Battery life for a 13" late 2008 unibody Macbook 3 hours Running 10.8.2

Question

Level 1

1 points

Battery life for a 13" late 2008 unibody Macbook 3 hours Running 10.8.2

Hello,

I'm Runnig 3 hours of battery life. I upgraded from Leapord, Snow Leapord, to Lion. I never used Snow Leapord, only as a step to upgrade to Lion (3 hours battery life). I had problems with RAM and Battery Life. OS X 10.4 improved RAM management, but still consumend RAM over time, the "purge" command is my new friend now. 🙂

I upgraded to Mountian Lion 10.8.2 and I noticed that I am using more battery than with 10.8.1. I was really hoping that Apple had come up with a solution to this problem by feedback from developers and OS X users 😕

I love my Macbook, I use it to prepaire and teach my conversational English classes. It's has really made teaching more interesting for me and my private students. Now that I have Mountian Lion, I have to lug my power adapter around with me. I can't afford to drop cash on a new device at the moment. I have read Macrumors forum, and 9to5 Mac forums and Apple Community forums for advice, and I'm still searching for a solution.

The feeling I get for this RAM/Battery issue is similar to my feelings running Windows ME back in the day 😝. I feel like this will be my daily Apple experience until I can drop another $400 plus or minus on a new...ipad, (ipad mini?) or $1,000 plus or minus on a Macbook Pro.

So my question is: is there something that I'm missing? ( I have done all the pram, and resetting patchwork)

According to iStat Pro Battery Health dropped from 89% in 10.7.4 to 73% in 10.8.2 - 754 cycles

Thanks

Macbook, Late 2008 Unibody, 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3, 160 HD, OS X 10.8.2,

80 GB iPod Classic

MacBook, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Sep 20, 2012 3:56 AM

Reply

Answer 1

User09 Author

Level 1

1 points

Sep 22, 2012 3:51 PM in response to User09

Just an update to my post above:

I forgot to add that prior to upgrading to Lion and Mountian Lion I could begin teaching two 1 hour 30 minute classes with 100% battery and still have 60% to 70% left, thats while running keynote, preview and quicktime/vlc (short clips)

I just went from 98% to 82% in 20 minutes running safari.

Any feedback/new suggestions from the community would be helpful.

Thanks

Reply

Answer 2

User09 Author

Level 1

1 points

Sep 26, 2012 3:32 AM in response to User09

Wow, 99 views and no suggestions. Thanks for the "support" Community. 😟

Reply

Answer 3

Sep 26, 2012 3:41 AM in response to User09

Hello,

sadly this is the same issue I've got with my 2011 MacBook Pro 13".

I've compared my battery life with a PowerBook 17" running Mac OS x 10.5.8 and the PowerBook last 1.5 hours more on the same settings.

My MacBook is running Mac OS X 10.8.2 and when I updated it from 10.8.1 I assumed this power issue was being addressed. It's better than what it was, but no where near the kind of battery performance I'm getting from my PowerBook.

According to Apple, my MacBook pro should reach up to 8 hours of Battery life. I was getting near that with Lion installed, but nowhere near that with mountain Lion. I've only had this MacBook Pro since April. So it's not that old. M<y PowerBook battery was replaced the same time as the MacBook pro was brought.

Max time I can get from my PowerBook is 6.5 hours.

Don't know what it's like for anyone who buys a new MacBook pro. Would love to benchmark that against my PowerBook.

Reply

Answer 4

User09 Author

Level 1

1 points

Sep 26, 2012 4:17 AM in response to Knucklesmac

Hello,

Thanks for the reply.

I went into system prefrences, trackpad and unchecked: three finger drag, smart zoom and I only have mission controll selected in more gestures.

I noticed that my system is performing faster. I am not sure yet if there has been a change in RAM consumption or battery life.

I had a class yesterday. I ran compact dictionary, preview and a 2 minute quicktime movie. I went from 99% battery to 37%. My class was 1 hour 30 minutes. Preview and compact dictionary were running the whole class. My system reads 3 hour battery time but I am not getting any where near that.

Since upgrading to lion and now Mountian Lion, I have to lug my power adapter with me. The added weight with books, laptop and materials is too much.

I'm thinking about down grading to Snow Leopard, if I am unable to purchase an iPad. I have read that a lot of people liked Snow Leopard. I am not sure if it had any problems with battery and RAM though. I really need the battery life. I can deal with the RAM consumption.

Reply