jpengland96
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

I upgraded to mountail Lion and now my battery life is about half of what it was before upgrading. Shouldn't the update improve battery life? Also, what can I do about this?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 25, 2012 8:39 AM

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jpengland96

Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

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  • by iPaulMorrison,

    iPaulMorrison iPaulMorrison Jul 30, 2012 2:09 PM in response to Sushant
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 30, 2012 2:09 PM in response to Sushant

    I would like to suggest this is not connected to certain Applications whatsoever. I don't use Mail or Safari.

     

    With a 100% charge, half brightness and keys completely off. I am estimated 1:36. This is even worse that the 3 hour estimate I had 2 days ago. This was with no apps running.

     

    Before ML I could run Firefox, iTunes & uTorrent. Same settings in terms of brightness and get about 6 hours.

     

    HUGE PROBLEM.

  • by jpengland96,

    jpengland96 jpengland96 Jul 30, 2012 2:17 PM in response to jpengland96
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 30, 2012 2:17 PM in response to jpengland96

    Okay, I would like to say something, I went with the suggestion of sticking it out a few days. With absolutly know changes I am getting a 6 hour battery life while running multiple tabs in safari, typing up a document in microsoft word, playing music on itunes and I have textedit running to keep open a few things. I have done nothing to solve the battery life problem and it has sorted itself out, I'm going to place the problem on what JoeyR said

    If you've just upgraded, there is a lot going on.  Give your system a little time to "settle down" first.  Battery performance under Mountain Lion should be similar to what you were getting with Lion. Also... some people use real-time virus scanners.  As an OS upgrade replaces a significant percentage of your files, a virus scan can also be quite intensive... especially when it happens along with indexing.

    I should also mention: I never had snow leapard, I got my Macbook Pro with Lion and it worked great, as does Mountain Lion now. Also, Activity Moniter showed nothing out of the ordinary when I was having the problem.

  • by beken911,

    beken911 beken911 Jul 30, 2012 4:29 PM in response to jpengland96
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 30, 2012 4:29 PM in response to jpengland96

    I have found solution that works for me.

    So basically first time i upgraded from Lion to Mountaion Lion, but i had troubles with battery. Then

    i tried to do clean install and now it works perfectly as with Lion.

     

    Shortly: Try clean install with Mountain Lion. It should help.

  • by welysson,

    welysson welysson Jul 30, 2012 9:14 PM in response to beken911
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 30, 2012 9:14 PM in response to beken911

    Hi beken,

     

    You mean, uninstall the system completely and install the montain lion, like format the laptop?

     

    My battery drop off at least 40% of performance, now it takes no more than 2 hours to discharge. Before the ML it was about 3:30 to 4 hours (A1378 13")

  • by beken911,

    beken911 beken911 Jul 30, 2012 9:58 PM in response to welysson
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 30, 2012 9:58 PM in response to welysson

    Exactly.

     

    Before that my battery drained in one night even at sleep mode. Now its work perfectly.

  • by Courcoul,

    Courcoul Jul 31, 2012 1:04 AM in response to beken911
    Level 6 (14,193 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 1:04 AM in response to beken911

    Just a thought. Has anyone with this issue tried to completely and totally obliterate all the myriad caches found in these systems, and see if that cures it? The freshly released v2.6.0 OnyX should be able to do so in its Cleaning section.

     

    http://www.titanium.free.fr/

     

    Me? I'm sticking with the old Fat Cat for now... But I have lots of confidence in you guys!

  • by Arun Lal,

    Arun Lal Arun Lal Jul 31, 2012 3:14 AM in response to jpengland96
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 3:14 AM in response to jpengland96

    I am not sure I like the idea of changing my usuage pattern from before to conserve battery life suited to ML. Apple didn't issue any warning (maybe in the fine prints) that installing the new operating system could invalidate a few of the machine features stated at the time of purchase.

     

    For me it is a serious flaw, and I would be holding back from updating my second mac until a patch is available.

  • by stevo_c,

    stevo_c stevo_c Jul 31, 2012 3:24 AM in response to Arun Lal
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 3:24 AM in response to Arun Lal

    Absolutley!
    There have been a bunch of replies on this thread tellign users how to "work around" a problem that should be down to apple to fix.
    We should not have to fix this at user level. This is Apple's responsibility!

  • by iPaulMorrison,

    iPaulMorrison iPaulMorrison Jul 31, 2012 4:07 AM in response to stevo_c
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 4:07 AM in response to stevo_c

    Is anybody else seeing a decline in battery life every time they try? I started with 6/7 in Lion, 3:30 upon updating. 2 hours, then 1:30 yesterday.

     

    Fans also now sound like 747 turbines when I unplug the battery.

  • by Kriswin,

    Kriswin Kriswin Jul 31, 2012 4:26 AM in response to jpengland96
    Level 1 (90 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 4:26 AM in response to jpengland96

    Here's a simple explanation.

     

    If you haven't done a clean install, some programs may still be on your Macbook. Those programs may not be compatible with OS X Mountain Lion. I would update all of them first to see if it's a problem with your incompatible files.

     

    If and only if the issue continues to happen, do a clean install. If at that point [after clean install] the fans are still running crazily and the battery life is terrible, I would continue bothering Apple through the telephone to make sure that they come up with a fix.

     

    Many users on other discussions have found that the problem with fans and battery is linked to incompatible programs [namely Skype, ESET Antivirus, among many other apps]. Download the latest version / update.

  • by iPaulMorrison,

    iPaulMorrison iPaulMorrison Jul 31, 2012 4:28 AM in response to Kriswin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 4:28 AM in response to Kriswin

    Well I think I found the culprit of the fans.....Firefox Plugin Process (Shockwave Flash) is taking up anywhere between 40 and 60% CPU....everything else is below 10%.

  • by Arun Lal,

    Arun Lal Arun Lal Jul 31, 2012 4:38 AM in response to jpengland96
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 4:38 AM in response to jpengland96

    I don't have a problem with the fan. My MBP is still new and I haven't installed anything after M Lion. I would expect the battery to behave as it did before. A new OS brings new features but shouldn't take away critical things as battery life.

  • by Kriswin,

    Kriswin Kriswin Jul 31, 2012 4:40 AM in response to iPaulMorrison
    Level 1 (90 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 4:40 AM in response to iPaulMorrison

    Have you tried updating Firefox?

  • by iPaulMorrison,

    iPaulMorrison iPaulMorrison Jul 31, 2012 4:42 AM in response to Kriswin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 4:42 AM in response to Kriswin

    Everything is completely up to date. Battery health is 100% and is charged 100%.

     

    This is what I get...

     

    Screen Shot 2012-07-31 at 12.41.26.png

  • by Arun Lal,

    Arun Lal Arun Lal Jul 31, 2012 4:50 AM in response to iPaulMorrison
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 4:50 AM in response to iPaulMorrison

    I remember this SWF problem  on my PC that came with the newer Firefox. It used to put the fan in overdrive. Try using Chrome or Safari instead and see if the the battery life/fan problem improves. My guess is that it will but only the fan issue. Good luck.

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