Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

My wife and I just bought 2 new MBP 13' inch.  We installed ML and fully charged the device.  So excited to use them and then, got disappointed as the battery went from 100% - 68% with in 1 hour! 

Please Apple, Help fix the issue!  

Thank you!

I already posted before but here is the solution to your individual problems- FORGET PRAM SCM, Repair Permissions... Just REINSTALL LION. My power consumption is MORE normal BUT NOT FULL YET (see reasons below). As i suspected, some firmware update affected the very way the system is using juice, voltages, etc. In Lion I am near my previous consumption, but I still am draining a bit faster then just before the upgrade. That after several zero-writes of the drive. So what I know for sure is as fol:

- ML drains 1%/min to 2-3 min (depending on age of system and initial battery life)

- ML drains when off!!!

- ML drains as brutally when in sleep

- Time figures are irrelevant. May say, 4-5 hrs but ACTUAL usage could be much much less.

- LION: No more battery juice loss when my system is OFF

- LION: No more battery drain when in SLEEP

- Am back to near performance

- No scheme to fix ML battery problems works

- Only basic usage, web browsing on 80% brightness.

- DAMAGE: In the two days I used and tested ML with my new battery, it lost 15% health. YES, 2 cycles and it was at 85% health- which also explains why a quicker battery drain now. Being so new, I am exchanging the battery. But you can imagine the dissapointment. So on affected systems, ML does not just drain batteries, it maules them.

- Apple's chip in batteries are simply abyssimal. How could chips so easily claim loss of life health?

OH, I checked a dozen display Airbooks and Macbook Pros at my Montreal Apple store. Most I checked, had already lost 10% of their life health!!! (checked power and also added the iStat monitor widget)

Sigh. Honestly? this feels like the reasons I had left Microsoft 5 years ago.... LOOTS of money for expensive hardware that has issues.

Good luck.

In view of the results thus far, I have suspended the ML upgrading project of all our lab Macs and instructed the HelpDesk to recommend users hold back on any upgrade of their personal Macs till this is solved.

A solution would be a fix to ML that negates the issues which have been reported. Downgrading to OS X 10.7 Lion is a workaround. It's not a fix if one doesn't retain the software and its functionality; what you propose is changing ML out for Lion - a complete change of software.

It's frustrating, but reverting back to Lion is a way to address the battery issue.

Just disabled Notification Center by renaming it and killing the process via a link posted.  Worth a try ....

Good luck, it didn't help me.

Hello All,

I retract what i wrote about Lion solving problems. A few  things I noticed:

- SLEEP still drains in lion (left the machine at 40% in sleep then came back a few hours later)- down to 15!!!

- WiFi connection is intermittent and drops even after returning to LION.

- My consumtion rate is t:2 ie time displayed but in half. So the thing messes up the very time calculation of the system...

Conclusion??? Wel, after a few zero wrtes and fresh install, it ain't the software at this point so guess what, FIRMWARE and hardware usage of ressources. thatt is not that bad though- as if a firmware wrecked it, then firmware can also fix it. But essentially, this MBP is toast pending  proper update.

Chris

I almost never use my 2009 15" MBP on battery, so little use it has only 29 cycles and 98% health. BUT, today Im using on battery and also noticed a huge battery drain compared to Lion.

It dropped about 40% in less than 1,5 hours (with very light internet browsing, 1 bar screen brightness and keyboard light, no bluetooth). Whith Lion, I used to watch 1 FHD movie and it still had left more than 60% (and I used a 7200rpm HDD, now I use a SSD).

I've also noticed some transitions lags on safari, multiple kernel panics (also in safari) and weird behaviour on Mail.

Very disappointing.

I have a macbook por (15', early 2011 model).   Just upgraded to mountain lion (from lion).   I have the battery draining issue too.   Also very frustrating is that MAIL.app runs VERY VERY slow.    Just scrolling down the list of emails, they are slow to load! 

Well, I'm still having this problem. I also have a new computer that came with Mountain Lion. Fan runs high a lot and battery is ate up. What the heck's going on?

Apple -

We all know, that ML is causing the battery drain. Please respond and fix the problem. So, we can enjoy are MBP & ML. 

Thank you,

Jamie

Hi everyone,

Take a try, and disable Notification in ML.

This the tuto who help me,

http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/06/disable-notification-center-remove-menu-bar-icon- os-x/

I also disabled the trackpad access to notification

waiting for a really fix fom Apple , you can try my solution. I was having same issue with my MBA 13" 2011, batterie drains very very fast

Now i have recovered, 6 - 7 hours.

@kriss13: I had originally snow leo running on my MBP before upgrading to ML. I do have the same battery life problems than others here. You're lucky if that worked for you, eventually. I'm not so sure that's a workaround for many, unfortunately..

cu/M.

I too have a massive increase in power consumption. I'm lucky if I get 2 hours from my late 2011 15" MBP and it gets a lot hotter with Mountain Lion. I have noticed a performance improvement in some apps, but I need more battery time as I use my laptop on the road and there just isn't enough juice to complete the tasks I used to be able to do now. Hope this isn't damaging my battery, not like they are easy or cheap to replace.

Have the same issue ... New macbook pro with retina ... from 7 hours ... goes to 3-4 ...even in sleep mode eats the power .. and while working .... jesus .. it's HOT IN HERE !

Apple ... i love ya ... but please ... give a FIX

P.