Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

As I posted in your thread... Tried it. Multiple times. Made no difference.

SixtiethDegree wrote:

 

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4268043?tstart=0

 

That is my post and will fix all battery problems with mountain lion. Enjoy!

The article you referenced is almost two months old.  It was tried weeks ago by folks here (and by others on the thread on which you originally posted) and it does not work for anyone...except apparently you.

No effect on my Macbook Air (late 2011). Battery draining really fast.. I get MAX 3hours.

Greghei, I understand your frustration. Must be a first such with Apple. Mine is not: a year ago a NVIDIA chip fried. Many calls later, I realized that Apple is pretty darn good.

I agree with the fol : "I still hope you do have such data, as it would establish that only a few people are, in fact having the horrible time that many of us here are having" It is indeed a few.

Am attaching battery shots from my brand new MBA,  just received earlier today and been testing it. Teason for my text below is to clarify why this conversation matters: if I am right, then there is nothing you can do for your unit short of Apple replacing it.

Again, no battery problem, second unit no battery issue. These two are too small if a sample but 100% however little it is. Trackpad works awesome. First one was replaced once last week, yet still did not work well. yes, it was a lemon MBA for that very reason.

Am siding again with Apple: that a few unfortunate users, a very very tiny minority, purchased defective units. It is not widespread, it generates  few posts, and the perception that it may be big is solely amongst those affected. Used to think like that. The numbers I gave are a bottom line base calculation. Reason why it cannot be 10%, 5% or even 1% of units affected, is that it would affecte so many hundred of thousands that this issue would have blown out of proportion. So it is improbable and nearly impossible for 1-5 percent of users be affected. Numbers would be colossal. Someone would have laucnhed a class action suit... Or, none of this has happened.. This post is so small, with all its 125 pages, that it can onyl prove that a very tiny fraction of the millions of macs sold out there are affected. It is deductive logic, and a convergent argument structure. Each premise supports my conclusion.

What I am also saying is that any post member ordering a new macbook will get it error free. Same logic, I  believe maybe one in one thousand units out there is affected. That maybe enough for Cuppertino to know as an issue (5, 10 or 15000 units). But as these macbooks sell at a rate of thousands and thousands per minute, the # of people complaining of the issue is just soo small as to be statistically relevant. Usually that means well below 1%. Apple sold 10-20 millions MBAs and MBPs last three quarters, so this battery issue is just too small. There are no 2 millions affected macbooks out there. If they were, and even if 1 percent of those users called, none of us could even reach Apple Tech support. Lines would be jammes. At 1 percent that is 200 000 users and even this figure i do not believe it exists. Now imagine there were 2 000 000 users out there calling Apple, or going about posting. yet they are not.

Anyone here buying a new machine can buy with confidence. And anyone within warranty, dealing with Apple, can do it in confidence, knowing they will be taken care of. Those with 2010 or 2011 affected units, sad to hear as they are out of warranty.

The logic to all of this is simple, realistic and cold and is not a waste of time, contrary to what someone said. If what I wrote above makes sense, then there is no fix possible and all troubleshooting efforts, short of calling Apple, are worthless. Those affected units, the bad ones, are lemons. Anyone not acceping this reality will lose time and are setting their expectations for a never coming fix. I accepted it, ditched ML on the older machines, reinstalled SL, and went about ordering a brand new MBA, 100% certain (or 99.999) sure it would be battery problem free. Thos ewho read my posts would remember my confidence. Two units, zero battery, heating or sleep drainage issues.

I do believe that Apple can tweak battery performance, calibration, ML consumption. But units draining when in sleep, or when off, are probably beyond tweaks and repairs.

meanwhile, those of us that got their units replaced, can help point out the best course or venue. Can tell you what worked or not, and ensure you get the best option.

Hey adams,

Your math is impeccable and indeed it will not be a linear graph... So you can choose the lesser of two evils- Lion.  If you are out of warranty - I think you are- I would wait 200 cycles provided you get acceptable hours (4 minimum). When that battery requires servicing, go at the Apple Store and have the battery replaced and used exclusively with Lion. If the new battery works fine, then keep it. If not, your choice to keep using at the Lion consumption rate, or return it for refund.

Are you in ML presently, what is your machine again, age? Any peripherals, mouse, blootooth? 4% overnight is indeed a lot for 2011/2012 units. How much time do you get when surfing? Unfortunately batteries are inside on these, so not too easy to open and install them outside Apple's store.

Next year, if Apple still uses Ivy Bridge, might buy the next OS- which would have been tested on it. If Intel changes architecture, and Apple follows, I will not dare install a new OS on the current hardware. I kinda like this 7-8 hours even if it will go down a bit over time.

Chris

Observation from this morning:

9:20 I pulled the plug.

Now it's 9:59 and I have 77% left.

That's by no means normal even I do have USB 3G modem in use.

Before, even with 3G modem, I could get EASILY 5h if not 6.

I need to add that I believe this is ruining my battery. Every day it seems to go faster and faster.

Laptop should not be tethered to wall all the time.

I have called Apple support twice (I have Applecare) and no help. They do not even acknowledge that there is a problem. "Mountain Lion is a more powerfull and faster operating system that it might use battery faster" - but I thought it helps to INCREASE battery life.

Hop

Whatt is your machine, age, specs, configuration? Is ML an upgrade or factory install? 23% in 39 minutes gives you 170 minutes or over 4 hrs..

Beisarius wrote:

 

Am siding again with Apple: that a few unfortunate users, a very very tiny minority, purchased defective units....

 

The logic to all of this is simple, realistic and cold and is not a waste of time, contrary to what someone said. If what I wrote above makes sense, then there is no fix possible and all troubleshooting efforts, short of calling Apple, are worthless. Those affected units, the bad ones, are lemons.

Beisarius -

Thanks for your message.  I guess from my perspective, it's not the hardware that is a lemon.  My mid-2011 MBA worked perfectly well until I installed ML.  Now it doesn't work either appropriately or as well as it did under Lion.  To my mind, that makes ML the lemon.

I'm now going through the support process with AppleCare, dealing with a senior advisor who has been proactive and very responsive.  I'm actually not one of the people beating their chest, shouting "Apple *****!"  I haven't come to that conclusion yet.  If I wind up with a machine with battery life as it currently stands, then I'll be upset.  Fortunately, I'm still under warranty, so I do believe that I will get taken care of.  Unfortunately, I don't think it will happen before I have to go on a few transcontinental flights, so I'll have to lug a couple of laptops to make sure I can get work done.  If my machine were out of warranty, I'd be really upset.  Users should feel comfortable that if a developer says an OS update is compatible with their hardware, that update will never cut their battery life nearly in half.  Right now, Apple isn't meeting that standard.  I believe they will, but they're not there yet.

Out of curiosity, and recognizing that the battery needs a few cycles before you can rely on the data, aren't you a little bit concerned that your brand new machine's battery shows that its health is at only 97% of design rating?

Macbook Air, late 2011

Battery:

Health Information:

Cycle Count:          274

Condition:          Normal

Mountain Lion is an upgrade from Lion.

Now 68% left...

This is about 40% - 50% less than I had BEFORE upgrade.

I am trying to get Apple to help me to go back to Lion. This starts to remind me of Windows...

I share all 100% what you greghei1write.

Hey greghey,

Indeedd I noticed the 97 percent, but the history of that is as fol. Last week, Apple told me that "We never ship 100% batteries, they do not quite exist." Apparently it was artificial, so I believe them. No battery and components retain 100% after, say, 3 weeks storage. They are meant to be used. Am not worried. But if it drops 1-2 percent in the next cycles, I would pay attention to it. that means in 30 cycles is at 80% and Apple would have to replace it at their own cost.

So after 4 cycles on that macbook and one full calibration, in 10 to 12 days, health went up to 98- 99. I  read somewhere that indeed these batteries reach their peak output after a few cycles and a full calibration.

The MBA I had returned was a lemon (as unbelievable as it sounds). Apparently if the replacement trackpad did not work, it was "voltage." Either case Apple shipped me another.

Agree with you that Apple could have warned users who updated on older systems. you must fly to have it replaced? I hope you are not in Alaska or Yukon!!

Would do as you are doing, keep in touch with Apple until they fix it (proper fix) or replace it for free. I have a feeling you will receive a new unit. Once you do, and notice the difference, you might agree with me, that, whether ML or not, that hardware, at some point, became defective. Am just not so sure though a patch will do it. My outlook is so different as I had the fol replacement history:

- first macbook (white) DVD drive dies first week. Replaced...

- Second was a MBP- dead pixels right in the middle. Replaced

- MBP - three years intensive, flawless usage. 4th, NVIDIA chip died (faulty chip issue). Replaced.

- MBA 2012, two weeks ago, malfunctioning trackpad. Replaced trackpad, not solved, then whole unit.

- Current MBA, day zero, no issues. Fingers x.

Countelss small  free genius fixes that required no major unit replacement.

My iphone list is even longer... Yet I handle my stuff as if with gloves. So 4 macbook replacements, and 3-4 calls and 2-3 store trips per replacement. Why I buy extended warranty and trust Apple's adressing it.  So if this is your first machine snafu, I feel for you. I buy their machines even though I expect a certain failure, but I buy Apple because of their warranty and troubleshooting.

Hop,

those figures are worrisome for a 2011... You are getting half the charge and rapidly dropping health.. Hopefully you have extended warranty? 275 cycles should be over 85 percent. Do you have the Service battery icon?

Think you called Apple, have you escalated to Sr Advisor? they have specific tests to monitor your unit.

If you have Apple Care, so 3 years, I would not worry, I believe you will get it fixed or replaced. just might take several calls spanning weeks or months,

I just installed 10.8.1 - which i held off doing to see the difference, and after the reboot it boosted the estimate from 5h40 to nearly 7h (at 85 charge%), so clearly it did do something to power management.

Have a feeling they will release more such tweaks, but they will probably only work on machines without drain issues. Wish they fixed everyone's problem though.

Gregh, can you see how the battery health estimate jumped up after the update? Up to 97.7 from earlier pic... beats me why- I bet you it is the algorhythms and SMC/battery chip talk. God this is funny and silly..

Well, I'm stil convinced it's a Mountain Lion problem, and not a "lemon" machine (which has been working fine). I just woke my system up  after 3 hours, and it's lost half of it's remaining power. Here's the output from a 'pmset -g log' command, where it shows where it went to sleep, then woke up, and went from 13% to 5% (I better hurry, or it's going ot shut down...)

Definetly worrisome. This is not ok. Nothing escalated and I have a funny situation. I am located in Asia but my MBA was bought from Finland so I call Finland tech support. They did not ask any specific questions either nor did they ask to send any data. Luckily I did buy Applecare so I'm covered with warranty. However, I bought this so I can work on the road. Now I'm chasing power sockets and planning my day according to my battery.

Something went wrong with ML. I never had battery issues before, not with SL or Lion or with Macbook Pro or Air.

I do not have battery service icon.