Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

Hi,

I also got servere battery problems after upgrading to ML on the day of launch. (Not a clean install)

I have a 17" MacBookPro (MacBookPro5,2) early 2009.

One day after upgrading I notized that my mac had very low battery time. Up in the topbar menu it indicated "Service". Now it indicates "Condition: Replace now"

And after a full charge 100% it states 20:00 minutes Remaning time. Fresh restart and with only Safari open.

In Lion just before the upgrade I had easily 4-5 hour battery time.

Really hoping for Apple to issue a fix, please!

I have same probs. with Airbook. Sad story.

My new mid-2012 MacBook Pro is exhibiting excessive battery drain matching many of the comments previously submitted. This model is 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 running OS X 10.8 (12A269) Mountain Lion.

Activity Monitor reveals no excessive CPU usage by any process or event, and the excessive drain also occurs when the clamshell is closed/during sleep. The specs on Apple's webpage for the MacBook Pro list 7 hours usage under wireless Internet browsing conditions, so I suppose that is just about all we can ask for. At this time, I'm clearly not achieving that rate.

I'm curious to know whether reinstalling Lion using an install disk previously created will allow me to then regain any incremental upgrades specific to Lion that occurred prior to the release of Mountain Lion. For example, will I be able to re-download upgrades for security and the other increments that were issued, one being...as I understand it...to fix a similar battery drain issue under Lion (which I didn't notice on this same machine).

Here's hoping for a solution from Apple.

Hey Apple, Yoo Hoo! Helllooo anybody home?

I love my Macs and apple stuff, but I found out the hard way I made the mistake of "upgrading" my Macbook air to Mountian Lion, now, running on battery power, the batteries drain very quickly. I have had no issues before ML the machine would run on batteries all day up until last week after the "upgrade" to 10.8. Now I can watch the batteries drain in literally just a few minutes. I understand now about the 95% being the top end, and I might never get 100% again for some unknown reason, but why the super fast drain? wha happened?

Current power info: Is this good or bad? This was eight minutes after I unplugged the power supply. Gosh.

Charge Information:

  Charge Remaining (mAh):          4110

  Fully Charged:          No

  Charging:          Yes

  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):          4903

  Health Information:

  Cycle Count:          52

  Condition:          Normal

  Battery Installed:          Yes

  Amperage (mA):          558

  Voltage (mV):          7997

I spoke with Apple technial support and they acknowledged the battery issue.  They stated that they are investigating it.  They did state that it is helpful to have users who are experiencing the battery issue to send their system report and logs to Apple (so they can analyze a wide set of data). This is a simple process to do.

Steos to send system data to Apple:

Click Apple > About this Mac > More Info.. > System Report...

Then, click File > Send to Apple.  Accept the terms and the data will send, confirming when it is complete!

OK Report sent for me.

I know I will never get a response from that, but here's to hoping this issue will be addressed in 10.8.x whenever that happens. Until then, the power supply will remain close at hand.

You know, my iPad had similar issues when I upgraded to iOS 5.0, fast battery drain, then the battery issue stopped after I believe 5.1 update. Coincidence?

Apple confirms it is investigating...

http://www.g8production.com/post/28584406673/so-i-received-a-call-directly-from- apple-california?7ac83c80

Lets keep your fingers crossed.

Why hello,

let me add my name to the ever growing list of unsatisfied Mountain Lion users. I have an early 2011 13" MacBook Pro, standard configuration. Before the 'upgrade' (that was a clean install) my battery health was 97%, under MT its down to 93% though i only recently replaced Lion with the new OS (been using it for a week now or so). The battery endurance is down by approximately 40%, from 7ish hours (given i've only put like 100 cycles in the battery, 7 hours of battery life was quite achievable for me) to 4ish tops. No matter what i do or do not do. I have updated all my software to the latest stable versions. I did reset PRAM and SMC as suggested by others. Nothing has solved my  issue so far. I'll send my system report to Apple hoping for a solution/workaround/fix/update whatever that might help.

Cheers,

DJ

Just to add my voice of appreciation, similar to @g8Production I also received a long call yesterday in the UK from Larry at Apple, California. What a gentleman! I know it's only a big data collection stage but it's clear Apple are paying attention and working on a solution.

I see from other comments that this also arose, possibly for different reasons, when Lion was introduced. Let's hope the fix this time is quicker to arrive and solves more people's issues.

Removing unnecessary login/startup items and those that had a yellow 'alert' triangle next to them has improved my battery life but it's still a long way short of past performance. Fingers crossed this can be resolved easily and soon.

I have 2 originals batteries.

The first received a 'alert message' when i put her in the Mac, the second not.

Both have the battery drain problem (with Lion and MLion). About 2h.

I bought my first MBP on July 25th.  I waited about 2 days before I got my ML download and then I installed.  I didn't my MBP very much before I upgraded but from I can tell the battery does drop quicker than the first 2 days.  I still get better life than any brand new PC I ever had but the battery life does appear to change sporadically and be less then the first two days.

Same here, can't use it as before. I hope this won't hurt my batteries health!

I am also one of the users struggling with the issue of ML and the lower battery life. I own a late 2010 MacBook Pro and the battery had always lasted 7 or 8 hours. Now with ML I can see the battery drop in a matter of minutes and since I am always on the go, I not always have the luxury of finding a place to plug the A/C adapter in.

I also sent my report in hopes it might help with speeding up the release of a fix because quite frankly this is driving me crazy.

Just sent off my system report to Apple, I've also verified and repaired the disk permissions, and there were only a few errors mainly with java and core graphics, I'm still not seeing any difference in the battery life and I refuse to do a clean install.

Only option left is to reset the SMC, hopefully Apple releases an update soon

Ok, now after over a week of enjoying 7-8hrs of battery performance and thinking all was good again.... it's now creeping back down to about 4-5hrs.

Last night it had an estimated 4hrs of time left before I put it to sleep. This morning it was only estimating 2hrs left.

I've got one more day to return this MPB 13in i7 (2012) to BestBuy. Is it paranoid to think that all this monkeying around and tweaking has physically reduced the life of my new hardware, ie. battery cycles and the first week or so of over-heating?

Should I take this back while I still can and maybe consider buying again later once this is sorted out?