Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

Yeah, I believe that's a display problem, because as you can see my battery charge is ok.

Additionally, the time remaining is pretty oscillating, but that was normal with Lion, too.

This is a MacBook Air, Mid 2011, upgraded from Lion to ML, no reinstall. However, I did the monthly battery recharge cycle, that's a always a good idea.

So, don't worry, ML update is coming, recalibrate your battery, meanwhile.

putnik wrote:

 

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.

2mA for how long? 1 second or 1 minute or 1 hour, the power used is dependent on level and duration.

By the end of this week I will have another SSD of exactly the same size/model etc as the one running ML, so guess who is going to do a fresh install on SL and test it on exactly the same machine, then do a fresh install of Lion and test it on the same machine and then upgrade to ML and test it on the same machine :O) will have some hard facts then with all variables the same expect the OS. Will post my results here with clean OS and with apps. Should be a fun test and conclusive.

Please look at the graph I posted!  You will see that I was on Skype for about forty minutes and the battery drain was quite significant.  You Tube videos draw 2A, so maybe Skype video at 3A is because of the extra draw from the iSight camera.  I'm sure I did not use bold and you forgot to correct my use of mA instead of A.

I'm going to re-install Snow Leopard but 1st i need to backup all my data... Pfff This is really not funny Apple! Apple you must have to give an answer! pathetic

Say that again? you used 3A (three amperes) for 40 minutes using Skype? Get a KillaWatt and verify that.

I just performed a clean install of Mountain Lion yesterday on my MacBook air 11' (2010).

I also began to get the overheating issue, together with high CPU usage.

At first I thought it was Spotlight, so I let it run its course and index the system. It was hogging CPU usage at 25% - 45% at a time.

Once it was done, I noticed there was this bash script on a constant 10% CPU usage. I removed "Upload to Kindle" and removed the script and it went away.

However, and I cannot stress this enough, the battery's performance has not improved. I lose around 10% of battery life within 10' of usage. Prior to Mountain Lion, I was getting around 5 hours of life on a full charge. Now Mountain Lion is asking me to "Service Battery" whereas there should be nothing wrong with it. At least nothing that would have changed overnight.

This is the charge information as provided by System Information:

Charge Information:

  Charge Remaining (mAh):          3043

  Fully Charged:          No

  Charging:          No

  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):          3484

  Health Information:

  Cycle Count:          464

  Condition:          Service Battery

  Battery Installed:          Yes

  Amperage (mA):          -959

  Voltage (mV):          8003

This is definitely a bug and it needs to be fixed as soon as humanly possible.

Thanks for that...and how frustrating.  Based on several other posts reinstalling Mountain Lion, clean or otherwise, doesn't seem to change anything.  Going back to Lion appears to be the only way to get affected MacBooks back to "normal".  I'm thinking about doing that with my own Late 2010 MacBook Air.

I'd really be curious to know if the "Service Battery" warning remains on your (or anyone's) MacBook if Lion is reinstalled.  Based on other performance reports I suspect the issue might actually be a Mountain Lion reading fault rather than the battery actually being "damaged", but that's only speculation.  My battery's health is still very solid so I can't experiment with that.

Best of luck and keep us posted.

Hello radams,

It is important to understand that Apple's batteries are not your garden variety Li-Ion batteries. They also have a chip and sophisticated sensors that communicate with the SMC. So, let's say, if a battery's health has dropped, fast or slow, that battery is essentially done. That chip will communicates with your hardware and say "Hey, these are my variables what do you think?" Hardware then replies "umm, youre draining too fast, holding less and less in cycles, you must be now defective- remember that." and Service" me pops up. No reinstall or install will actually change that reading- unless the battery is opened and circuits replaced. It is not only proprietary design, but also engineering. To ensure that only specific set of voltages/ mili-amps are delivered to the hardware, and regulate overall machine performance..

So yes, if ML gave you the Service icon, that battery is done no matter the OS with which you may experiment. Apple designed it to force an exchange and so on. remember the old Epson ink cartriged that reported to a printer  it was empty and could not be fiddled with or replenished manually? Same here.

The way i proved ML was the culprit was dishing out $ 180 two for separate new batteries and doing clean installs and so on. One was rapidly mauled by ML. Then I never again used a new one with ML. Put in a new battery and it will be mauled electronically by that OS. take it to another OS and it will read the same.

So between your macbook, battery and their readings, once it is "Service" etc, it is DONE. You may go to Apple and they will tell you the same. it is meant to say "This battery will no longer power your macbook as intended or designed..."

Whether or not chips force the shorter reading and the battery could theoretically still power on full length- I do not know. But once you get 4 hrs and ML assumes your current battery is at 50% within last 20 cycles, it will require servicing, it is iron programmed in that battery to be replaced by a certified apple part.

Go in egypt, charge your macbook in 50C, and that battery will be done in one cycle. As the sensors will read "You are too hot" and program it to be serviceable.

I suspect that only a barely used battery in ML can be resalvaged within another OS, provided one does not have it for more than a few days in ML.

So, to recap, if drained too fast or within too short of a time, any Apple battery is designed to be read as Serviceable by any macbook OS and will no longer work as if 100% factory sealed new.

The Epson story ended bad for them. Consumers proved that cartidges still held a good 25% ink when reporting "Empty- Replace me" and Epson lost in court for misleading consumers and forcing them to buy early their cartridges. But goes to tell you that what a chip reports may have nothing to do with what is left inside.

Chris

Got it.  Wonder why some batteries appear to be taking such a hit while others (including mine) aren't?  I'm experiencing the lower charge percentage/fast drain issues but my MBA's battery health is the same as it was with Lion.  Hope they get this sorted out soon!

Neither of us know who makes Apple's batteries, how many part suppliers, but I suspect that they are all contracted in many locations. So perhaps two identical machines may not have the batteries made at the same source. Or maybe SSD (toshiba vs samsung), Screen (samsung vs LG), so on. Apollo 13 was done by one faulty designed chip, from one of many NASA suppliers.

Also,some may use iCloud or power nap - i never did yet also exprienced drain in Sleep and even off. Until I got rid of ML. So its a synergy that is so complex hence Cuppertino taking their time to isolate and release a patch that cover every affected unit and does not mess up the good ones.

guy there at Apple Mtl told me that his 6 yr old powerbook still holds 4 hrs of charge, after 1000+ cycles. Well, sure, but back then Apple was much smaller, and made all parts in one location per item... In 6 years Apple has become a behemoth. Some VW are made in Mexico- with glitches, some in Germany with less glitches. So on. OH forgot. All new batteries have no more mercury Hg in them, so that makes them operate very very differently than old mercury batteries, the best I ever knew yet so unfriendly on the environment.

My MacBook Pro is only two weeks old and I was getting 4 hours at 100%.

Just turned off Dropbox and it's back to normal again!  Getting more than 7 hours now at 100%

2012 MacBook Pro 13-inch, i7 2.9GHz, 8GB, 750GB, Mountain Lion, Built-in battery (7 hours)

:-)

I did the same thing on my MBA...turned off Dropbox and saw the "readings" jump back up to about normal, but it was short-lived.  As soon as I started using it they returned to the 4 hours/100%...and it continued to drain much faster than normal afterwards as well.

Hope yours sticks...best of luck and keep us posted!

I contacted Apple Support in Ireland and got throught to the Indian Call Centre. We did a complete re install of Mountain Lion.

The gave me a case number, in order to call them if nothing mproves.

In Activity Monitor no problems showed up.  All running normally.

Found that the heat build up is gone and the MBP seems to be running cooler. The battery life has gone up to over 6 hours 50 % increase on previous results.

This is based on the Battery Service on the MBP.

But the changes every few minutes.

Model Name: MacBook Pro

  Model Identifier: MacBookPro7,1

  Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

  Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

  Number of Processors: 1

  Total Number of Cores: 2

  L2 Cache: 3 MB

  Memory: 4 GB

  Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

  Boot ROM Version: MBP71.0039.B0E

  SMC Version (system): 1.62f6

  Serial Number (system):

  Hardware UUID: A4BEC618-EFCD-56DC-A545-9C269BF579A6

  Sudden Motion Sensor:

  State: Enabled

Understood, and I agree that certainly could apply to SSD's, CPU's, GPU's, RAM and so on.  However if Apple batteries (or screens, etc.) are proprietary that presupposes that manufacturers are building them differently or using different core components, etc.  Every manufacturer of Apple products is required to build each piece to the exact same Apple specs of course.  So no matter where the parts come from they s/b identical.  Apple has always been known for extremely high QC as well. 

So if we're talking "apples to apples" (same MacBook model, year, etc.) it's difficult to argue that Mountain Lion could decimate one battery while leaving another intact.  Not saying that's not possible, but it seems unlikely. 

I'd be more inclined to believe that, as you said, it is in fact a combination of things, software (obviously) and/or hardware over any single component.  If there were a "silver bullet" part it seems likely that Apple could point to it, say a battery manufactured by "X company", and deal with that.  However since this is a fairly wide-spread phenomenon across many models and model years (and then not with all units of any model), there is surely something else going on.

Agreed though, this is obviously more complex than we can imagine, hence it taking some time to resolve.