Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Battery life is Very bad after 10.8.2

M

memko

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 24, 2011
57
0
I didn't update from lion till 10.8.2 was released .
40% brightness \no Bluetooth\no keyboard light \ just opening safari give me an estimated of 5:30 that starts to dwindles rapidly.
on lion i used to get about 9 hours under same conditions guess I'm going back to lion soon.
so anybody with retina here could provide feedback please

Ps: base rMBP \clean install \SMC reset \ Indexing was done .
 
memko said:
I didn't update from lion till 10.8.2 was released .
40% brightness \no Bluetooth\no keyboard light \ just opening safari give me an estimated of 5:30 that starts to dwindles rapidly.
on lion i used to get about 9 hours under same conditions guess I'm going back to lion soon.
so anybody with retina here could provide feedback please

Ps: base rMBP \clean install \SMC reset \ Indexing was done .
Click to expand...

same experience here and i don't own a retina.

i used to get up to 7/8 on Lion, and maybe even 10.8.1 sometimes.

now a full charge start at 5:30 with the same settings as you: brightness half way, no bluetooth, low or no backlight keyboard.

basic apps running.
 
iOrbit said:
same experience here and i don't own a retina.

i used to get up to 7/8 on Lion, and maybe even 10.8.1 sometimes.

now a full charge start at 5:30 with the same settings as you: brightness half way, no bluetooth, low or no backlight keyboard.

basic apps running.
Click to expand...


I've just reverted back to lion .While It seems I don't get the previous battery life for some unknown reasons but It is almost certainly better than ML.
 
I'm experiencing similar issues. On 10.8.1 I used to get solid 8 + hours in actual battery life. On 10.8.2 it's down to about 5 1/2 hours.

That's on a rMBP, 8GB RAM, 265 SSD - base model.

I'm starting to get frustrated with Apple's slack approach to software maintenance and their hardware issues. One of the biggest problems I experience is the image retention. Unfortunately I do not live in a country with an official Apple store. Therefore an exchange / repair / replacement will take several days - if they accept it at all. That's just not feasible if you rely on your machine.
 
macrons said:
I'm experiencing similar issues. On 10.8.1 I used to get solid 8 + hours in actual battery life. On 10.8.2 it's down to about 5 1/2 hours.

That's on a rMBP, 8GB RAM, 265 SSD - base model.

I'm starting to get frustrated with Apple's slack approach to software maintenance and their hardware issues. One of the biggest problems I experience is the image retention. Unfortunately I do not live in a country with an official Apple store. Therefore an exchange / repair / replacement will take several days - if they accept it at all. That's just not feasible if you rely on your machine.
Click to expand...

i'm not sure about apple's hardware though i'm very surprised they can release a product like that, i don't usually say it but i would be surprised if steve jobs wouldve allowed that, i would think he wouldve given that a pass and told them to wait for the GPU's to catch up.

but as far as OS's go, i don't see Apple being like their former self, or windows anymore. they have changed their target market, its clearly more a consumer audience they are selling for. Pro market seems alienated more now.

Mac OS is no longer looked at as a Necessety of computers and productivity in the sense of it being an OS thats designed to be Stable and reliable to work on for years.

no.. its quite different model now. apple has adopted the iOS format:

release yearly updates with new consumer features to the OS, at the cost of stability, long term reliability. from now on it will be a rollercoaster ride of new and arguably desirable features, in exchange for the inconsistent performance, and unreliable experience of the OS.
 
same here

on my macbook pro late 2011.

57% battery left and the timer is at 1:50h. the battery life on 10.8.1 was a little bit better but also not as good as in lion.

hope they get to fix that soon.
 
Battery life roughly increased by 1,5 to 2h (right now showing 79% capacity which means 5h 34min runtime left with Mail, Safari and iPhoto running).
 
You battery watchers need to time the actual usage you get and stop relying on the ever-changing time that is displayed. It's just a guess.
 
WTH :confused: ?? How can :apple: be on the third incremental release of OS X 10.8 / ML, with significant time transpiring between incremental releases, and still not have this battery life / battery meter issue resolved ?? Surely :apple: did not sell the OS X group to Microsoft ... I mean, really ... right ?? ... right ??

I develop embedded hardware and firmware for a living and I can't imagine us getting away with this ... our customers would cut us loose. When you ( :apple: ) control every aspect of the hardware design from the chips on up and you ( :apple: ) control every aspect of the boot firmware and the software ... well, I don't need to say it, I think you see where I'm going.

Unacceptable ... BMA57
 
Run a battery calibrate...

After the 10.8.2 upgrade (and waiting for mdworkers etc to finish their business), a fully charged machine showed 5:20 on unplug.

After the battery calibrate (i.e. let battery run all the way down to point of hibernation, and then fully recharge), it now shows 7:25 on unplug.

Early 2011 15" mbp 2.2/8G/256Gb SSD/hi-res

...so, moral of the story, run a calibrate, yo!
 
macagain said:
After the 10.8.2 upgrade (and waiting for mdworkers etc to finish their business), a fully charged machine showed 5:20 on unplug.

After the battery calibrate (i.e. let battery run all the way down to point of hibernation, and then fully recharge), it now shows 7:25 on unplug.

Early 2011 15" mbp 2.2/8G/256Gb SSD/hi-res

...so, moral of the story, run a calibrate, yo!
Click to expand...

I'm going to try that tonight thanks!
 
macagain said:
After the 10.8.2 upgrade (and waiting for mdworkers etc to finish their business), a fully charged machine showed 5:20 on unplug.

After the battery calibrate (i.e. let battery run all the way down to point of hibernation, and then fully recharge), it now shows 7:25 on unplug.
Click to expand...

That sounds fine and dandy but how much time did you actually get?

1.) Charge to 100%, start machine
2.) Look at clock on the wall - write down what you see.
3.) Use mac until hibernate
4.) Look at same clock again
5.) Subtract step 4 from step 2

:D

Seriously. This is the only way to measure battery life.
 
macagain said:
After the battery calibrate (i.e. let battery run all the way down to point of hibernation, and then fully recharge), it now shows 7:25 on unplug.
Click to expand...
Simply draining and recharging the battery is NOT calibration. Also, 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.

From the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link:
  • Your "time remaining" indication is an ever-changing estimate, based on the current workload of your system. It will fluctuate up and down from minute to minute as your power demands change. It is not perfectly accurate, but only an estimate.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Megaproblems with my battery

Hi,

I was happily using snow leopard, on a 13 inch mid-2009 mbp (Bought in early 2010) with 2.53 ghz and 4 gb ram.

3 or 4 days ago I decided to upgrade to Mountain Lion.

Computer got hotter than usual, running fans and so forth, till I spotted a "service battery" alert and noticed my battery was going low very very fast. I used coconut battery and found out it was at half its design capacity. Naturally, being my computer 2 years old, I didn't expect it to be that fresh, but it certainly was doing much better a few days before. much much better.

I saw online other people had had similar problems but I couldn't spot a precise solution (smc reset didn't do anything).

I took it to the apple store (I live in shanghai)

They were not aware of similar problems, so, although I'm on apple care, I had to pay to get a replacement battery, because batteries only have one year warranty. I wasn't delighted by this.

I'm home now, my computer is getting quite hot while I'm not doing much, and I seem to notice it goes down fast. I checked on coconut battery and it's already telling me that the battery is at 98% of its design capacity.

What do I do? Do I have to go back to snow leopard? I'm reinstalling Mountain lion, but I hat having to do a clean install..
Is there a way I can get this fixed and also complain about having had to pay 16$ for a software that fries my battery that then I have to replace with another 100 and more $ from my own sorry pocket?

Sorry, this was a little long..
girolamo
 
The estimated time remaining is a pretty useless feature that does not tell you much. Have any of you actually tested your REAL battery life instead of looking at the battery remaining estimate? It works like the instantaneous fuel consumption that you see on some cars, where apparently quite often I am getting about 2 mpg. Yet my average consumption is a totally different figure. That's what you should be looking at. Unfortunately the only to test that is to actually see how long the battery lasts.
 
Girolamo said:
Hi,

3 or 4 days ago I decided to upgrade to Mountain Lion.

Computer got hotter than usual, running fans and so forth, till I spotted a "service battery" alert and noticed my battery was going low very very fast. I used coconut battery and found out it was at half its design capacity. Naturally, being my computer 2 years old, I didn't expect it to be that fresh, but it certainly was doing much better a few days before. much much better.

I saw online other people had had similar problems but I couldn't spot a precise solution (smc reset didn't do anything).

girolamo
Click to expand...

Girolamo, I have the very same problem. 2008 Macbook Pro, new (!) battery that I bought < 2 months ago at Apple Online and the battery was working absolutely fine until I upgraded to Mountain Lion from Snow Leopard last weekend. Since then the 'battery health' keeps jumping from 95% down to < 50%, then up to 64% and back to now 93%. One time the macbook was not booting and the battery showing completely empty after 20 minutes of use, attaching the charger back "recharged" the battery within 20 minutes, which is impossible. Right now the battery shows 100% but remains charging... Ridiculous.

Called Apple support today, I had a bootable backup of Snow Leopard and (at least) the battery health shown in there is the very same (95%).

I suspect it is a software issue, will call support tomorrow again to see what they say.

The battery was working completely fine until I upgraded to ML (and I waited til 10.8.2 was out..), oh well..:mad::mad::mad:

I am really curious if
-) the battery can be somehow corrupted via ML
-) if just ML has bugs regarding battery life.

Anyways, this is no OS that should be released to customers in this form, imho.

p.s.: and yes, I reset pram and smc.

Screen%20Shot%202012-09-26%20at%2021.52.41%20PM.png
 
Last edited:
ok, after talking with apple I will get the battery replaced. Hope the new new battery will not suffer from the funny symptom..

I was told that Apple is still looking into issues regarding ML and batteries, still at 10.8.2 too.
 
Last edited:
magr01in0 said:
ok, after talking with apple I will get the battery replaced. Hope the new new battery will not suffer from the funny symptom..

I was told that Apple is still looking into issues regarding ML and batteries, still at 10.8.2 too.
Click to expand...

Hey, thanks,

My battery is going down fast and steady, I replaced it 3 days ago and I'm already at 95% of its maximum capacity, and I haven't used the computer a lot.
I'll wait for another couple of day, then I'll take it to the apple store again, and see what they have to say this time. This battery is under warranty, i really want to see now if they feel like giving me another battery, which will then be sucked again in a week and will have to be replaced and so forth...
I'll keep updating this.
 
Girolamo said:
My battery is going down fast and steady, I replaced it 3 days ago and I'm already at 95% of its maximum capacity, and I haven't used the computer a lot.
Click to expand...
It is perfectly normal if your battery health (maximum capacity) is more or less than 100%, even when brand new, or if it fluctuates up or down over time. For further details, read the CHECKING STATUS AND HEALTH 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.
 
Thanks for the helpful link. I knew that the "battery health" can fluctuate, but it is not normal to fluctuate for 50 or more percent, and a 2 months old battery should not fluctuate down to 3%.

Will report if it happens with the new battery, too (hopefully not)!
 
magr01in0 said:
Thanks for the helpful link. I knew that the "battery health" can fluctuate, but it is not normal to fluctuate for 50 or more percent, and a 2 months old battery should not fluctuate down to 3%.
Click to expand...
My post about that was in response to another post, which I quoted, not yours. Certainly 3% health is not normal.
 
memko said:
I didn't update from lion till 10.8.2 was released .
40% brightness \no Bluetooth\no keyboard light \ just opening safari give me an estimated of 5:30 that starts to dwindles rapidly.
on lion i used to get about 9 hours under same conditions guess I'm going back to lion soon.
so anybody with retina here could provide feedback please

Ps: base rMBP \clean install \SMC reset \ Indexing was done .
Click to expand...

same here on MBP 13 inch late 2011. 5:16 mins for me :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back