Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

The questions we must get answers to are:

     is Apple fully aware of this problem we are all facing?

     when will we have an improved version of ML to get our battery life back to normal?

Proeblem (temporarily) solved. How? below

gkgirl, you are going the right way about it and just using it. Letting it run its life. My problem appears solved on my 2011 macbook pro as I simply went to replace the battery under warranty at an apple store. It had dropped below 80% well under the 200 cycle count (ML killed a good 15% in a week). I also had them do SMC reset before installation. The new battery appears to hold a full 5 hr charge, which is what I had on a good day. At this point i still find it draining a bit, but nothing like before and just got a full 5 hr anyway. So the new chip in the battery seems to work relatively well with ML. I obviously am expecting a firmware/software fix from Apple to adress the mysterious Notification Center/Dock leaks. Oh, it still drained a bit in sleep, 2 % in 2 hrs. Before it would be like not even 1 over 4-5 hrs. So even Sleep mode has some issues, as the forum indicates.

Why some machines and not others? Well, some macbooks may use Toshiba drives (128Gb), others Samsung (256/500 Gb 13 inch Airs for example). Different modules. And different displays (see tech reviews of Macboos Air/Pro 2012). Apple cannot ship identical Macbook prod i-7 2.6 Ghz- not enough suppliers. So they contract multiple producers for memory, ram, panels, SSDs, ets. With one exception: Intel is always one and the same nomatter the machine. Rest is a guess.  It is quite a lot of work for techs to figure out the common denominator for all problem machines. Maybe battery manufacture, SMC module, voltage regulators... who knows. If this battery fails, am going in again. And was already assured by Snr Apple support that if a second battery fails, they will change the logicboard, ie the machine.

My confidence in Apple (despite this sanfu) is so high that I just ordered a new BTO Macbook Air for my grad school work. I really needed the lighter machine. Yes it will come with ML and if it bummers its battery I will go at the store till they solve it or replace it. next year or the next.

http://www.news.com.au/business/breaking-news/apple-boasts-3m-sales-of-mountain- lion/story-e6frfkur-1226439020288

3 million copies (20 dls each) in 4 days is like 60 millions in revenues.

with 60 millions what is waitting for work on this issue?

we are not in 1984...now, we, the custumers can do things about it, don't you?

UXdavemx wrote:

 

3 million copies (20 dls each) in 4 days is like 60 millions in revenues.

with 60 millions what is waitting for work on this issue?

Then there's the alternate side of the coin. Of the 3 million Macs with the new feline, how many do you think have ended up here with a battery gripe? 100? 1000? 10000? Very tiny drop in very big bucket.

If 10.8.1 is in the works, wonder if the testers have even been made aware of this "issue"?

@HeliosTheMaster:

I had the same experience as you.

Later I did a clean install, (because 10 days later I installed a SSD) But even then the problem is exists. (while idle it shouldn't use much energy)

I can't seem to figure out what's running in the background that's causing this.

I have the same problem on my MBA 11" mid 2011, battery drained in 2-3 hours with web surfung and mail only, after clean install ML and time machine recovery. I`ve tried method with killdock, turn of iCloud, setting mail check time to bigger interval, but nothing realy helped me. One more thing that I`ve not done - clean install ML without time machine recovery, but now I hate ML for this BIG BUG that realy interferes with my work. BTW - I choose Macbook bcause it`s provide long battery work time. Finaly, I downgraded to Lion 10.7.4, and battery returned to 7-8 hours!

Never suggested that Apple will punish their customers like this.

BGomes wrote:

 

The questions we must get answers to are:

 

     is Apple fully aware of this problem we are all facing?

     when will we have an improved version of ML to get our battery life back to normal?

I'd say yes, I was contacted by AppleCare (Cupertino, not the more usual Apple Distribution International, Hollyhill, Cork, Ireland, as I live in Europe).

I did get rid of the problems ML caused by erasing the drive and doing a fresh installation of Lion 10.7.4. May never go ML with this MBA4,2 (2011), don't fancy iCloud, wish I could run the thing under Snow Leopard but Lion is required.

Are you trying to say only the people on this thread have a problem with their Laptops? What about the thousands who have a problem that aren't posting here? I didn't even know about this thread until I was doing some research about it and was reading a RSS about the problem that had a link to this thread. When Apple tech contacted me a few days ago I asked the guy if he was having battery drain problems with his laptop and he said he only has a desktop but he said the tech next to him has one and he also has a battery drain problem. Apple knows about it, they know it's a real genuine problem but they have to figure out where the problem is coming from first. I know they'll be a fix for it but when is anyone's guess. I just wish Apple would be open about it and to tell new customers NOT to download ML yet. As for me, I'm not going to go back to Lion, I'll just wait it out and use my MacBook Pro with the charger on as much as possible and if my battery dies because of it then Apple can give me a new one as my MacBook Pro is only 2 weeks old.

I too have a 2012 i7 MBA 13in, & noticed this problem straight away. Had the whole machine replacde by my Apple store as they agreed something was wrong but didn't admit to a known problem. New machine has same problem. Waiting for a fix.

What are the criteria for replacing battery if health drops?

Thanks,

John

UXdavemx

"3 million copies (20 dls each) in 4 days is like 60 millions in revenues.

with 60 millions what is waitting for work on this issue?"

Wont be the same case for the next OS. No longer will I be an early adopter. Bad kitty.

Count me in..

Macbook Pro 15-inch, Mid 2012

Processor  2.6 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory  8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics  NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB

Software  Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E2617)

My mbp battery life is no good, im  still running Lion (out of the box, bought last july 31), I was hoping ML would fix this problem but seems their is still NO HOPE, ;(

To add my two cents.  Definitely a problem on my Macbook Air June 2012  13" i7 8GB 256GB.

When I first got it, I noticed it ran hotter and the fans would actually come on (never came on with Lion) --- especially with Vmware running.

I did a test yesterday in that all I did was surf very very lightly, with half brightness and got around 5 hours.  There was little else running and CPU was mostly 95-98% idle.  Ocassional WindowServer process popping up.

When using Lion I would guess this kind of usage would get 7-9 hours. Never measured, as so new, but that is gut feel.

I tried Jonathans Dock plist fix, reset the PRAM and also killed the Notification Centre.  None made a significant dent.

It smells like a bug in speedstep implementation or some part of the Power Management.  A machine doing nothing should be living in low power states.  If Apple doesn't do anything soon I'm going to knock up a quick kext to track power states --- someone probably already has an app for this?

It has been mentioned several times that if you revert to Lion you get back decent power management, so it is therefore probably not the small PRAM/Firmware update they sent in June.Could be related!

I hope apple comes up with something soon before this becomes big news as I can sense this is a wide problem.

downgrade to Lion.. thats what i have done. Else, as ppl are complaining, its eating their battery life.. n if thats the case, then I dont wanna risk my battery. even otherwise, in india, i am not sure if the people running apple would be too helpful to change my battery. i would rather wait for apple to come with an update. but this is really ridiculous. i refuse to believe that apple testers did not see or feel this problem. n if its true, then they are not worth it.

gpaulo wrote:

 

Upgraded from lion to mountain. everything went perfect, and everything is working.

 

to major problems:

 

1 - batery draining very fast as most of the people is complaning

 

2 - fans keeps running permanently

 

this didn't happen before with lion, with same apps and usage type. I want my 7 hours battery back. can anybody help me please (my OS is in Portuguese)

 

thanks

Unfortunately, there are also people that have mentioned that they have the same issues AFTER downgrading to Lion.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned, I believe, is the use of FileVault. FileVault still encrypts in software, from what I've read. Could that be an issue? I've seen in this thread people who've done a clean install of ML and have issues, while others haven't. Maybe there is a common denominator there?

bartlettpsj wrote:

...

When I first got it, I noticed it ran hotter and the fans would actually come on (never came on with Lion) --- especially with Vmware running.

...

Ditto, I used third-party software to manualy regulate my fanspeeds and keeping my CPU-cores cool (around 45°C/113°F) already seems to save the battery a lot. If I didn't the cores went up to 75°C/167°F. (see: my other post)

bartlettpsj wrote:

...

It smells like a bug in speedstep implementation or some part of the Power Management.  A machine doing nothing should be living in low power states.  If Apple doesn't do anything soon I'm going to knock up a quick kext to track power states --- someone probably already has an app for this?

...

I concur! And I think fan management needs to kick-in sooner. (lets say 50°C/131°F)

bartlettpsj wrote:

...

I hope apple comes up with something soon before this becomes big news as I can sense this is a wide problem.

...

It seems so! I suspected so much, since they said ML would be released in July... and it ended up beeing released on the 28th, that's what I call cutting it close. So I suspect some issues where developed under pressure.