Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

2010 Macbook Pro 17" Core I-7. Well, I got back to where I was before the ML upgrade. I had to do a clean install of Snow Leopard. The upgrade to Lion. Then restore my last working image of Lion (10.7.4) from Time Machine. I am seeing battery times that fluctuate between 4-8 hours depending on what I am asking the machine top do, which is what I was seeing before the ML upgrade. A clean install of Lion did not work for me. I am not happy with Apple. I went through this when Lion came out. I avoided upgrading to Lion until right before ML came out. It seems that Apple optimizes the OS for the most recent hardware and, basically, ignores previous hardware. These OS upgrades should be released with a warning. This approach that Apple seems to be taking regarding hardware upgrades is pushing more towards Linux. As soon as I feel I can live without Apple software, I think I will be gone, unless Apple makes a radical change with respect to their customer base. They only want to add new customers and seem to expect their base to upgrade their hardware every year. Not a reality in this economy.

I have the exact same feelings, I have my old MBP 13" 2010 2.4 Ghz and just bought the new MBP 13" 2012 with i7 2.9 Ghz. My new laptop came with HDD with ML pre-installed. I swapped out the HDD for an SSD and I can confirmed ML is a power hog.

The new MBP will constantly heat up with only email and Skype, the fans sound like a jet engine. Battery life is only 3-4 hours max. I used to have my old MBP on my lap in the living room while watching TV and never had any heat issues, my new MBP gets very hot up the point to burn my skin.

I do the same activities on my 2010 MBP, couple of apps running in the background, email and web surfing. Old MBP with SL will give me 8.5 - 9 Hours of battery life on a single charge. I will leave the screen at 50% and leave BT OFF with WIFI ON all the time. I can surf, email, watch a movie or use other apps such as Facetime, iPhoto etc...and still have 6.5 to 7 hours max. And all this without having a toaster on your lap with jet engine noise.

I call Apple Service and I have been told to bring the MBP to the Store for a hardware check, but I can really see there is something wrong  with the new MBP and ML. I cannot believe it, I thought purchasing a new MBP with new ML will at least give me the same battery life and being i7, it should be enough for my dailsy tasks and last for at least 2-3 more years, I am very disapointed.

I am thinking of returning the 13" MBP and purchasing the rMBP, may I know if ML battery life is better with the new form factor, how about the fans noise?

putnik wrote:

 

I posted some graphs (on page 113 of this mammoth thread) showing no difference between ML and Lion on my 2009 MBP.  <snip>

Indeed, I saw that and thought maybe my experience might be different...but that wasn't the case.

I'm starting to wonder if this something other than Mountain Lion alone since whatever happened is still affecting the battery life of my MBA.  Only a little over 30 days ago I was able to get a good 6 hours of use out of my MacBook Air and now I'm lucky if it's 3 hours...even after wiping the drive and an absolutely clean reinstall of Lion, no apps, no backups, etc.

This is beginning to feel lot more like a firmware than software issue IMHO.

Ok, time for a relatively good news story since my ML upgrade. My 2010 11inch MBA initially had battery life in freefall and was losing wads of power even when on sleep. I was lucky to get an 1 hr 30's unplugged use from it. I tried an SMC reset but nothing seemed to change. Did a full virus scan in case that was the problem, though Activity Monitor suggested it wasn't. Still no change.

Then (just before going back to Lion) I did an SMC reset when the battery was flat, turned the laptop off and recharged to full power before turning it on again. I've now had 3 hours 40 mins unplugged use from it, which is about the same as what I was getting from Lion. Not sure if it makes any difference but I'm running a Mercury Aura Pro Express SSD (240GB), not the stock Apple SSD.

Anyway, my 'ML induced lemon' now seems to be back to normal, fingers crossed this continues. If MBA users having this battery problem haven't tried it, it may be worth trying an SMC reset + full recharge before powering up.

I really hope that continues to work!  We have the same machine, except for the HDD, and that's one combination (out of seemingly dozens) I haven't tried.  I had been getting a lot more hours out of mine with Lion though. 

Even though I've returned to Lion I'm still losing about 1% per minute under normal use though. 

I'll give your suggestion a try once my current charge runs out...shouldn't be long since it's down to 72% now. 

Good luck and keep us posted.

draining while asleep

Just a thought, some settings change when you install ML and one may be the "wake for network access" in Energy Saver preferences.  I'm not sure what would do this but perhaps updates are being downloaded.

I have a 2012 13" i5 and have just opened a case with apple. My battery readings are all over the place which includes health, % of charge and time left of charge.

Cheers

Hey Mr Invoice

I believe you are about to make a mistake. If your MBP has a problem, you do not buy rMBP hoping to solve it. rMBP, by size of screen 15" (unless waiting for the new 13" one) plus the screen demand, does not get as much power as the 13" MBP.

Personally, I think you should have purchased an Air with the i-5 upgrade to 8Gb and save yourself $500 towards your nex macbook purchase. The current Air is more powerful then the 2011 Pro, and ties in most aspects the 2012 i-5 Pro (SSD a lot to do with it). Oh, 1400x 900! which the 3" MBP does not get. Less glare- thinner glass... Equally, the standard i-5 processor is just about great for everything you might need. So either replace the current unit for another identical one, or just replace it with an MBA and get a partial refund. It will give you 7-8 hrs life.

So unless you do games or movie encoding, MBA i-5 is a superb choice as replacement- assuming you get the 13" defective unit replaced.

Hey richsadams,

My latest posts pointed out that it does not matter if firmware or software, I now believe those units are lemons (except older systems).  99.999 percent out there are not. Geniuses are genuinely surprised when learnign about it as they really have not seen people with the problem. Had you or I had no ML battery problem on other macbooks, neither of us would have even known this forum existed. Well, i would have as I read the editorials.

MLon my current MBA came with the same firmware as it did on yours, and performance is superb. Never heard the fans once, does not even get lukewarm, and gives me over 8 hrs. So all ML things considered, yes, it will push and drain older hardware, but only defective 2011/2012 macbooks will not work properly.

Hey paul, am sure they will take care of it.

...but only defective 2011/2012 macbooks will not work properly.

Don't forget to count my 2010 MBP.

You shouldn't write that 99.999 number again here. It only makes your statements little unreliable.  

Beisarius wrote:

 

99.9999% of units out there do not. If they did it would be a catastrophic pr problem for Apple. Absence of evidence confirms the isolated and unfortunate situation yourself and select other users experience.

Beisarius -

I'm fascinated by your 99.9999% data.  Would you mind pointing to the source for your assertion?  I hadn't seen that published anywhere other than your post.

"Absence of evidence" confirms nothing when nobody is actively polling MacBook users to inquire as to whether they're actually having this problem. 

You may be right, but the evidence that we do have: (a) >120 pages of posts on this thread, (b) senior Apple technical support advisors telling customers that there is a problem with battery life, (c) reputable online journalists reporting that they themselves have seen diminished battery life as a result of ML, suggests that it the problem is not isolated.

If this were happening to a company other than Apple, it's likely that it *would* be a catastrophic PR problem.  Fortunately for Apple, they've built sufficient goodwill with their users that the PR consequences are diminished.  Just because Apple is able to control the PR implications of it does not mean that the problem does not exist.

If you can point me to where you found the 99.9999% data, I'm happy to eat my words, but right now I don't see any evidence of that.

If this is indeed the case, I can't say I fully understand how my MacbookPro Early-2011 on Snow Leopard and then Lion has given solid battery life and behaviours that can be explained readily, and the installation of Mountain Lion appears to have revealed my previously predictable (and really excellent) laptop to be a 'lemon'.

However, let's say for the sake of argument that I have a $2,400 'lemon' that's just gone 3 months out of standard 1-year warranty. What is the suggested route for proving that the hardware is faulty and thus obtaining a replacement fully or partly paid for by Apple, as supplier of faulty hardware? As a UK resident, would I have recourse to the EU two-year warranty directive and would Apple stores recognise this?

As with others here, I have had calls from technical team based in Sacramento and Cupertino taking system logs etc. so does that act as the first part of proving a case? I am concerned that people who have contacted some Apple stores (as reported in this thread) are being met with either ignorance of any problem from Geniuses, or being immediately pushed into the replacement battery at user's full cost.

What are other users' experiences in this or similar situations?

my new MBP gets very hot up the point to burn my skin.

My 2009 MBP does the same, I get that smell of scorching wood from my coffee table and my left thigh is medium rare.  Skype video is the worst offender for me but it also happens when editing Numbers documents in iCloud, so I think it is data upload causing it.  It is interesting to note that iWork got updated for iCloud use, at the same time as ML was released.

Straydan wrote:

 

 

As with others here, I have had calls from technical team based in Sacramento and Cupertino taking system logs etc. so does that act as the first part of proving a case? I am concerned that people who have contacted some Apple stores (as reported in this thread) are being met with either ignorance of any problem from Geniuses, or being immediately pushed into the replacement battery at user's full cost.

 

I would also open a normal case with AppleCare.  My experience is that while the front-line AppleCare advisors can see that we were approached by Apple engineers and that data was collected, it's in sort of a parallel system and may not result in a "resolution" for you.