Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

Beisarius wrote:

 

Whether software/hardware, whichever combo gave the result, the ultimate question is how to solve it?

 

Apocaly, even if in Ireland, I would try to open a case, and specifically request Sr Advisor. They have decision powers that others do not. tell them "Hey, I get 3 hours." They will try to document. May ask you to ship your unit at a center. They are pretty fast (a week you may have a new one back) But if in school, I hope your warranty goes beyond.

 

JT, the question on how to solve it still remains. a few possibilities:

 

- 1-  software flaw and worth waiting for a fix may come along. Personally I find this overly optimistic, and we are nearing, quite fast, the half way point for the 10.9 anouncement. A wait and see approach, and it is nearly October and no solution is out yet.

 

- 2- Warranty units: Some are contacting Apple. If one has a warranty, call a Sr Advisor, work through the steps, get a working macbook replacement, I think it would be worth the effort. Hands on fix, no more headaches and watching the drain.

 

- 3 Contacting Apple for an out of warranty 2011. From experience, Apple is quite a generous company, and might be surprised what a Senior Advisor can do for you when you prove 3-4 hours. Try a new battery, if unresolved, you are entitled to a reimbursement. Let Apple support come up with other options.

 

- 2009-2010 units. Am inclined to think ML is not suited for those platforms even if Apple says they can run it. Ok, but at what driange cost..? In some cases reverting to SL/L solved the issue. If under Apple Care warranty, call Apple, tech document 2 hour drains, likely you will get a logic board replacement if a battery swap solves nothing. If new logicboard yet same result with ML, I would just install SL/Lion and be happy to have a new (be it 2010) macbook.

 

Apple is very good at following through and contacting for case follow up. They will call, email, leave callback numbers and will do their best to improve the experience.

 

Still fingers crossed Apple improves power management under ML. One just moves the mouse and the clock jumps. Also, if users do not want power nap, notification or icloud, we should have the option to turn these off with some "maximize battery life" energy setting.

 

Silvolde, thank you, it is a far cry from earlier references about pigs. Oink. Anyway, we were missing input from people that upgraded without issues- be it I would not expect them to find this forum.

 

If anyone has simpler options to solve the issue to folks such as Apocaly, jt and so on, please suggest them. I think it nasty if away to study and you just lost your mobility.

 

Cirr, you got a free battery replacement, but never came back to let us know what happened after that. We are curious.

Beisarius,

I didn't got any replacement as of now my battery health went to 0% a.k.a DEATH! I reinstall SL now but i think i just realized the SMC won't change.. seriously now ML has killed my battery! I was using my Toshiba and only after 3 years the battery start to decreasing its lifespan, now on MBP only 18 months or 355 cycles later, it's death! thanks to ML!

Ok now for the last week, increasingly happening more and more every day, I'm seeing that when I lift my lid to wake and use my 15" MBP I am getting a light blue screen that I cannot get out of unless I hold down my power button till it shuts down. After a reboot it goes away for a little while, but eventually this "sleep" condition comes back.

cirrrrr wrote:

 

I didn't got any replacement as of now my battery health went to 0% a.k.a DEATH! I reinstall SL now but i think i just realized the SMC won't change.. seriously now ML has killed my battery! I was using my Toshiba and only after 3 years the battery start to decreasing its lifespan, now on MBP only 18 months or 355 cycles later, it's death! thanks to ML!

My advice is to open a ticket with Apple Customer Support or visit your local Apple store.  All of Apple's marketing materials claim an 80%/1000 cycle battery life.  Even with the few caveats, no MacBook battery should be dead after 355 cycles.  If you're told that it's out of warranty escalate your complaint until someone takes care of it...my money says that they will.

B4ore wrote:

 

Ok now for the last week, increasingly happening more and more every day, I'm seeing that when I lift my lid to wake and use my 15" MBP I am getting a light blue screen that I cannot get out of unless I hold down my power button till it shuts down. After a reboot it goes away for a little while, but eventually this "sleep" condition comes back.

I've had that happen to my White MacBook and my MacBook Air before (long before Mountain Lion).  I ended up resetting the PRAM and SMC (can't recall which resolved it).  See if that doesn't help. 

It could be a permissions issue but IIRC it took a PRAM or SMC reset.  FWIW I always repair disk permissions using the recovery utility by restarting while holding down the Option key (right after the sound) > Disk Utility > Repair Disk Permissions, close Disk Utility then restart from the Apple menu.

Hope that helps and let us know how it goes.

B4ore wrote:

 

Ok now for the last week, increasingly happening more and more every day, I'm seeing that when I lift my lid to wake and use my 15" MBP I am getting a light blue screen that I cannot get out of unless I hold down my power button till it shuts down. After a reboot it goes away for a little while, but eventually this "sleep" condition comes back.

Another thing you can try, as an experiment, is to close all of your running applications before you close your lid.  Not a long-term solution, but if it is an application causing it to hang, when you open it back up, it "should" awake fine.  If that happens, then you just need to figure out which app it is. 

Hey cirrr,

what I would do if you, I would have an Apple store genius reinstall the SMC firmware and then install a new battery. If it works- great. If not- you still get your money back.

have seen batteries die on any portable: Dell, Macbooks, Acer, Sony, even Samsung. I know that your battery entered a drain cycle and once down the loop, it was not reversible.

incidentally, been doing a LOT of reading. CPU architecture, so on. I came at the conclusion that there is one component only that can go from 6-8 watts idle to 11-12 under average load (such as PREVIEW when opened). that is Intel's discrete GPUs. So I read Macbook Air power articles (anandtech), Intel 3000 and 4000 power consumption.

Am fairly sure that the problem on this current macbook began when I left preview open. I used preview for the screenshots we took here. I turned it off a day later, and power consumption easily dropped from 1100 mah to 700-800 mah. Or about 40% more life... The more I read the more I concluded that  the dGPU can cause such a drain.

On the 3000 and 4000 many people have, the GPU also dictates RAM parameters as it does not have its own VRAM to access.

Obviously no idea if this is actually so- would need direct board current testing. but what it would imply is that somehow, if I am right, the GPU fires up and STAYS UP, but it is not full load (which would be 40-50 watts or 5000 mah, vs 2000 mid range).

Flash, Preview all have one common denominator, they trigger the GPU.

Sleep? no idea. What I do know is that sleep drain went down a lot after i turned off .. Preview (force quit) !!! Now, I will agree with anyone telling me that IT SHOULD NOT MATTER. When you close the lid all but minimal drain should happen. Evidently, not the case for all units. but case and point. Preview on, not used, not enought process usage to even matter. yet in actual voltage, it was 1000 to 700 difference. For a program hidden in the background, it is a huge delta.

new MBA on its way from Apple.  will see.

about two weeks ago, i posted that apple replaced my battery and told me to see how the new battery fared.  at first, there was no difference, and then i noticed my battery health declining at the rate of about .5% per charge cycle.  And now, my battery only charges up to about 94% (even after leaving it on the charger all night), and when i take it off and close everything down (except for the battery tracker), it says i have 2.25hrs of battery life.  And that estimate didn't lie. My screen brightness is always lower than 50%, and its still heating up like crazy even though i took the keyboard cover off (apple genius said it restricted air flow and for best results, i needed to take keyboard cover off).  I've called apple and opened numerous cases about crappy battery life, and all they keep feeding me is that my levels look normal, and that i should just hold out for the update that MAY fix the battery issue. 

Have you updated to the latest build of mountain lion?

Apple seeds second OS X 10.8.2 build in three days, hints at imminent release

Got my fingers crossed in hopes it improves my battery life on my 2011 Macbook Pro. Otherwise I am selling it and moving to a PC like my wife bought. She get's 6 hours plus and has better hardware then my Macbook Pro. Sad that Mountian Lion has been a big disappointment in my view. At best I get 3 1/2 hours typical use and half that if I run Parallels with Windows 7. Really makes my Macbook Pro worthless on battery. If only I could run Snow Leopard. It was such a great OS X version low resources, good performance. Great battery life?

I just confirmed it GPU- in my case.

14 Sep, 930 PM EST I shut down the lid at 34%. Checked to ensure no GPU activating apps, in particular Preview. Today, 15 Sep, 1045 AM EST (so 13 hours), turned it on- 34%. Dropped at 33% rapidly which tells me 1% 10-11 hours.

Previously, I would just shut off the MBA, or turn of Preview without thinking about it. But, anyone posting images here, and not quitting Preview has it ON. Am curious what others get as results.

Drain in OS seems about standard- although a bit too fast in HTML5 sites. Anyhow.

AnandTech explains better the impact GPU has on drain:

http://www.anandtech.com/Show/Index/6063?cPage=4&all=False&sort=0&page=7&slug=ma cbook-air-13inch-mid-2012-review

What is interesting is that processes were insignificant, yet , with Preview on, wattage consumption had skyrocketed 30% in basic Apple spec usage (50% brightness, basic wifi, no bluetooth) usage, and 500% in sleep (so 5-6%/10hrs vs 1%/10hrs drain)

For those unfamiliar with the architecture both dGPU and Intel 3000/4000 have specific ON switch criteria to begin activating the GPU/cores and syncing its consumption with the CPU rams and clock. So CPU on will also increase processor power consumption. Then the OS is supposed to be smart to decide how to increase CPU/GPU consumption based on tasks, and turn it off when not demanded (or min power consumption)

How does this relate to battery health? An older battery could not handle that. It is constantly discharging at 40-50% faster at medium power load whenever on (minus sleep) which it should not do.

100% load is evidently expected when doing intensive tasks, which most of us do very rarely. In which case - as per article, battery should not last more than 2 hrs tops on most macbooks.

Why do some units do it and others do not? I do not know. Apple has to figure this one out.

Am confident iLife would likely have a similar effect, although I have not spent time trying it.

Has anyone else tried Preview on off, iLife on off minimized? Sleep and so on?

I'm using macbook air mid 2011 13'. I have the same problem. My battery used to last about a day in normal using condition. But now it can only last a few hours. So I must plugged it in everytime I have a chance. It's very annoying.

It's one of my problem, though. The other problems come from the system's poor performance at some time and the problem with sound device - all my sound device now have kind of "static noise" everytime the machine make a sound or listening to music.

Waiting for an update to fix all of them and bring back the "old condition" of my mac when it was on Lion =)

PSS395 wrote:

 

I'm using macbook air mid 2011 13'. I have the same problem. My battery used to last about a day in normal using condition. But now it can only last a few hours. So I must plugged it in everytime I have a chance. It's very annoying.

It's one of my problem, though. The other problems come from the system's poor performance at some time and the problem with sound device - all my sound device now have kind of "static noise" everytime the machine make a sound or listening to music.

Waiting for an update to fix all of them and bring back the "old condition" of my mac when it was on Lion =)

Welcome to the "club".  We're all hoping the next update will address the battery issue.  OS X 10.8.2 is supposed to be released to the public any moment now.

AFAIK no one has reported a "static noise" associated with Mountain Lion.  You might have a look around.  There is a known audio issue with Mountain Lion, but it has to do with sound "stuttering"  Here's one thread about it:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4149309?start=0&tstart=0

So I'm not sure if the sound problem you're experiencing has anything to do with ML...could be a hardware issue.  It's probably worth checking with Apple about it.

Best of luck!

I've checked with apple already. They said my computer hardware is fine. at genius bar the staff said to me that they can't hear any noise, but I think it's due to the loudness at the store.

at my thread, one said he also has the same problem. here it is:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4284236

sorry for the long explaination. I think my problem is quite rare or something :-s

so, I'm currently use ipod as a  replacement to listen to music. after the update, if the issue is not fixed, chances that I have to bring my mac back to the store again.

thanks for reply =)

Ahh, got it.  I've had a similar situation.  Since it's OT here, I replied to your other post.