Poor battery life: how to check apps running in background?

[stanw]

The battery life on my 1.5 yr old MBP is pretty bad. I suspect that it might have something to do with applications running in the background like Dropbox, Sky Drive, etc. how can I figure out what applications might be running in the background and draining my battery?

Thanks.

 

[GGJstudios]

Follow every step of the following instructions precisely. Do not skip any steps.

1. Launch Activity Monitor
2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
3. Click on the "% CPU" column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
   (If that column isn't visible, right-click on the column headings and check it, NOT "CPU Time")
4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
5. Take a screen shot of the entire Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
6. Post your screenshots.

 

[Dark Void]

Activity Monitor.

Check your Login Items under in your user account pane in System Preferences to see if any unwanted applications are launching at the initial start up.

 

[GGJstudios]

Delete any unwanted apps from the following locations:

• System Preferences > Accounts > yourusername > Login Items
  (Lion and ML users: System Preferences > Users & Groups > yourusername > Login Items)
  
  
• /Library/LaunchAgents/
  (Lion and ML users: In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder > then enter the path above)
  
  
• ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
  (Lion and ML users: In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder > then enter the path above)
  
  
• /Library/StartupItems/
  (Lion and ML users: In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder > then enter the path above)