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Mountain Lion Battery Life Question
- Thread starter Ronin64
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I just uninstalled Chrome as well. I'll see how that might help with battery life. I've been getting more into Safari anyway.
Dave
Dave
Initially, my battery life was horrible. However, since doing a clean install, it has been excellent, on par, or better than Lion. I have also stopped using Chrome. Not sure if either the clean install, or Chrome are the culprit, or if it was all just a co-incidence.
I uninstalled Chrome a short while ago and I'm looking at 64% battery life with an expected time of 2:31. I originally did a clean install of ML but I think I'm going to do another clean install and skip the Chrome install this time.
Off to make a USB install drive.
Dave
I just got rid of chrome also, and my battery life has stabilized...Talked to my friend who's an apple genius other side of country and he said any apps not optimized for notification center could be draining the battery...Chrome was showing up in the notification center when I don't believe it was optimized for it, and causing a hiccup...my battery life has really stabilized...I went from 92-80 in about 18 minutes, deleted chrome, restarted and now I am at 76 percent 45 min later...so much better.
Good suggestion, glad its working for me.
So far things look good. Last night I did a clean install of ML using my 8GB USB thumb drive and then installed Office 2010 and a few other apps from the App Store. Then I shut down the laptop and left it plugged in all night long to charge up.
I just fired it up this morning when I got to work and I'm sitting at 99% with 7 hours remaining. I'll leave it on all day to let the battery run down and then charge it up to 100% again.
Dave
I just fired it up this morning when I got to work and I'm sitting at 99% with 7 hours remaining. I'll leave it on all day to let the battery run down and then charge it up to 100% again.
Dave
If you're doing that to test it, no problem. However, you don't need to fully drain the battery every time you use it. If you're draining it for the sake of draining it (as opposed to not having AC power available), you're putting unnecessary cycles on your battery. Run on battery whenever you need to and plug it in whenever you can. You can plug or unplug at any time, regardless of the charged percentage. Just make sure you don't run on AC power all the time, as your battery needs to be used regularly to stay healthy. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions:
I recommend using gfxCardStatus. It's free and works in both Lion and Mountain Lion. It tells you when an app has changed the video card from Integrated to Discreet.
You can also use it to force all apps to use the Integrated video card (or the Discreet).
That could help with battery life.
You can also use it to force all apps to use the Integrated video card (or the Discreet).
That could help with battery life.
Check out the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the link in my last post for that and more ideas.
I took every non updated app that was showing up in the notification center in system preferences and just deleted it. Was just chrome, got rid of it, then turned my computer off, and reset the SMC, charged it fully to 100 percent, left it on the charger for 2.5 hours more, then just straight used the internet for the next few hours until it went to sleep automatically.
I then let it stay dead for 5 hours, charged to 100, then turned it back on.
This is what an Apple Genius told me to do, basically said calibrate the battery again, for me especially cause I am over 600 cycles and new OS might have messed things up, so the SMC reset + new calibration could help.
Currently seeing better battery times, less of a drain, but its only first charge since reset/calibration, but I am def happier I am back to getting 4-5 hrs instead of 2-3
I then let it stay dead for 5 hours, charged to 100, then turned it back on.
This is what an Apple Genius told me to do, basically said calibrate the battery again, for me especially cause I am over 600 cycles and new OS might have messed things up, so the SMC reset + new calibration could help.
Currently seeing better battery times, less of a drain, but its only first charge since reset/calibration, but I am def happier I am back to getting 4-5 hrs instead of 2-3
Despite what the Genius said, the built-in batteries in the newer Mac unibody notebooks come pre-calibrated and do not require regular calibration like the removable batteries in older Apple notebooks. The SMC reset likely resolved your issue, with no calibration necessary.
It's important to remember than "Genius" is only their job title, and not necessarily an indication of their knowledge, experience or expertise.
I am aware lol, I am just glad that my problem is subsiding, so I figured if I did it, its worth mentioning, even if some might find it hokum. They are not geniuses, but sometimes can help...lot of times people on the forums know more about problems and solutions, or are aware of a certain problems and geniuses are oblivious...but my drain was a problem so I asked and listened...
Just passing the advice along.
My battery life has improved since upgrading to Mountain Lion. I honestly expected it to be worse.
I suppose the fact that I installed an SSD at the same time as Mountain Lion has improved battery life a bit too, so, I can't really tell where the improvement is coming from.
On Lion I was getting 2.5hrs MAX. Mountain Lion gives me anywhere between 3-4 hours depending on what I'm doing and the settings. With normal usage I get ~3.5hrs out of a full charge.
My battery has had ~1400 cycles and is at 89% health.
I suppose the fact that I installed an SSD at the same time as Mountain Lion has improved battery life a bit too, so, I can't really tell where the improvement is coming from.
On Lion I was getting 2.5hrs MAX. Mountain Lion gives me anywhere between 3-4 hours depending on what I'm doing and the settings. With normal usage I get ~3.5hrs out of a full charge.
My battery has had ~1400 cycles and is at 89% health.
I've got similar issues and started a new thread on if anyone returned to Lion. No way was I going to continue with ML until this issue is resolved maybe in a subsequent update.
My MacBook Pro 13 (Early 2011) after an upgrade was suffering immensely. With general browsing (and avoiding Flash) or light application usage , I can now get a sensible 5 - 6 hours. Before hand with ML, anything I did seemed to make the CPU work much harder and I never got many opportunities where the laptop seemed cool. I can't post the stats I had, but some of the Apple background tasks seemed to peak and drop CPU constantly. I never saw the average CPU drop below 15 - 20%. Maybe a reinstall is what I needed but I'm not going to chance it until maybe 10.8.2 or 10.8.3 gets released.
My MacBook Pro 13 (Early 2011) after an upgrade was suffering immensely. With general browsing (and avoiding Flash) or light application usage , I can now get a sensible 5 - 6 hours. Before hand with ML, anything I did seemed to make the CPU work much harder and I never got many opportunities where the laptop seemed cool. I can't post the stats I had, but some of the Apple background tasks seemed to peak and drop CPU constantly. I never saw the average CPU drop below 15 - 20%. Maybe a reinstall is what I needed but I'm not going to chance it until maybe 10.8.2 or 10.8.3 gets released.
Not sure if ML is badly optimized for batteries or something else, but today i've calibrated battery after charging it for 5 hours and then running it down to zero (it took little less than 5 hours) and leaving it overnight to discharge to the minimum. in the morning I've plugged it AC and left for work. After 8 hours of charging battery capacity fell from 5200 mAh to 5100 mAh? How's that possible? Will it come back to some higher values or this is it? It really sucks that battery capacity drops that quickly. MBP is only 10 months old and it has 133 cycles.
Any tip?
ML is a clean install on an OWC SSD 6G.
Thanks!
Any tip?
ML is a clean install on an OWC SSD 6G.
Thanks!
Mountain Lion is killing battery for many
This is a major problem for many people.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19015287#19015287
This is a major problem for many people.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19015287#19015287
Thank you
Thank you all for your help.
My battery life is now as good as I would expect.
I have since turned off Dropbox and Twitter while still running Calendar, Email, iTunes and Safari in the background with great battery performance.
You guys are great!
Thank you all for your help.
My battery life is now as good as I would expect.
I have since turned off Dropbox and Twitter while still running Calendar, Email, iTunes and Safari in the background with great battery performance.
You guys are great!
My battery life has dropped considerably since updating to Moutain lion. I use to get about 6-8 hours battery life, im lucky if I get 3 hours now and when my macbook is on charge the battery percentage only goes up to 99% no longer 100%
It's normal that your battery may stop charging between 93-99%. For details, read the CHARGING section of the following link. 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.