Abysmal battery life on Yosemite early 2011 MBP

[neurophysicist]

Hello,

I have an early 2011 MBP that I upgraded to Yosemite about a week ago. Battery life was superb under Mavericks, but now simply browsing on Safari the battery drops to about 70% capacity in an hour. The battery itself is not the problem; I recently had it replaced and it only has approximately 90 cycles based on coconut battery. After upgrading to Yosemite it has instantly been a night and day difference in terms of battery life from Mavericks, to the point where I always have to keep my charger around . I used to be able to get a few hours more out of my MBP. This is also using just the integrated graphics card, forced by gfxcardstatus. I haven't seen any major offenders under the energy tab in activity monitor.

Has anyone else seen such drastic impact on their battery life with a similar model? Thanks.

 

[GGJstudios]

I have an early 2011 MBP that I upgraded to Yosemite about a week ago. Battery life was superb under Mavericks, but now simply browsing on Safari the battery drops to about 70% capacity in an hour. The battery itself is not the problem; I recently had it replaced and it only has approximately 90 cycles based on coconut battery. After upgrading to Yosemite it has instantly been a night and day difference in terms of battery life from Mavericks, to the point where I always have to keep my charger around . I used to be able to get a few hours more out of my MBP. This is also using just the integrated graphics card, forced by gfxcardstatus. I haven't seen any major offenders under the energy tab in activity monitor.

One thing to check for is to see if Spotlight is indexing, a process that can run for many hours during the initial index after upgrading to a new OS X version.

There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

​

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[neurophysicist]

One thing to check for is to see if Spotlight is indexing, a process that can run for many hours during the initial index after upgrading to a new OS X version.

There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

​

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

Spotlight is not currently indexing and I have read your battery guide before. But thanks for the information.

 

[GGJstudios]

Spotlight is not currently indexing and I have read your battery guide before. But thanks for the information.

Post your Activity Monitor screen shots if you want another look, to see if there's something you might have missed. Also, a shot of your coconutBattery info would help.

 

[simonsi]

Activity Monitor will show what is using CPU and therefore battery, it will save us all guessing....

My battery life was shorter post-Yosemite but I turned off transparency and that brought it back to Mavericks life - but any app can run a bit rogue and chew CPU and hence battery, Dropbox has done it to me before, Box still does it occasionally when it decides to re-index everything...