OS X Mountain Lion users reporting laptop battery life issues

13

Comments

  • Reply 41 of 71
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member


    Late 2008 Aluminium MacBook seems about the same.


     


    Using Flash heavy sites in Firefox cause the fans to go nuts.

  • Reply 42 of 71
    Snow Leopard's running just fine.
  • Reply 43 of 71
    enzosenzos Posts: 344member


    I know it's a useless comment but I've seen NO changes in BL with the ML update. The Oct2011 MBAir seems to running a bit cooler and the fan never runs during normal work or browsing. Likewise no adverse changes in the sister's MBPro. WiFi, 3G dongle, non-Apple software &c.. everything works as before (except VMware which needed and on-line update).  


     


    What I have noticed is a markedly smoother and faster OS. Been a perfect update for me.

  • Reply 44 of 71
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    quadra 610 wrote: »
    Time for an update. 

    Good news, though: all you beautiful people still running the GM, fully expecting it to update, are about to find out.   ;)

    You raise an interesting notion. Are we certain there were zero changes between GM and release

    And given the comments about 'with use' how do we know the issue isn't really from some third party app or plug in and not ML alone
  • Reply 45 of 71
    jce10jce10 Posts: 36member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post



    Snow Leopard's running just fine.


    Except when you need to develop and test against the latest iOS SDK, then you need the latest XCode, which Apple doesn't let you run on perfectly capable 10.6 machines. Sigh...

  • Reply 46 of 71
    zoolookzoolook Posts: 657member


    I'd suggest installing iStat and gfxCardStatus... in the menu bar you can see if the CPU is active and which GPU is being used.


     


    I've noticed a lot of CPU activity being used by Mail even when it's not doing anything. 7 - 10% of the CPU is common. My battery life seems to have dropped from 7 hours to about 6 with integrated graphics.

  • Reply 47 of 71
    vaelianvaelian Posts: 446member


    Upgraded to Mountain Lion the day it came out on this 15" high-end late 2011 MacBook Pro, and the only issue I have experienced was with Safari 6 glitching a lot, which seems to have been fixed.  Haven't noticed any additional system load, loss of battery life, or anything else.


     


    Power Nap is supposed to only work when the Mac is connecting to an external power source, so it is unlikely to cause battery problems (though I can't really test since my Mac isn't eligible for the feature)...


     


    The battery problems on the iPhone 4S are a hardware rather than software problem (mine does not and has never had that issue).  Disabling Location Data should fix the problem as it's related to power management issues on the GPS hardware (a friend of mine has the same issue and she stopped complaining after I told her to do that).

  • Reply 48 of 71


    I use my MacBook Pro extensively and I updated to 10.8.   Safari was misbehaving and that was fixed with a "Reset Safari".  They have changed the functionality of some of the Unix commands (grep for example has lost the -P  option and now supports a non standard -p) which annoys the hell out of development scripts.  Otherwise, I  haven't noticed any battery life issues so far. 

  • Reply 49 of 71
    muncywebmuncyweb Posts: 157member


    Makes me glad I'm still running 10.5.

  • Reply 50 of 71

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by JCE10 View Post


    Except when you need to develop and test against the latest iOS SDK, then you need the latest XCode, which Apple doesn't let you run on perfectly capable 10.6 machines. Sigh...



     


    iOS 4.3 SDK is also running fine.

  • Reply 51 of 71
    robmelrobmel Posts: 6member


    I did notice that a Java applet launched from within Safari continued to run after Safari was closed using large chunks of processor time and setting the fan spinning. I wonder whether that may be responsible in some cases?

  • Reply 52 of 71
    mimswmimsw Posts: 2member


    I had a dramatic drop in battery life, but I found that this is all tied into what ML does to permissions as well as re-indexing Spotlight.  Here's what I did to get near normal batter life back:

    (1) In Preferences/Spotlight deselected all file types in Spotlight (2) Ran Disk Utility and did a Verify Disk, then Verify Permissions, which turned up countless errors or irregularities in permissions (3) Ran Repair Disk Permissions, which took care of all but two of the permissions errors (4) Verify Disk again, then shut down and restart (5) Verify Disk Permissions again  (all good) (6) Went back to Preferences/Spotlight and re-checked the file types (7) Left the MBP for four hours while it indexed.  (8) Unplugged the machine and got about 85% of my battery life back. 


    This is a late 2011 MackBook Pro, by the way.   Hope this helps some with similar issues.  

  • Reply 53 of 71
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by MuncyWeb View Post

    Makes me glad I'm still running 10.5.


     


    Using a five year old, hopelessly out of date operating system shouldn't make anyone glad.

  • Reply 54 of 71
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    mimsw wrote: »
    <p style="margin-bottom:1em;font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:12px;line-height:17px;">I had a dramatic drop in battery life, but I found that this is all tied into what ML does to permissions as well as re-indexing Spotlight.  Here's what I did to get near normal batter life back:

    (1) In Preferences/Spotlight deselected all file types in Spotlight (2) Ran Disk Utility and did a Verify Disk, then Verify Permissions, which turned up countless errors or irregularities in permissions (3) Ran Repair Disk Permissions, which took care of all but two of the permissions errors (4) Verify Disk again, then shut down and restart (5) Verify Disk Permissions again  (all good) (6) Went back to Preferences/Spotlight and re-checked the file types (7) Left the MBP for four hours while it indexed.  (8) Unplugged the machine and got about 85% of my battery life back. </p>

    <p style="margin-bottom:1em;font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:12px;line-height:17px;">This is a late 2011 MackBook Pro, by the way.   Hope this helps some with similar issues.  </p>

    That's pretty much what I said earlier (your battery life issue was almost certainly caused by the indexing, not the permissions).

    This happens every time Apple releases a new OS. Lots of complaints about battery life that start on the very day that the OS is released. Then, after a few weeks, the complaints go away. You'd think that people would learn that Spotlight indexes the hard drive when a new OS is installed. Or, at least, that the bloggers would remember.
  • Reply 55 of 71
    conrailconrail Posts: 489member


    When I upgraded my early 2008 MBP from Snow Leopard to Lion, I received an error message that my battery was faulty and needed replaced, and it would not hold a charge.  My MPB gets light-medium use and us used about 70/30 power cord/battery.  Always thought the battery worked well, but never quantitatively measured it.  When I "downgraded" to Snow Leopard, my battery magically fixed itself.  Wow!


     


    Might try Mountain Lion just for the hell of it, but will make sure my Snow Leopard disc is close by this time.

  • Reply 56 of 71
    conrailconrail Posts: 489member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post





    This happens every time Apple releases a new OS. Lots of complaints about battery life that start on the very day that the OS is released. Then, after a few weeks, the complaints go away.


    Because people do one of three things:


     


    1) buy a new battery (what Apple wants)


     


    2) buy a new laptop (what Apple REALLY wants)


     


    3) reinstall the old OS (traitorous non-Apple approved activity warranting sanctions)

  • Reply 57 of 71
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by Conrail View Post

    Because people do one of three things:


     


    1) buy a new battery (what Apple wants)


     


    2) buy a new laptop (what Apple REALLY wants)


     


    3) reinstall the old OS (traitorous non-Apple approved activity warranting sanctions)



     


    And none of those are what they SHOULD be doingimage

  • Reply 58 of 71
    umrk_labumrk_lab Posts: 550member
    jragosta wrote: »
    Keep in mind that after installing the OS, Spotlight will be indexing the drive. That's going to be hard on the battery for the first day or so. Since the complaints started on the very first day, that needs to be considered..


    Many thanks for solving the mystery of my Macs mysteriously busy like hell immediately after the install....
  • Reply 59 of 71
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    conrail wrote: »
    Because people do one of three things:

    1) buy a new battery (what Apple wants)

    2) buy a new laptop (what Apple REALLY wants)

    3) reinstall the old OS (traitorous non-Apple approved activity warranting sanctions)

    That may be true in some cases - but doesn't justify all the bloggers who aren't bright enough to remember that it happens every time Apple releases a new OS.
  • Reply 60 of 71
    irnchrizirnchriz Posts: 1,617member
    Late 2011 13" MacBook pro (with SSD) running fine with ML. Still getting around 6 - 7 hours of battery when running standard stuff, runs silent even when playing world of Warcraft.
Sign In or Register to comment.