Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

alexis23bledel Phew! thats quite a relief too see that - I guess it shows how unstable ML is in calculating and managing battery life!

I have just noticed in Activity Monitor that "WindowServer" is constantly taking a lot of CPU. When idle, it will take about 2%.. but as I browse in safari / firefox, it will go up to 10% (although it will come back to about 2% as soon as I stop doing anything with the mac). Is this behaviour normal?  I have 2012 MBP 13".

THe other culprit, is of course, the kernel_task itself... which is always on ~3%.

I was thinking to revert back to Lion / clean install ML, as this battery problem is really killing me. But from what I heard / read so far, reverting Lion / clean install ML does not solve people's problem. Sigh....

Battery Health app from the Mac App Store

Another free app for monitoring battery health is MiniBatteryLogger.  The developer has a feedback system so that you can compare your battery statistics and life expectancy with others who have the same model of computer.

Here is an example of my 2009 MBP. Note, for example, the rapid discharge (3mA) while making a Skype video call.  The battery discharge rate will depend a lot on individual usage. I have also found that editing iWork documents and subsequent syncing to iCloud uses about 2mA current.

I just wanted to chime in here with my experience, I have an early 2011 15 inch MBP, and before ML I was getting around 6 hours of battery life, and now I am getting under an hour. I hope they manage to solve this in the next update.

The good old days:

rMBP 2.6GHz ~ 16GB RAM ~ 512GB SSD

running LION1

Please note: screen brightness at 0%

(but still, it used to be 7:30h, not 4:30 )

Beisarius wrote:

Apple finally got back to me and confirm it had to be my hardware.Fortunately, I replied right away that I finally proved it is Mountain Lion, and this is how. I fiddled with Lion. Definitely a notable improvement over ML. But what if the problem went way back but I simply never noticed it? So grabbed an early 2008 Macbook Pro that had seen its batteries mauled by ML, and I installed Snow Leopard. I had a suspicion that Lion was also a battery hog, (maybe 20-25 %?) but nothing like Mountain Lion. So after installing SL, i grabbed one of those batteries lying around (am not experimenting with my expensive $ 159+tax ones), threw it in and voila the results:

What one must notice is the -1092 mA. This used to be -3500 to - 4000 mA on that machine with Mountain Lion installed. Now imagine a -3000 mA drain on a 8000 mAh 2012 Macbook Pro,, and doing the math, we get the 2-3 hours our posters are experiencing. (total capacity mAh divided by hourly drain in mA), Oh, the poor health cycles was caused by ML in just over a week, it used to be 90% or so.

So yes, Lion was a hog, ML is catastrophic on some machines. ML kills batteries in affected units.. And yes, as a previous reader, IT ALSO SEEMS TO AFFECT MACHINES WHEN OFF.  As if it does not actually fully turn off but keeps doing something. hence loosing health or power overnight- although at a reduced rate. No idea why I am no longer a tech.

• Will it be fixed? I am not so sure. they never really fixed it with Lion- and I was fully updated to 10.7.8 in one of my recent experiments. And for those curious, no I never use or activated iCloud, dropbox or any fancy stuff. Just word processing, emails, surf (during testing), and graphics or picture editing when not fiddling with OSes.
• I prefer  healthy battery anyday over either Lion or Mountain Lion.
• So to those that used to have Lion: go back. NOW. (create a boot drive or o at your local Apple store and they will reinstall it). No Terminal fiddlign will work. no one can actually help and solve this sort of some significant patch. Lion was good for those machines that came with it out of the box. So reinstall it, especially if out of warranty.
• For those that got ML machines: you are lucky, you have full warranty and a year to troubleshoot it. Either case, am sure Apple will make make it right.
• For those with ML that seem to work- it is awesome your machine works. just remember your machine is not the same as that one of a member posting here. Chips, SSDs, screen, so on..
• Opening cases with Apple is the surest way to make the issue known. It is still the #1 Customer Service and satisfaction company in the world.
• This week am receiving my BTO rMB and will advise again on how it is. Any trace of a problem and am returning it.
• Took me 30- 40 minutes to read, respond, edit, and this mauled battery is working superbly in Snow Leopard, indeed on track for several hours of usage.

Chris

Chris,

FYI:

I have a late 2011 MB Pro and of course since migrating to ML the battery has been draining like mad. Used to get approx 7-8 hrs use under Lion, now half that time.

Several questions:

• If one reverts to Lion will they be able to re-install ML if a patch is released by Apple?
• What are the exact instructions of doing the boot procedure? I'm new at this and some of the terminology is over my head.
• Which move is better - doing the boot yourself or letting the Genius handle it?
• I understand that it would be best to open a ticket with Appleto document the problem but exactly what am I supposed to be looking at when I run the Activity monitor?

I found this:

Charge Information:

  Charge Remaining (mAh):          3470

  Fully Charged:          No

  Charging:          No

  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):          5505

  Health Information:

  Cycle Count:          124

  Condition:          Normal

  Battery Installed:          Yes

  Amperage (mA):          -826

  Voltage (mV):          11486

Thanks for all help!

why don't you (APPLE) just addmin that Yes, we are sorry, there is an BUG, we will try to fix it asap.

instead of ******** around!!

is there any way that we can really tell APPLE, there is PROBLEM, and FIX it...not just the ML problem. also from SL to L is also shorter the battery life....doesn't any body care about those problem or anyone is doing

PROBLEM solving. if APPLE keeps this kinds ff cc king attitude, one day APPLE will be come SSSHHIIT apple.

i can be sure about that.

tarpus wrote:

 

Anyone, even, recommend a clean installation?  Will this solve the batttery problem, or do we have to wait for a patch?  How many of the people here that are expericing the battery problem, have performed a clean installation?    

Read the thread from the beginning and you'll see that many people who have done a clean install have the problem. If you want to do one, the easiest way is to make a bootable USB from the installer. Google how to, then download the installer from the App Store.

tarpus wrote:

 

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!

 

***.

Apple only states 8 hours battery life @ 50% brightness. I'd guess the display models have it turned up pretty high. Did you lower it before you checked?

neocicak wrote:

 

I have just noticed in Activity Monitor that "WindowServer" is constantly taking a lot of CPU. When idle, it will take about 2%.. but as I browse in safari / firefox, it will go up to 10% (although it will come back to about 2% as soon as I stop doing anything with the mac). Is this behaviour normal?  I have 2012 MBP 13".

THe other culprit, is of course, the kernel_task itself... which is always on ~3%.

 

I was thinking to revert back to Lion / clean install ML, as this battery problem is really killing me. But from what I heard / read so far, reverting Lion / clean install ML does not solve people's problem. Sigh....

Not to worry.  A "lot of CPU" would be double high digits, 50% or more for instance, for extended periods of time. 

FWIW web browsing can use a lot of processor activity, but usually in short bursts (as well as increased battery demand from WiFi), particularly if Flash is involved.  Even if you're not looking at a Flash object (YouTube, etc.) there are often Flash based, animated ads.  You can stop those from appearing by using one of the popular plug-ins.

Based on numerous posts here a clean install of Lion will return things to normal.  Unfortunately a clean install (scrape and pave) of Mountain Lion does not seem to have the same effect.

they state 7h, not 8 @50% battery

Ok so i wrote in word but could not paste... wow. lesson learned. how to install LION clean

Wow.

I have been monitoring this thread for nearly 1-2 weeks, since I added my name to this  roster (MBA late 2010, 4gb ram, 256GB SSD), which is now up to 81 pages by the time of this writing.

I just spoke to applecare (I spoke to "Peggy" at Applecare).

She acted like she never heard of this issue?

Moved to senior advisor:

"It may be when we release 10.8.1 that this will improve the battery life".

Sigh.

MAY BE?????????