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Tests Find OS X Mountain Lion May Significantly Degrade Notebook Battery Life

Sankersizzle

Sankersizzle

macrumors 6502a
Jun 5, 2010
838
2
Canadadada
The battery life on my 2010 17" MBP w/SSD used to last around 10 hours on Snow Leopard. Lion cut that to 8, and now Mountain Lion cut it to 5.

The battery is still healthy, I took it to a genius and they said Apple would release a fix (this was with Lion) and everything would be right again. That never happened.
 
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garychen529

macrumors newbie
Feb 11, 2011
8
0
My early 2011 15" MacBook Pro dropped 2% of battery health from 95% to 93% after updating to the Mountain Lion and it seems that I just cannot get it back to 95% or even 94%... I do notice a shorter battery life. :(
 
nagromme

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
My Lion Air runs all day when I need it, even at a year old. It must be something like 6 hours that it still gets. I’m sure it helps that I try to only use the “top” of the charge on a regular basis, so that the battery stays healthy and the full capacity is there for me on those days when I need it!

I’ll cautiously wait for an update and further reports before I jump on Mountain Lion!
 
5

50548

Guest
Apr 17, 2005
5,039
2
Currently in Switzerland
nagromme said:
My Lion Air runs all day when I need it, even at a year old. It must be something like 6 hours that it still gets. I’m sure it helps that I try to only use the “top” of the charge on a regular basis, so that the battery stays healthy and the full capacity is there for me on those days when I need it!

I’ll cautiously wait for an update and further reports before I jump on Mountain Lion!
Click to expand...

Same here...won't jump on the 10.8.0 bandwagon anytime soon.
 
Tankmaze

Tankmaze

macrumors 68000
Mar 7, 2012
1,707
351
I've noticed that on ML you cannot set the battery in time, always percentage.
but i'm having the same battery time as in lion. early 2011 MBP 2.0.
 
Apple Knowledge Navigator

Apple Knowledge Navigator

macrumors 68040
Mar 28, 2010
3,539
11,812
Can't have a topic regarding OS issues without...

kniemann said:
Steve Jobs would never have allowed this to happen.
Click to expand...

PicardDoubleFacepalm-1.jpg
 
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NoIdeasOriginal

macrumors member
Dec 14, 2011
38
0
Dublin, Ireland.
I just noticed the image in the main article, showing 78% health remaining. ArsTechnica used a retina Macbook pro for testing which was just released in June. My MacBook Air, which I purchased around the same time, shows 95% battery health.

Does this show that the rMBP's battery health diminishes quicker?

Does anyone have any tips on how to prolong the health of a MacBook battery?

bmWU2.png


Thanks
 
S

slrandall

macrumors 6502
Jun 15, 2011
412
0
Raftysworld said:
It's pretty sad that you would defame Steve's character so soon after his death. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Click to expand...

Good lord. Not only is that not what the person you replied to was doing, that's totally irrelevant to this discussion. Jesus, I can't wait until they bring back the downvote button.
 
R

Rennir

macrumors 6502
Jan 13, 2012
457
0
Haven't noticed this, but maybe it's because I use it on the adapter most of the time.
 
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darkplanets

macrumors 6502a
Nov 6, 2009
853
1
I'm doing pretty peachy on battery power, but haven't done anything past light web browsing. Don't see an issue here yet (rMBP).
 
autrefois

autrefois

macrumors 65816
Oct 22, 2003
1,442
1,496
I’m autrefois+, the same as autrefois but with a +
kniemann said:
Steve Jobs would never have allowed this to happen.
Click to expand...

And so "Jobwin's law" strikes again:

The longer a thread on MacRumors gets, the more likely it is that someone will talk about how Steve Jobs would (never) have done this or that.

(Based of course on Godwin's Law. Kudos to Zunjine or whoever came up with it first -- looks like it's going to be a useful term for a long time to come...)

No one knows for sure what Steve would or wouldn't have done, so does this really need to come up in every thread?
 
tigres

tigres

macrumors 601
Aug 31, 2007
4,213
1,326
Land of the Free-Waiting for Term Limits
On my 2012 13", I run it in clamshell mode. When I take it home for the eve, and don't open it until the next day- I am down to 87% remaining (from 100%). I have Powernap unchecked.

On my older MBA it would have about 98% remaining the next morning- which is about 9-11 hours of sleep. Additionally, I have noticed cycle counts added as well yet I have let the battery drain to warrant the new counts?
 
gibstros

gibstros

macrumors newbie
Sep 11, 2009
26
1
Texas
Fine at first now awful

I was doing fine at first with last generation 17'' Macbook Pro. Then I had some issues that required re-installing Mountain Lion. Now battery life is atrocious and my computer runs much hotter than it used to.
 
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garychen529

macrumors newbie
Feb 11, 2011
8
0
NoIdeasOriginal said:
I just noticed the image in the main article, showing 78% health remaining. ArsTechnica used a retina Macbook pro for testing which was just released in June. My MacBook Air, which I purchased around the same time, shows 95% battery health.

Does this show that the rMBP's battery health diminishes quicker?

Does anyone have any tips on how to prolong the health of a MacBook battery?

Image

Thanks
Click to expand...


Battery health can be quickly and easily increased and/or maintained by doing the battery calibration every once in a while. The battery calibration procedure is listed here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

BTW, I don't think the image is from ArsTechnica. If it is, those are a lot of cycles... :eek:
 
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