Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

that is interesting.

Just want to let tarpus (and others) know that this definitely helped me.

While I am not quite getting 8+ hours (pre mountain lion on snow leopard) capacity back on my MBA (2010 fall 2.13 GHz core 2 duo), I got a bit over 6 hours back on regular use today after I followed the link to stop the Citrix/AGAdminService from running, at least I don't have the over heating/constant fan anymore and less than 2 hours per charge in the past 2 weeks after my "upgrade"!!  Others should definitely try to look for any programs on activity monitor to see if anything can be stopped to save your battery from dying...

Been watching from the sidelines and the posts about killing a Citrix daemon helping stop the overheating/fan issue caught my eye.

My 11.7" MacBook Air has been suffering the originally described limited battery charge and excessive battery drain issue post Mountain Lion upgrade like most others here, however the fan mostly stays at the default 1999 RPM and it never runs even warm.  FWIW I checked and the Citrix preference list isn't even on my MacBook; it looks to be user installed.

A process run amok can certainly cause issues like overheating, fans constantly running, battery drain, etc.  However since the "Citrix" issue discussed here is over a year old (long before anyone here upgraded to Mountain Lion), it appears that we're conflating two different issues.

Battery life could certainly be improved by fixing the "Citrix" problem (if it exists), however based on a majority of earlier posts on this thread it doesn't appear that's what most of us are dealing with.

Like several others here I did receive a confirmation call from Apple after submitting the full-to-no-charge results of the diagnostic application they asked me to install, thanking me for my time, etc.  I asked about a timeline for a fix and as I expected the gentleman couldn't give me one but he did say that "they're working very hard on it".  I hope so...and I hope an update is released very soon because I'm really enjoying Mountain Lion on My iMac, but this battery problem on my MacBook Air is really frustrating.

Opps. I was happy too early ... I experimented with turning iCloud on again, then the SyncServicesAgent and Microsoft Database Daemon got fired up and it started heating up and running the fan constantly, and draining my battery again!!  Then I signed out of iCloud, and restart / reset SMC, and it's ok for now.

So I guess something is not working right with iCloud and MS outlook together?

Last evening I sent the MB Pro to sleep with 96%. After 9,5 hours I waked it up and it has 90%. No iCloud, no PowerNap, no Dropbox. Just Safari and Mail open. My 5 years old MacBook need just 2 or 3% for. I think 6% are too much.

I wish that worked for me.  I've reset the SMC several times, PRAM and permissions as well...still no love.  I don't use Outlook and Activity Monitor has never shown anything abnormal at all...

The only thing that helped (so far) was disabling Notification Center, but sometimes I'm still losing as much as 1%/min. of battery power. 

Here is a suggestion. Start a terminal session and type the following command:

pmset -g rawlog

This is a process that will log every 30 seconds a message in the terminal window.

Just keep it running.

The information in this window might not be the same as the information in the battery menu. But keep it running and keep charging your laptop (while turned on), even when the green light on the power adapter turns on and the battery meter shows '100%'.

You might notice that the log message will keep charging more, even when it hits 100%. However, charging will go slower when you near the batter capacity. Only disconnect the power when the message in the log window reads 'battery charging = no'. Maybe that will prolong the battery life a bit... It won't hurt, in any case...

Hi I am planning to upgrade my OS X Lion to Mountain Lion Would you recommend me to do that Thank You

Hi I too am Planning to upgrade from OS X Lion for my Late 2011 Macbook Pro to OS X Mountain Lion Would you recommend me to do that Thank You My Mail is usacomvio@gmail.com

towbsen wrote:

 

Hi there!

 

I've got the same problem! batterylifetime is about 3 hours... before the update it was about 7 hours. (mac book pro 15" 2011)

 

 

pls help! i just called the german support but they didn't know about the problem!

 

sers

Open Activity Monitor, select All Processes, sort by CPU and take a screenshot, post it here.

Can't tell what processes are going on in your screenshot. Follow suggestion of Csound1. Click "All Processes" in your Activity Monitor, choose CPU instead of system memory, and sort by CPU and see what processes are taking up the most resources when your battery is draining.

If you want the safe bet than you're likely better off waiting until Apple has updated to 10.8.1 or whatever they decide to call it. I'm sure that they are aware of the problem and are working vigorously on it.

If you're feeling adventurous and really want to test out the new features than go for it.

I found that the main improvement was Safari's forwarding feature. There are other minor improvements too but it's not that big of a difference from Lion. That being said, I only had Lion from the end of June until the end of July but I quite liked it.

If you do decide to go ahead, just be prepared that you might have the power management issues that some of us here have had and that you may, like me, be able to resolve them or you may end up like some others who have tried many solutions but have not yet been able to find a permanent solution.

I'm thinking that the upgrade is less of a significant improvement from Lion than the downgraded battery is but, if you're willing to take the risk and possibly put in a little legwork, than go for it. Otherwise, just hold off until Apple has solved the problem with a patch.

RHBC wrote:

 

Can't tell what processes are going on in your screenshot. Follow suggestion of Csound1. Click "All Processes" in your Activity Monitor, choose CPU instead of system memory, and sort by CPU and see what processes are taking up the most resources when your battery is draining.

Thanks...took a look and still nothing unusual...

When "normal processes" like Mail, iTunes, Calendar, etc. are running they're not using any more CPU or memory  than they did with Lion...about the same as they do on my iMac.  Still at a loss as to what the actuall issue is.

I AM AT THE APPLE STORE RIGHT NOW IN SAN FRANCISCO.  ALL RETINA DISPLAY MACS IN THE STORE, CURRENTLY RUNNING MOUNTAIN LION, WHEN UNPLUGGED, FULLY CHARGED DISPLAY 4.5 HOURS!

***.

GWO123 wrote:

 

Here is a suggestion. Start a terminal session and type the following command:

 

pmset -g rawlog

 

This is a process that will log every 30 seconds a message in the terminal window.

Just keep it running.

The information in this window might not be the same as the information in the battery menu. But keep it running and keep charging your laptop (while turned on), even when the green light on the power adapter turns on and the battery meter shows '100%'.

You might notice that the log message will keep charging more, even when it hits 100%. However, charging will go slower when you near the batter capacity. Only disconnect the power when the message in the log window reads 'battery charging = no'. Maybe that will prolong the battery life a bit... It won't hurt, in any case...

Thanks as well...will give it a shot and report back.