Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

My battery life on my mid 2012 13in 2.9 Ghz MBP with Lion started pretty poor (~4-5 hours), then after the mountain lion upgrade improved up to 9 hours on a full charge!  I became excited however it was short lived, my battery life dropped again to about 3 hours on a full charge.  I also just obtained MS office at that time and noticed that when running it, battery life would drop but the fan would run loudly and the computer would heat up dramatically.  After digging around on the internet I found that I should check the activity moniter.  To my suprise a random, unidentified program with the user being Root was using 99-100% of my CPU!  I quickly closed the program.  Today I fully charged my MBP and was greeted with a nice 9 hour estimated battery life again!  (As I'm typing this right now, I have 8:20 remaining with 94% battery and 50% screen brightness) My suggestion to you all would be to check the CPU tab of the activity moniter and see whats hogging up the power!

Hope that helps and Good luck!

JPMo wrote:

 

My battery life on my mid 2012 13in 2.9 Ghz MBP with Lion started pretty poor (~4-5 hours), then after the mountain lion upgrade improved up to 9 hours on a full charge!  I became excited however it was short lived, my battery life dropped again to about 3 hours on a full charge.  I also just obtained MS office at that time and noticed that when running it, battery life would drop but the fan would run loudly and the computer would heat up dramatically.  After digging around on the internet I found that I should check the activity moniter.  To my suprise a random, unidentified program with the user being Root was using 99-100% of my CPU!  I quickly closed the program.  Today I fully charged my MBP and was greeted with a nice 9 hour estimated battery life again!  (As I'm typing this right now, I have 8:20 remaining with 94% battery and 50% screen brightness) My suggestion to you all would be to check the CPU tab of the activity moniter and see whats hogging up the power!

 

Hope that helps and Good luck!

Runaway processes are nothing new and generally have little to do with one OS or another.  It never hurts to monitor things when there are issues and it's good that you were able to sort out your particular problem...if only it were that simple for the folks still having trouble with their battery life here. 

A caveat though, if you don't know what a process is doing, particularly if it's a root process, use a great deal of caution before killing it.  Doing so with some processes can cause some serious issues.  Additionally finding out more details is best as killing a process may temporarily fix things, but it could certainly reappear.  If it does, it's time for some more due diligence or a trip to the Apple store. 

Glad to hear that your MacBook is behaving again.

Excellent advice!  Thanks.

I wonder if writing a letter to the consumer affairs editor of your local newspaper might goad Apple into acting on this.  (I'm going to do that as it's absurd that an OS actually devours power to the point where the purpose of having a contemporary laptop is defeated, and the company that produced the OS doesn't acknowledge the problem, apologize, and get it fixed in a timely manner.  It's totally absurd.

All the best.

Antonio,

Feel free to write whomever you'd like, but as mentioned numerous times on this thread Apple is in fact aware of this issue.  They have proactively reached out to me and a number of others here to answer a laundry list of questions and had us run diagnostic programs on our machines.

The recent 10.8.2 update resolved the issue for a good many of the folks that originally posted here but there are a few left that are still having problems.  

Based on your profile you should know better than most that Apple rarely ever "acknowledges problems" unless they are so wide-spread that almost everyone is affected. (iOS 6 Maps comes to mind.)  Apple users like us have set the bar pretty high but we both know that this certainly isn't the first problem Apple has ever had and it almost certainly won't be the last.  These things happen.

I couldn't find a post where you said so, but if your MacBook Pro is having this problem and you've tried the various fixes up to and including a fresh install of Mountain Lion and it's still not up to spec, then the people you should be talking to work at Apple.  If you're not willing to pursue it that way a letter to the editor won't likely produce any better results IMHO.

I understand the frustration, I was in the same boat.  A fix never comes soon enough if you're experiencing a problem.  Hopefully the remainder of the machines having this issue will be taken care of with the next update.  Only time will tell. 

I did the 10.8.2 fresh install, and it seems that my system is back to normal. Up to now, even with spotlight indexing going on, there are no signs of overheating and the fan is not going crazy. Battery is normal showing 5:40 !!

The fresh install was done following the instructions provided by http://eggfreckles.net/notes/installing-mountain-lion-clean/ . I used the USB fresh install.

1) Backup with time machine.

2) Dowloaded the 10.8.2 from Apple

3) Created the USB following http://eggfreckles.net/notes/installing-mountain-lion-clean/ instructions.

4) Shutdown system

5) Turn on with OPTION key pressed and USB flash drive inserted.

6) Boot from USB

7) Re-install 10.8.2 (no disk erase)

Hope this helps...

jpsinnecker wrote:

 

I did the 10.8.2 fresh install, and it seems that my system is back to normal. Up to now, even with spotlight indexing going on, there are no signs of overheating and the fan is not going crazy. Battery is normal showing 5:40 !!

Sah-weet!  Glad to hear things are back to normal after a fresh install.  Give it a good 3 to 5 cycles to settle in and you should be good to go.

Enjoy!

Ok - having a mid 2012 retina MacBook that came preinstalled with ml is their any worth in me doing a fresh install?

Nb: I did install a previous timemachine backup (created from lion) as soon as I got the machine.

If it were me and my MacBook didn't meet Apple's stated specs and it was still under warranty I'd just take it back to Apple and politely press them to fix it and not give up until I was satisfied.  But that's just me. 

Hi,

After a fresh install and 5 cicles I noticed that the battery of my macbook pro (late 2011) is better with estimated time fully charged indicating 7/8h (less one than with Lion), but the percentage drops 1 by more or less 2 min, which is a lot compared with Lion. The battery still indicates its sate as normal, so Apple will not replace it. I hope that a new upgrade can put things like they were with Lion. Good luck everyone.

so how much actual time do you get out of it if you just do basic web browsing?  I wouldnt trust the estimate it shows you. 

I didn't check it on a watch, but I think it's quite near the estimated time.

well if you're saying the battery runs for 7-8hrs then thats totally fine isnt it?!  You should really time how much you get in reailty.   if it estimates 7-8hrs and you get 4 then thats another matter - you're just about in warranty still so I'd hurry things along and not wait for a software update.

mine this morning when i close the vmware fusion i was shocked with what i saw.. it was 11hrs O_O then after a few minutes becomes 8... but still this afternoon i went to apple service center and leave there my mac.. they said they will change the battery... need to wait for 1week.. miss my mbp already... /sigh =(

asengskie wrote:

 

mine this morning when i close the vmware fusion i was shocked with what i saw.. it was 11hrs O_O then after a few minutes becomes 8... but still this afternoon i went to apple service center and leave there my mac.. they said they will change the battery... need to wait for 1week.. miss my mbp already... /sigh =(

11 hours it's estimated time, You should really care about real-time usage and that should give you at least of 7 hours of normal web browsering.

Keep us posted when you get changed your battery.

Good Luck

yes estimated only but that's the first time that i saw an 11 on the battery time usage =D yes i will post here when i get back my machine... and can't wait.. but i have to... =(

thank you... =)