Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

ah mine was 10.8.1 before i update to 10.8.2i had the battery problem when i was in 10.8.1 and become worst in 10.8.2 =( need to back up first all my stuff before doing and trying the fresh install =( it's a lot =(

Hi everyone,

I have been learning things about battery life issue for Mountain Lion as some of you who've already upgraded their device to 10.8.2 and has not solved their issue but i have the same thing and it didn't resolve my battery life issue after the upgrade to 10.8.2 and at the first after the update i was so disappointed and calling AppleCare support they forced me to format my device and do the fresh install but it's totally SH*T therefore i have ignored their advise and i don't want to lost my data because those data cannot be backup using time machine so i have came up to solve the case and see below my battery remaining after installing the combo version:

After updating to 10.8.2 (Normal version updated via Mac App Store) Battery remaining:

95% - 3:50 Remaining

89% - 3:25 Remaining

65% - 1:15 Remaining

After Installing 10.8.2 (Combo version downloaded from Apple's website) Battery remaining:

93% - 6:26 Remaining

89% - 5:23 Remaining

85% - 5:00 Remaining

I have set my brightness to 4 bars, Bluetooth is off, keyboard backlit is off, removed unused startup apps and the battery remaining has boosted to extra 3 hours (like on Lion) and also this can bring your Lion's life back to Mountain Lion.

Also several user has noticed after doing the SMC reset has solved their issue but for some they didn't resolve and i'm sharing my thoughts with you to help to resolve your battery life issue WITHOUT losing any of your datas.

Please download the Combo version from here http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1581 and i hope this one helped all of you to resolve between i have resolved this using my MacBook Pro 13" early 2011 Also if you have already installed the 10.8.2 you can install Combo version and you don't have to downgrade just install it (Keep your mac plugged while installing the Combo).

Have a good day!

i should download and install it over my existing 10.8.2 from the mac app store??

Sulaiman, Thank for advice. I the download and installed that just now. See how it will work. Or not!!! 

Amazing!!!

The Battery is at 75% for  5:27 hr remaining. Let's see the next hour.

Glad to hear that!

I think this just made it worse. 3:36 left, 97% charged.

@Gman9855 If you already updated to 10.8.2 and if the battery life is 3 or 4 hours at the full charge than that means you're having the battery life issue and you should download the combo version and see if that helps. But i heard more people says that the battery life issue has been resolved when they have already updated to 10.8.2 normally via Mac App Store

@ApocalyArts Have you install the Combo version? if not, Download it from here http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1581.

It is now 71% for 4:29 hrs remaining. Still pretty fast drain!!!

It was exactly 13 minutes working losing almost 1 hrs from the calulator reading. Means actual use of 13 minutes for an hours from the system calculator. In this case it the calculator reading 8 hrs you can use the computer only 13 x 8 = 104 minutes in real use.

Hmm, Let's see what's happening and i just have installed the combo 5 hours ago and putting my laptop to full charge once it's done. let's see how it goes and the Combo also has improved battery life.

Hey Guys,

I think we're fooling around this long enough. I think the battery status looked funny. On my screen now saying 69% level and has 5:21 hrs remaining. It gain more hours. What happen? Are we going to waste more time doing silly think like this. Why no Apple personel saying anything?

to be honest, I am not sure if 10.8.2 is really the patch to address the battery issue, because the whole page of release note does not mention anything about battery, and I install from 10.8.0 to 10.8.2 via update, the battery time still the problem.

the only thing I have done to save it for 7+ hours is to keep it in "best for Retina" option ,and don't run Firefox, also do the SMC rest + PRAM rest

http://gigaom.com/apple/when-to-reset-your-macs-pram-and-smc/

however, be honest, I don't think this is a reliable solution as if the software can cause the problem, it will come again, and I wonder how many time you need to do the rest ?

software should just work, the only kind of software I don't expect to JUST WORK are those open source projects, the didn't ask for money, so I don't expect too much for them too.

now at 9% with 26 minute left, and I am trying to drain it dry and recharge again to see what happen.

yes, used combo update.