Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

Beisarius (and others),

As I said before I have currently a capacity of a 'Full Charge Capacity' of 6323 mAh after 153 cycles !

But, my machine is not a 4hrs - 2yrs old laptop. This laptop is indeed a late 2011 MAB, manufactured in 2011. The laptop was bough by my university (where I am working) in Nov 29, 2011 and I probably got it in early 2012 maybe less I have to check this. I am using it every day mostly unplugged so I consider this 153 cycles normal for a use of 8 months or less. So we are talking about a laptop that I am using for 8 months and 5 days ago used to last for more that 6 hrs as I have posted !

Now, 3 days after installing ML and back to SL I get less that 4 hrs and already have 2 cycles with SL.

As you say it may get better after some full cycles and I hope so.

As for the firmware I think this is the only solution but in my country service is not good/fast (we have no Apple store) and it will be difficult to find somebody to help me from Apple retail stores.  I trust my 18yrs experience with windows and 2 yrs with Linux and I will post and search the internet to find someone (like in Linux community) to help. I trust no company, I trust people!

As a last resort, yes, if there is a problem I will end up with no computer. I have done this with my pc and dvd player but hopefully I can get it back working - service can at least flash a firmware.

That is what we should do in here. I am sure there are people in here that can help - or maybe i have to post somewhere else (e.g. http://forums.macrumors.com).

In any case thank you very much for your replies !

Mid 2009 15" MBP

Originally I had done a 10.8 upgrade to 10.7.4 - that is when battery dropped to the 2.5hr range.

I have USB installers for 10.7 and 10.8 so I rolled back to 10.7 by doing an erase and clean install. Battery life went back to the 5+ hours I am used to. Ran that for a week and decided to try 10.8 again.

For the 2nd time around, I did the same thing, erase and clean install of 10.8 from USB. Then immediately the 10.8.1 upgrade. Then restored all my usual apps (including Dropbox). No SMC reset or full battery cycle. Battery is currently showing 5:10 remaining on a full charge and health around 98%. Not bad for a 3 year old battery and I can live with it.

The patch seems to work for some. I feel for those who are having issues. I wonder if it's certain hardware combinations that we haven't identified yet. I never really trusted OS upgrades so it could just be I needed to start fresh. Who knows. Good luck to all.

I have now taken my MacBook Air (11-inch, late 2010) to the Genius Bar. They ran a diagnostic and told me that the battery has developed a fault. I informed them of the fact that the fault only appeared after installing Mountain Lion and they said that it could have been underlying, but the fault brought it out. I said this was impossible, as there was no fault with Lion.

They asked me to pay £106.00 +VAT for a new battery. The new battery will have a year's warranty.

I authorised this on the premise that they can guarantee that the new battery will live up to the MacBook specification (5hrs of WiFi productivity). They said it would.

Let's see. I am picking the machine up later today. Suffices to say that I am not optimistic.

So I reverted back to ML - battery still draining.

Funny thing is when I switched back to Lion - it felt weird, alien. I've been spoiled by the ease of ML.

I'm going to complain to APPL support tomorrow am.

What a pain the the caboddle this has been.

At least I learned how to revert from one OS to the next.

When they replace the batteries, can they do that at the Apple store? 

I did a SMC and PRAM resets due to me noticing a considerable downfall in my battery life.  I just purchased this MBP In May 2012.  Came with Lion and was performing very nicely, giving me excellent battery life, minimum 6 hours with normal usage.  After moving to Mountain Lion, started to cause problems.  MacBook Pro would only last max of 3 hours, if I'm lucky.  After I did the two resets, it is starting to show some improvements now.

What do you guys think of the above stats?

my mbp was out of battery, had to connect and switch on

my battery was loaded up to 30% in 10 minutes and now up to 43% in again 10minutes

anybody the same experience?

And I'm guessing this is good too now, right?

Ugh, 'your wait time is greater than 15 minutes'

Schedule your call at http://expresslane.apple.com

go there, and get -

We're sorry, but we are unable to complete your request at this time.
Please try again in a few minutes or start over now.

(system.99)

#FAIL...

Mine showed 6hrs battery life after fully charge but it only lasted about 2 hours. Btw, I'm on 10.8.1 MacBook Pro mid 2010.

Regarding the 7hrs you get in SL I am now pretty sure it has to do with firmware.

After 2 cycles I am still stuch on 4hrs max - which is not what i previously had in SL.

What equipment are you (MBP?) and what firmware (Boot ROM Version) ?

  Boot ROM Version:          MBP81.0047.B27

  SMC Version (system):          1.69f3

Gmc,

yes they do that in the apple store, on the spot. you get 1 yr warranty witht he battery. If problem returns, you have a case that its not just the battery. then your call- use warranty to get a new logicboard (essentially new machine) OR go straight to Lion.

Actually, I just had the battery in my Early 2011 MBP replaced at the Apple Store about 2 weeks ago. I told them I thought it might be Mountain Lion related. (See my earlier posts for the whole story.)

But I was told I had just a 90 day warranty on the new battery. Maybe Europe is different?

In any case, I've continued to run ML, and so far the new battery is still at 100% health, although I was still only getting 3-4 hours with very light usage instead of 6-7+ that I had before. I saw a modest improvement in battery life with 10.8.1.

I, too, received a call from Apple, and provded them with the information they asked for.

I hope that further attention is paid to this issue, and that further improvements are made in future updates.

Hello,

For some Macbook models they have x2 types of batteries, remanufactured, 90 days. And brand new factory sealed, 1 year warranty. Important to ask. Also check the Apple store, they list the battery prices.

Still 3.5 hrs is TOO SHORT and with any new battery would have tried LION and see the difference. If you can do that, it would be great. Just do a completely clean LION install, and try 1-2 days without any but Watts or coconut. PRAM/SMC reset. If you get 6 hrs again, great. But your problem was not solved with the new battery. I am afraid it will begin loosing health within 1-2 weeks.

I installed 10.8.2 1231a

and installed 10.8 - 10.8.1 - 10.8.2 - clean install

my log

health 5843

12:03 sleep 83% 5:00 hour

17:12 wake up 80% 5:16 hour

18:12 60% 4:06 hour

19:12 47% 3:23 hour

20:12 28% 2:00 hour

21:12 12% 0:42 hour

21:27 4% 0:09 hour

  17,5% in 1 hour ~ 5,7 hors

installed  iWork ILife

Worked with the mail, Safari, Pages, Xcode

now charged

After a full charge

Installed "Path Finder" And "Istat Menu"

continue to monitor

MBP 2009