Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

After my posting here

qwertzy4711

 

Re: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

 

05.08.2012 01:57 (in response to jpengland96)

 

My mid 2011 13" Macbook Pro i5 2.3GHz 128GB SSD harddrive, faces since the update to Mountain Lion as well a dramatically lower battery lifetime.

 

I would estimate that the battery drains some 40-50% faster. I don't determine a warmer bottom or a higher fan activity since the update so far.

 

Best regards from Germany.

I was contacted yesterday via Email by an Apple, Cupertino employee

Hello ******,

 

My name is Kenny and I am an AppleCare Advisor.  I am following up with you in regards to the concern you posted about recently on the Apple Discussions boards.  As there is a significant time difference between us, I felt it best to contact you via email first.  Please let me know if there is a good time and number to reach you using my contact information below.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

 

 

Kenny ****

 

 Apple Inc.

Monday - Friday

8:00 am - 5:00 pm Pacific Time

1-800-409-**** Ext. #****

****@apple.com

 

 

NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY: This communication is intended ONLY for the recipient(s) identified in the message, and may contain information that is confidential, privileged, or otherwise protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, please disregard this communication and notify the sender.

 

He called me today and asked a couple of questions concerning my typical usage before and after the update to ML.

After that, he send me a program (Capture data 9.1.1) via email, that collected some data (4.2Mb) that I had to return via email to him.

Then I had to collect data from activity monitor (save as...) and from console (sysdiagnose) that I returned as well to him.

He said, Apple is taking care of this particular discussion here, but they are not allowed to post, because they consider the board as a user2user discussion platform.

I think with the next update we will have some battery life improvement ... hopefully ;-)

Beisarius

I have a question about your downgrade: what was your method of doing so? Did you completely reformat? After reformatting, did you do an NVRAM, PRAM, SMC reset?

Thanks!

Sorry, I keep saying I'm going to stop posting, but I just can't help it. What do you guys think would happen if I installed linux and waited for a fix?

Also, do you think I should remove my battery to prevent damage until there's a fix. Or just keep plugged in? Grrr, I'm so worried about long term damage to the battery! This is the last time I'm going to be an early adopter. I wish someone would contact me. I'd love to give them some more information, and would love to let them collect info from my machine.

Hi,

I posted a few days ago, as I also have the same battery issues. Since upgrading my battery status has gone from "service battery" message (which I did not have before the upgrade), then a few days later the message changed to "replace battery".

Just now after a short time in sleep, running on battery power the message has disapeared.

Something is really starnge in this issue.

http://www.macworld.com.au/news/apple-to-fix-mountain-lions-battery-drain-67550/

I know I mentioned that I thought my problem came back... but now I don't think so. It's been over a week now, since whatever I did appeared to solve my own battery issues. I thought the problem was back because after letting it sleep it appeared to lose half of it's estimated time left. However, in practice and real use... I'm getting about 7hrs of use or better. What confused me is that the estimates are all over the place. When I actually time the usage, it's pretty close to what's promised or better.

Yesterday was the last day I could return my new MBP 13 i7 (2012) and decided to keep it and trust whatever was the problem is gone.

Has anyone else had the ML battery problem and done some of the suggested, drop SugarSync, PRAM, SMC reset, repair permissions, etc. and had their machine evidently fixed back to an advertised "norm"?

I hope I didn't make a mistake by missing my return window, but I really do like the performance of this little 13 and am really enjoying ML overall. Only glitch I can find is that double tap to zoom doesn't seem to work on either my MBP or my iMac running ML with an Apple wireless trackpad. Other than that... haven't really experienced the battery problems in over a week.

Only mentioning this because at least in my case... this problem was resolved without drastic measures. Thought it might at least offer some hope for those still suffering.

rexowens wrote:

 

I upgraded to Mountain Lion and now on my MacBook Air I can barely get 3 hours out of a full charge. Before I was able to get at least 6 hours of airtime. Can I go back to the old operating system?

I've run into the exact same issue with my Late 2010 11" MacBook Air since upgrading to Mt. Lion (day one).  The highest I can get after a full recharge is just under four hours.  It used to be six, sometimes seven hours w/WiFi on, BT off.  Tried resetting the SMC but nothing's changed.

Another oddity is that after booting up or coming out of sleep the battery meter will show all sorts of outlandish numbers like 79 hours or just a few minutes ago 1092:15 hours!  After a while it changes to something "normal".

I certainly hope that the next update (10.8.1) resolves all of this!

EDIT: Okay, just for fun I reset the SMC a second time...and it rebooted to show 6:45 hours @ 94% and a few minutes later (sitting idle) 7:40 hours @ 93%.

UPDATE: It's been sitting idle for about 10 minutes and it's now showing 7:25 @ 93%.  If these numbers are geniune it looks like the second time I reset the SMC worked.  Of course I have no idea how fast it will drain yet.  Time will only tell.  Very confusing.   

Message was edited by: richsadams

ouch !! apple has refunded the cost of ML, and i'm going down to Lion -- but second thoughts after Beisarius's post -- really no choice at my end - ML is draining my battery, and for all  i know ML is leaving long term damage on my Air's internal battery...

Hi Beisarius - hi anyone else who's gone back to Lion -- any other issues/apps/programmes not working after downing from ML to Lion ?? cheers -- any advice welcome -- kiwituatara

Kiwituatara

How'd you get a refund? I'm thinking about downgrading as well. I go through 2-3 full charges a day with light work. Disappointed.

wow, 57 pages of posts....I was looking for info on how to do a clean install of ml on a new ssd....so after 57 pages the answer is DON'T DO IT. .? clean install lion to my new ssd and wait for battery problem fix ?

I fully charged my 2012 13" MBP. Turned it on to check map on Google map using Firefox. 10 minutes later, battery indicator shows 93 %. Seriously?  I bought this Mac because of the battery claim. I'm not so happy. Funny enough a couple days ago Apple sent out email advertising ML as their best operating system yet. I don't think so Apple.

I am experiencing a 30% drop of battery life on a  mid 2010 13' mbpro after an upgrade from lion.

I hope they fix that soon!!

i have MBP 2012 13' this help me increase my battery life up 1 hours from 4.30hours before this, hope will help another user. Normally 7hr in full charger,after ML drop to 4.30hr and after do this increase 1 hr, just try and give the comment and wait apple fix it soon..sad with apple.

Disable Notification Center & Remove the Menu Bar Icon in Mac OS X

This works in OS X Mountain Lion:

1. From the OS X Finder, hit Command+Shift+G and enter the path to /System/Library/CoreServices/
2. Locate “Notification Center.app” and click on the name to rename it to “Notification Center-disabled.app”, authenticate the change when prompted
3. Now launch Terminal, found in /Applications/Utilities/ and type the following command:
killall NotificationCenter
4. Quit out of Terminal

Notifications will no longer be posted, alerts will be gone, and the menu bar icon is no longer visible. If you do attempt to get to Notification Center either through a keyboard shortcut or the sideways swipe, you’ll be presented with a blank side of the screen.

Re-enable Notification Center & Bring Back the Menu Bar Icon

Notification Center is not permanently disabled though, you can always turn it back on and get the icon back to to the menu bar just as easily.

1. Return to /System/Library/CoreServices/ and rename “Notification Center-disabled.app” to “Notification Center.app” again
2. Double-click “Notification Center” to relaunch the service and bring back the icon

Notifications will be working as normal again, as will the icon.

+1 to all this.

Bought a brand new MBA with i7 and 8GB RAM with ML preinstalled. Charged and depleted the battery twice now and the maximum estimate i've seen so far is 3 hours 10 mins - with the estimate being accurate both times. Pushed everything down to it's lowest usable setting, turned off WiFi and Bluetooth, even disabled the Notification Centre and still no cigar. SMC reset had no effect.

Really hope this is just a software/kernel bug and there's no permanent hardware damage.

I have a Macbook Air (mid2011) which can only last for 3 hours after a full charge.

and If I disable everything, why do I want a Mountain Lion then?