Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

Hey guys. I posted a couple of days ago complaining about the battery dropping fast on my late 2010 MacBook Pro. Since then I've been all over the internet trying to find a way to fix it, because like most of you guys, I am terribly upset with Apple. I bought a macbook precisely because I wanted a machine that I could use on the go and with a decent battery life, something Mountain Lion wrecked real bad.

Anyway, although not a permament fix, this link ( http://jonathansblog.co.uk/how-i-fixed-my-mountain-lion-battery-issues-on-a-macb ook-air-2012 ) seems to have helped me to slow down the battery draining. Just leaving this here in case it might help someone out while Apple releases the 10.8.1 update.

Now thats a rant however,

You're assuming a hardware fault when nearly ever single instance here is software related. I did an online recovery back to lion and my battery life is perfect.

My Air which I bought brand new 4 days ago came with lion. So after I installed ML and had it for about 4 hours I decided to perform the online recovery. While Holding Command + R during boot, It downloaded the recovery partition. I formatted the Internal SSD with Disk Utiltiy inside of the recovery boot, I need proceeded with Lion install. The whole process took about 3hrs.

You do not risk any problems, Its a clean install. This battery issue is clearly software related.

This is obviously only relevant if your MacBook came with Lion and you are able to perform an online recovery.

I just tried removing the file com.apple.desktop.plist and now waiting to see if that makes a difference. 

Also, mail, itunes, and mission control are really chopping in ML.  Anyone know a fix to the choppiness, and if it could be related to the battery issue?

Thanks,

Tarpus.

It sounds like you did exactly what I did (Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard on startup) and got exactly the same battery problem. Based on what you said, I'm going to do a clean install (when my internet connection allows) and I'll post if I got the same result (here's hoping!)

Besides the horrible battery drain, my new MacBook Pro 13 gets hot within 30 seconds, by 2 minutes it's scorching hot. And i'm not doing any intensive work.

Thanks for the tip to remove com.apple.desktop.plist - fixed my Dock-related issue, which was that Dock was constantly using 1% CPU. On a Core i7, 1% is a lot. Stray processes like that will kill battery life because it prevents the CPU from entering low power modes.

Please add me to the list of sufferers.  Macbook Air, late 2010. 

I'm watching the battery run down and that is quite disheartening.  Airplay does appear to drain the battery even faster.

Hoping for a fix soon!

Hello,

I have a MacBook Pro Retina and can work three hours without AC. I reset SMC, PRAM and VRAM without results.

Please Apple fix it!!!!!

Just curious, as I haven't been able to find a clear answer in the thread: does your machine shut down after 3 hours, or is it the battery meter that warns you that the battery is low?

Also, did you try to (re)calibrate your battery?

I just want to understand what's going on, as my rMBP should arrive somewhere next week...

It still sounds to me that OS X is reading information from the SMC (battery charge, temperatures, etc.), but interprets it incorrectly. So, the battery charge isn't low, but OS X *thinks* it is low. Same applies to the temperature: OS X *thinks* the temperature is either too high or too low and turns on/off the fans accordingly.

That would also explain why relatively small things *seem* to have a huge impact on battery life.

Some general suggestions:

1.) Please provide info on which MB model the issue occurs.

2.) Provide info on what software/processes you are running, when the issue occurs.

(To do that, open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder, set it to show "all processes", go to the CPU tab, sort from highest to lowest by clicking on the "% CPU" tab until it sorts them accordingly and check, if there are processes, that are producing an unusual high CPU load)

3.) Install iStat pro widget to monitor your CPU temps

Provide this info in addition to your complaints, and it will make it a bit easier ( for whomever monitors this thread) to determine, where the problem might be coming from.

Hundreds of posts that just basically say : "I have the same problem" won't help.

Hello,

Yes, I have calibrated the battery three times since

I received. The maximum time without AC is four

hours until computer shutdowns. I works with Xcode

all time because I am ios developer.

Regards 

It`s me again

after 2 hours of just websurfing my CPU DIE got 80 degrees Celsius....

Some days before Apple contacted me with some questions and asked for some logfiles.... they got all they need from me.... hope the guys can find a solution.

So far so good...

Best..

So..the info from me (copy/paste from previus user):

Model: Macbook Pro with Retina display

Processor:  2.3 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory: 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics:  INTEL HD Graphics 4000 512 MB

Apps running: Mail, Safari, iTunes

Other power-hoggers: WiFi always on. Everything else off. Screen brightness - optimal.

Upgrade method: Did an easy (App Store) upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion. Not a clean install. Not sure how much it'd have mattered. Having started using my MBP in April, there was hardly any data at all.

On an average, battery lasted 6+ hours on Lion.

On an average, battery lasts less than 4 hours on Mountain Lion.

So, what is the path we type in...According to the comments on that page it's incorrect.

Copy from other users

Model: Macbook Pro with Retina display

Processor:  2.6 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics:  INTEL HD Graphics 4000 512 MB

Apps running: Chrome, Xcode, itunes

Other power-hoggers: WiFi always on. Bluetooth off. Screen brightness a quarter. Keyboard lights off, notification center off, desktop.plist removed, PowerNap off

Upgrade method: Formatted SSD Disk and clean installation