Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

g8production,

It is unfortunate the experience is making you angry, but several things you did go against the forum advice:

- you upgraded a 2008 machine, and the older the machine the more likely the issue.

- Testimony here says that once you have the problem, essentially, nothing will work short of going to Lion or Snow Leopard for older machines. trying is pointless

- 10.8.1 was never mentioned as solving any battery issue. It may automatically do an SMC reset but it is no fix.

So essentially, it boils down to economy of effort and accepting the overwhleming trestimony you have here. It is easy to get angry, but had you followed the experiences and results documented here, it should have been known it could not work.

Hopefully your return to SL helps.

Bill,

it is awesome you are not upgrading and trusting the testimony. The headache is really not worth the effort. It is super seeing someone that read the forum and chose accordingly.

Guarentee you even Lion will drop your 2010 machine performance (power consumption)- although am not sure what ML would do to it.

SL works- true, be it not having iCloud or Launchpad. I would trade these anyday for a rapid fast, performing machine.

2013 I wil be extremely reluctant to upgrade from ML to any Lynx cat or whatever its name. Will wait till 10.9.3 before any decision.

Courcoul wrote:

 

Wurzel666 wrote:

 

ura172002 wrote:

 

I installed 10.8.2 1231a

..

 

10.8.2? Are you an AppleSeed tester?

He was, I would say. The way the draconian NDA is written and the way Apple is patrolling this thread....

Doubt it. He probably just knows how to type Mountain Lion 10.8.2 into Google...it's hardly rocket science.

can42 has a very good point. Many of us noted that importing a user account via Time machine essentially also brought a host of problems, say to Lion, or SL. A clean install did not sove the problem except for SL.

So the question is, what does user accounts bring that is such a hog? I suspect desktop/screen preference, as well as background. Flash!! That thing is interesting. 9/10 I saw a machine heating up, was flash video.. Which in turn, makes me wonder if:

- For the MBP could it be the GPU - nvidia again? drain issue? Santa Rosa platforms had a frying GPU, it heated up, until it died after a while. Apple got $200 million (yes million) from NVIDIA to cover machines that would be fried.

- iCloud/notification center make it worse

- intel, Sandy Bridge? do not know

- Why 2010 / 2009 machines?

When I used to be in the tech world, the most common power drainage problem hovered aroung a GPU. Underpowered GPU, overheating GPU, GPU requiring an extra 12v cable for fans and power and even a better Power Supply. Any gamer would understand this but most gamers have desktops. But not all. No doubt that macbooks solicit the GPU with Flash and video, graphic editing (iPhote, iMovie). I click a video and it drops 50 to 60% life in a few seconds of viewing. We know they also heat up. On the macbooks i tried, in Lion and ML the GPU began heating up fast under normal load, web (tons of flash anyway). Way less on SL. If indeed drivers and ML solicit GPUs even a bit out of specs, one would power requirements run amok. Activity Monitor would not pick it up as  process (as it is not), and the drain would be significant. Easiest example was Windows Vista, which, on default graphical settings, stressed GPUs even in normal mode. Those laptop users knew it fast with poor battery performance. So to compensate, early users had to down it to a "Classic" non-Vista feel.

Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge must be ruled out because they are on so many platfroms- Dell, Macbooks, Samsung, Lenovo, and their reputation for low power consumption is known, tested and proven. Also, Intel's line for its processors,in Malaysia, is very well controlled.

Why some units and not others? Does it come down to production line and outsourcing the logicboard and GPU built? Only Apple can answer that. I would take 100 affected units, open them up, run the OS while doing advanced power/multimeter testing on the logicboards, and determine where does the drain begin. Which part of the cicuitry jumps outside specs. Then easy peezy.

Thoughts anyone. has anyone noticed drain or heat surrounding GPU demanding activities in ML? Flash video, youtube, movies?

Incidentally, I should have added that 10.8.1 fixed things for me. I went from having ~4hrs @ 100% to having ~7.5hrs @ 100% with normal usage (inc. Notification Center, Dropbox etc.)

Here's what ArsTechnica Says on the issue: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/08/mountain-lion-update-can-improve-battery-li fe-for-some-mac-notebooks/

Looks like I was maybe just one of the lucky ones.

Spec -

Battery Information:

  Model Information:

  Serial Number: W01064TNND3BA

  Manufacturer: SMP

  Device Name: bq20z451

  Pack Lot Code: 0

  PCB Lot Code: 0

  Firmware Version: 201

  Hardware Revision: 000a

  Cell Revision: 158

  Charge Information:

  Charge Remaining (mAh): 5289

  Fully Charged: No

  Charging: Yes

  Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 5364

  Health Information:

  Cycle Count: 525

  Condition: Normal

  Battery Installed: Yes

  Amperage (mA): 453

  Voltage (mV): 12572

I've got the same problem and Apple refuses to acknowledge that this is even an issue. They're trying to pin it on the fact that I use Chrome instead of Safari.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/19397441?ac_cid=op123456#19397441

I guess the lesson here is: don't install Mountain Lion if you have a 1.5 or 2 year old Macbook Pro.

Hey ruffel,

Buy the new MBP and chances are it will have no issues. If you get 7-8 hrs surfing, then youre good. Import docs after. For those with the problem it it either out of the box or following an upgrade. But only a minority of machines appear to be affected.

Beisarius,

Cool.  I already ordered the 15" non-retina to replace my 13" early 2011.  my early 2011 battery was heavily affected by mountain lion...

My mid-2010 13" MBP was originally spec'd/marketed as 10 hr battery life.  Battery is in good shape....39 cycles (typically run on adapter) and 92.6% of original max capacity.

With ML 10.8.1 & 50% display brightness, I now show ~3:30 hr max usage on battery, or just a bit over 1/3 of original on SL.  Very ordinary machine now....my guess is that I wouldn't see much over 4 hrs even on new battery. 

I'm OK with waiting a short time for a fix....but would certainly like to have some communication from Apple on this....the official silence does not build confidence towards a suitable remedy...

ruffle, plse let us know how it performs.

Mike, your machine is not only 2 years old, but also cycled rarely, less than once every 2-3 weeks. had you tested its capacity in the days prior to ML update?

However, as per testimonials above, this drop is significant, go back to SL or you will loose this battery quite rapidly. You are also entitled for a ML refund due to loss of performance. A fix for your machine is unlikely.

Ok, so got a latent Apple reply to an older case I opened ref ML and batteries. Was told that 10.8.1 was meant to adress battery issues- for some units anyway. It coming from a Sr advisor, I do not doubt that Apple tried, in silence, to attempt adressing some of people's issues. But the problem appears obviously more significant, many people who posted noted no improvement. But for some it worked, and Arstechnica dully noted it on its test machine. Also I suspect that 2011 and 2012 machines are targetted by Apple for troubleshooting, makes sense as they are a costly warranty item for the company. Interesting that 10.8.1 release notes mentioned nothing about battery improvements.

Hi everyone, I'm using my macbook pro from late 2011 and since yesterday when I installed Mountain Lion I see that the battery life has decreased dramatically. I see that many people has the same problem, but does anyone know how to solve this? Does Apple know how to deal with this? Thank you.

http://scoopertino.com/nasa-taps-apple-to-build-next-mars-lander/

Battery will die before it leaves the earth.

I recall getting indication of ~7-8+ hrs on Lion.  These Li-Polymer batteries claim to get 80% life up to 100 cycles....I have no indication that NOT cycling these reduces capacity.  Nothing like old-memory effect of Ni-CD's of past.  So my 3.5 hrs with ML has cut my battery run-time in half at minimum.  

I don't see why I would lose the battery quickly, when it's primarily running on AC....even with the ML challenges. Hopefully some solution before too long.