SIlverlight and Flash and any video, you are lucky if you get 90 minutes on MAverick. They kill it and there's no way to stop the mac using the GPU even though, it doesn't need it (for low bandwidth). You should be able to choose which GPU to use if battery life is more important. ON an 8 hour flight, I'd prefer 2 x 2 hour movies v < 1 movie if it meant I had to sacrifice some quality.

Apps like VMware and others have been tweaked to work better with Mavericks which wasn't a clear obvious choice for them for the last 2 years.

I do feel 2 years of being conned knowing that simply updating to Mavverick and I got 50% improved battery. Maybe being vindicated by all the nay-sayers is my reward - as for you too.

I take it back. Initially, after installing Mavericks, when the battery was at max it said 8+ hours, but by the time it dropped to 90% it said only 3+ hours, even with no apps open.

Also, the macbook isn't dead quiet, even when cold the fan is going gently right away.

So Mavericks is a bit of a wash for me in terms of getting the old performance back.

Same here. Just installed it and at 95% showing 6 hrs remaining.... I have seen it at more. Oh well, I'll keep an eye out but no remarkable improvement here so far.