Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

SugarSync is sort of like DropBox. You can sync files and folders between your various machines to SugarSync account. You get some storage for free.

That one seemed to be the biggest offender, but I think the drastic improvement I've seen has been a result of not having several apps launched that I'm not using all the time like DropBox, Mobile Mouse Server and SugarSync.

With these apps closed, I've also noticed my machine is not getting as hot either. I've been using my laptop for 4hr today and still showing 5hrs estimated left. I'm only browsing and have Mail launched, but I can live with this.

Looks like we are not alone. A new forum over at AppleFanSite with another bunch of people;

http://www.applefansite.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-users-reporting-battery-draini ng-issues/

and MacRumors

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1413114

It seems Dropbox (which I use) and SugarSync (which I don't use) could the problematic apps shortening the running battery life. I updated to the ML Dropbox and now after charging completely, the battery is showing nearly 8 hrs. Of course it changes everytime I time or open another app. It was not showing this much with old Dropbox.

I will be using the computer for the next 5 hours. So, I can report the more after that.

Thomas Reed - of course I haven't tried everything - it's a figure of speech. I spent literally months - and working with Apple. The fact that now, a whole new bunch or people are finding the same problem - are you saying we are all morons.

People who were getting 6-7 hours now getting 2-3 after the upgrade are supposed to figure out what apps eat battery and what don't. Are they supposed to figure that out when they are idle (showing no CPU usage) or by trial and error.

As a spokesperson for Apple, you've just done a great job of proving my point. The EXACT symptoms these people are seeing are the EXACT symptoms I see. Are we all to do the factory reset or do you suspect we all have the same hardware problem, the same app (rouge) running??

As for your comment - Apple are the app police - at the VERY point, they should at least be able to tell me WHAT's consuming the battery (like most phones do now - at least on my Androids). Rather than give me CPU consumption (which btw - we are all seeing no CPU consumption during the drain).

Apple are not Microsoft and I expect this from their machines - maybe, as you say, now Apple have to deal with "legacy" apps, they will be tarred with the same brush Microsoft was tarred with!

Thomas Reed - of course I haven't tried everything - it's a figure of speech.

Then if you haven't tried everything, you have no idea whether there actually may be something you could do to fix your problem. My money would be on some junky piece of software you've got installed, but that's just a guess.

I spent literally months - and working with Apple. The fact that now, a whole new bunch or people are finding the same problem - are you saying we are all morons.

Of course not! A couple points, though... if you spent months working with Apple and didn't try a totally clean install at some point during that time, you were not getting good advice. That's certainly not the first thing to try, but nothing else helped, someone should have arrived at that point quicker than several months. Unfortunately, not all support techs know their stuff, even at Apple.

Second, though I certainly wouldn't use the word "moron," threads like this one do create lemmings. (Not meaning that in an insulting way, just using a metaphor.) In other words, one person cries "bug" and, suddenly it becomes a flood of people all crying "bug," without any technically valid evidence whatsoever. And then, even a year or more later, we get people asking if it's safe yet, when statistically speaking only a small minority of people have ever had serious problems. These topics are unproductive, because nobody wants to listen to the people giving decent advice, and because they misinform others who read them, dragging those poor unfortunates into a headlong rush to the sea.

All I want is to open people's eyes. There is no Great Apple Battery Conspiracy. These problems are fixable, if you would just stop for a moment and listen to those trying to give advice. Go take a look at Understanding upgrade nightmares, and try some of the troubleshooting tips listed there. Don't sit on your hands waiting for a fix from Apple for a bug that doesn't exist!

As a spokesperson for Apple, you've just done a great job of proving my point.

I don't know where you got the idea I'm a spokesperson for Apple. This is a user-to-user forum.

Are we all to do the factory reset or do you suspect we all have the same hardware problem, the same app (rouge) running??

Most people having these problems probably have different causes, though I'm sure there are plenty of folks with common causes. Some will have an SMC problem. Some will have bad third-party software. (Keep in mind CPU cycles are only one way to guage the power processes are using.) Some will have corrupt caches. Some will have bad batteries or other hardware issues. Some will have other problems altogether. Thus the difficulty: there's no one-size-fits-all solution. YOU have to do some work.

One thing I will say, that is common to all causes... if you get to the point of a clean reinstall and the problem remains, it's almost certainly a hardware issue of some kind.

Thomas, I don't buy it. Apple reached out to me from the forums and put a developer on it (end of last year). They didn't actually want me to clean the machine, they were trying to figure out what was going wrong, or who the culprit was. In the end, after about 4 "special" dumps/logs they had me send them, they concluded it was pretty much what it was. i.e. older legacy programs not utilising the GPU correctly. Since I couldn't tell which program (even running the machine with apparently no apps) which "something" was causeing the drain, nor could Apple.

Yes, I could have, over the past year done a fresh install from scratch but the truth is, I don' t have that amount of dedicated time. I travel alot. I use the machines for demonstrations a lot. I can take least risks. The reason I brought the machine in the first place, was first to upgrade my 3 year old macbook but second, because migration meant I wouldn't lose my files, my layout and all the stuff I've painstakenly got working. (I'm only a 3 year Mac Guru v a 25 year PC guru) so reinstalling extensions, printer drivers, 100k+ of email folders (migrated from Outlook) and much more, I just haven't bitten that bullet. I love my MAC but what I love more than anything is that I didn't have to do the crap things I used to have to do with Microsoft (rebuild every 6-12 months to restore performance).

So, in the end, I gave up and lived with 3 hours. However, now, what's got me going again is the numerous threads of people simply going from one O/S to another and getting 100% identical symptoms. Just as happened in the 176 page thread I posted above - from people who had same symptoms going from SL to LION.

WHat I hope we can all do this time around, is find the culprit and find the fix. I do believe there will be something common going on. Even if the fix just shows everyone here, what the problem is (the rouge driver or program or whatever). i don't believe in coincidences.

I promise you. Do a clean install of Mountain Lion on your current Macbook with the battery problem.

If it doesn't fix the problem, I will gladly admit that you were right all along.

I don't want to be proved right. I simply want to know WHAT is causing the problem. Like the rest of the people in this thread and the many others now springing up over the internet. I'll remove the offending program once I know - I don't have the time to install each printer / driver / application / plug-in after I've done the clean install, and then, test the battery life after each one of these events. Not sure if you use you computer for hard core business use, but I gave up this kind of second guessing when I left Microsoft. For a business user like myself, I would have to set aside 3 days to start from scratch again. I will get around to it but I'm not in the office long enough, nor go 3 days without need to present to a customer (and demonstrate our software).

I would agree that it'd be nice if users didn't have to do all this troubleshooting. That being said, I'm not sure what Apple could do to root out every rogue app that might cause issues. All I can say is that I'm now at over 6.5hrs of battery use and still showing 2hrs left. I've been using Chrome, Safari, Mail, and launched some CS5 for a bit of editing for good measure.

Can't say the problem won't come back, but for now... it's looking like SugarSync, Dropbox and Mobile Mouse Server were MY rogue apps causing drainage. I updated DropBox which helped, but it still showed a hit when launched. An accaptable one though.

Before quitting out of these apps I was only getting about 2hrs of use consistently over the last few days. Now, it's better than it was when I bought this machine 3 weeks ago.

I simply want to know WHAT is causing the problem. [...] I'll remove the offending program once I know - I don't have the time to install each printer / driver / application / plug-in after I've done the clean install, and then, test the battery life after each one of these events.

You can't make statements about what will and won't help for someone else if you're not willing to do this work on your own machine. You haven't done that work, so it's quite inappropriate for you to go around telling other people that nothing works and not to even bother trying.

Whether or not you do that troubleshooting is, of course, your choice to make. Though to say that you don't have time to troubleshoot a serious problem like this is not something I understand. I don't have to understand it, though.

Whether or not you do that troubleshooting is, of course, your choice to make. Though to say that you don't have time to troubleshoot a serious problem like this is not something I understand. I don't have to understand it, though.

crazy comment!
nobody buys a machine (or upgrades to a new os) and expects, or has the time, to troubleshoot issues.
when you buy a machine, or new os, you expect the provider to have done all the neccessary testing and deliver a working product.

all software has bugs, thats a given, but the inability of apple to identify and fix this one is quite shocking.

Thomas, I already told you it was a figure of speech. I don't believe it's hardware. I have even had my machine go up to 8 hours after doing certain things but it always seem to creep back to 3 hours after a few days. I stopped trying to fix this six months ago. I can run GFXcard status and add another 1 1/2 hours but why should I. I do when I need the battery life. I have a job, mouths to feed, it's not like I can just do this without take 2-3 days off of work. I travel - a lot. I'm overseas, away from family. I have done more trouble shooting on this issue than anything I've ever had to do on anything else. I just don' thave the time to restore. You must believe it's a quick process - what am I missing? I used migration, is there a fast way after a clean install to get apps back?

It may not be a quick process to narrow down which software is causing the problem. If it was simply your position that you don't have time, I'd say fine, that's your choice. But when you go around telling people things like "Don't bother trying anything NOTHING WORKS," I have a serious problem with that.

As do I. Clearly a clean install has helped many, and slowly removing "rogue" programs has worked for some for now.

Saying "nothing works" is just from your perspective, as you do not have the time [I don't blame you] to do a clean install.

Fair enough, I'm from Europe and "nothing works" is a figure of speech where I'm from in this context. Sorry.

So, what we've concluded is;

1. There seems to be no common theme identified.

2. the battery monitor / Activity monitor is incomplete since the battery drain doesn't show up against any activity Apple monitor (we need Android "battery watcher" that provides granular battery usage).

3. Apps that have not been rewritten / compiled for the LION releases may be at fault (but I can't find any docs to send to the developers of the apps I use)

4. Apple did say that their new GPU swiitching does consume more battery (hence GFXcardstatus to prevent switching running gives more life back).

5. You can get more battery life back by running SMC/PRAM resets but most people report this doesn't last very long as a fix (a day or two max)

6. This happened to people going from Snow Leopard to LION and it appears symtpoms are the same (Search MACBOOK HORRIBLE BATTERY LIFE)

7. I found an old USB driver that was running but I deleted it with the help of Apple (and can't remember how), and this helped me get 8hrs or more for about a week before it returned. Apple said some USB devices will load drivers and so try looking for those.

8. Many people have no problems. Many people had no problems before the upgrade and wham, after the upgrade (to one of the lions), battery is about halved.

I did get a call from Apple today and they are re-investigating thanks to the resurection of the problem on these (and other) public forums. I am working with them again. Will keep you posted.