Those of you who’ve installed Mac OS X 10.7 must be facing the severe battery drain that has plagued the OS ever since the release. There have been cases of even almost halved battery life for some users at popular forums. We’ve had a lot of discussions over at the NBR forums and at MacRumors but a definite solution eludes us.
Last week I had published a post on a few ways to increase your battery life if you’ve suffered the battery drain after installing Lion. Eventually we’ve realized that those fixes were but only a temporary one. Within a few cycles the battery life reduced back again. Indeed the SMC reset was more a cosmetic cure as the microcontroller showed longer battery life erringly.After playing around I’ve stumbled across another issue which has definitely been a game changer.
Apple’s Automatic Graphics Switching And therein lies the problem.
After upgrading to 10.7 I had been so busy checking out Lion that I had left out installing gfxCardStatus by Cody Krieger. Today upon installing it, I realized that the app was showing n no matter what I did – it was continuously running the discrete gpu the whole time.
Even when the system was inactive with only gfxCardStatus running it was n. And that’s when I realized that all that extra heat from the Mac coupled with lowered battery life was all due to the fact that OS X Lion was running completely on the discrete nVidia card instead of switching to Integrated like it was supposed to.The moment I switched to integrated the system temp came down to 46 from the usual 52. It might seem to be a small difference but it’s been 6 hours since I’ve charged my MBP and it still have 14% left. I’ve been browsing through WiFi all this time.
And so, I’m happily enjoying SL like battery life now. Don’t know if it’s way better because I’ve only used SL for a couple of days. But it’s definitely not worse.
Hot!: Apple has unofficially promised to solve the Lion Macbook Pro notebook battery problem.
Update: (thanks gorillandy)
I had the same problem for the longest time, but what helped me was uninstalling my Citrix remote connection plug-in. Some process that the plug-in comes with runs at root level and blasted the processors to 99% constantly. It’s name is agadminservice and since uninstalling the Citrix plug-in my Macbook runs like it was still on Snow Leopard.
You might want to check out how to cool your Macbook Pro without using fans or stands (or any of that crap). Or you could learn about performing maintenance on your mac to keep it healthy.
As a last resort, you can get yourself a copy of Mountain Lion.
Related Reports:
SOTeam
1 year ago
Helo, thanks for the tips buddy. i checked it out and there is defintely a difrnc.
thanks!!!
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
Good to hear that =)
Anonymous
1 year ago
Thanks for info! I miss having control over graphic card switching anyway. HOPEfully this a temporary situation that will be fixed in an update. I'll be following your blog for updates. Thanks again!
-Corey
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
Thanks for the compliments corey =)
why don't u use the app I've mentioned to control your graphic card?
Howard Tang
1 year ago
Thanks DiLin, I haven't have a chance to test it out. But I am sure you have found a real solution to that!!! Good Work!! I am new to Mac, this is a very good information to have!!
klerik
1 year ago
I do not think this is the problem. I have a MacBook Air the end of 2010 so quite recently, there is no dual graphics card, but there is also the problem of battery, after the 'installation of lion …
I'm not even sure it works smc reset.
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
The discrete card is being used because lion tax the system with graphic intensive computing. For the pro users this results in a huge loss of battery power but when we switch to integrated the loss is 'less'.
For Air users you start with a smaller battery to begin with so the constantly active integrated graphics make a bigger effect. This is because your under volted processor can't handle as much as the full powered processors. Now if you were using a MBA 2011 then you'd face battery loss due to the higher TDp of the sandybridge processors.
Hope this helps!
Your Humble Narrator
1 year ago
How do I change to integrated?
Audrey
1 year ago
Hi, I have a mid-2010 MacBook Pro and I recently upgraded to Lion. I am not familiar with the mechanics or workings of graphics cards, however I have experienced a significant drop in my MBP's battery life since the Lion update. Apparently my machine only has an nVidia card, thus no option to switch anything. Any other fix you would recommend to improve my MBP's battery life? Or just wait for the OS X 10.7.1 update? I noticed a lot of other people complaining about this via Apple Support Forums as well (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3194235?start=0&tstart=0). Thanks.
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
@Audrey @narrator
If you have a macbook pro that is either 15" or 17" them you have a discrete graphics on your system. A mid 2010 system would have nvidia 330m graphics.
To switch your graphics from discrete card to integrated and vice versa:
1. In and download the gfxcardstatus application from the link I've placed in the post. It's highlighted in blue.
2. Once you've installed it, run the app and it will show up on the taskbar.
3. click on the icon and there you will see the option to change the graphics.
4. If you've chosen nvidia the taskbar will have a alphabet 'n'. For integrated this will change to 'i'.
Hope this helps!
Anonymous
1 year ago
that still docent work
still 3 hrs need help please…
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
@anon Don't consider the timer to get your battery life- it won't show the correct value unless you do the SMC reset. after you switch to integrated run the mac from full battery life and see the results by keeping track of time.
Audrey
1 year ago
Thanks for the advice, but I actually have a 13" MBP. Does that change anything?
Jake
1 year ago
This seemed to work. Can you tell me though, when the best times are to use integrated, or dynamic, or discrete. Or should it always be on integrated?
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
You woud need your discrete card when you do graphics intensive work – gaming, FCP and the works. For daily browsing integrated should get you through
Duco Braun
1 year ago
To me it works perfect. Happily I can hold my mac on my legs again
I have a MPB 15 (2009) I am able to switch between GeForge 9400M & 9600M GT
Thnx
Anonymous
1 year ago
Cool solution, thanks. I have 2011 mbp with lion and it was on AMD graphics all the time (even when on battery). With this program and by selecting integrated graphics battery issue is solved.
Z
Anonymous
1 year ago
This isn't the problem in my case. Set it to integrated, ran down the battery in 2 hours from full charge. That's with hardly anything running too.
Anonymous
1 year ago
Hi i am using a 2010 mac 13 inch and when i installed the gfxcardstatus, it says that i am using a system that it does not support. Please ensure that you are using a MBP with dual GPUs. i am assuming that this is because my MBP is using an integrated graphic card already? But i am still experiencing the battery drain problem!
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
@anons use istat nano to see the sysem temp and fan speed of your systems. if there's anything fishy you might have to reset your smc – its not a sure fix but hopefully it should work.
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
@duco glad to hear that it helped you out =)
/r:b:
1 year ago
gfxCardStatus didn't make the slightest bit of difference on my new (July) MBP 15". I still have only 2-3 hours battery life.
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
Could you specify what apps you run during those 3 hours? and I recommend reseting the smc on all new pros. you can get the how to here: http://www.shaasthra.com/2011/07/how-to-revive-battery-life-after-os-x.html?m=0
Anonymous
1 year ago
Hi there! i am using a mbp 2010 13 inch with intel 320m graphics and have resetted the smc, but the battery still drains out really fast. I think the current battery can only last me at most 3-4 hours of light usage(surfing on safari) when fully charged as compared to 7-8 hours on snow leopard Any ideas why?
Anonymous
1 year ago
I have the macbook air late 2010, i ran the app and it showed it only supports MBP. So this is useless for the AIR??
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
Yea this is useless for the Air because there is no discrete GPU in the air. I'd ask you to try the SMC reset and other methods that I've listed in the previous post.
Anonymous
1 year ago
Thanks. I think there is sth wrong with my AIR, the fan is too loud and unacceptable hot whenever it starts streaming videos. Do you have any suggestion? i have tried other methods but the problem still persists.
gorillandy
1 year ago
I had the same problem for the longest time, but what helped me was uninstalling my Citrix remote connection plug-in. Some process that the plug-in comes with runs at root level and blasted the processors to 99% constantly. It's name is agadminservice and since uninstalling the Citrix plug-in my Macbook runs like it was still on Snow Leopard.
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
@Anon That's exactly where the problem lies. The youtube videos(flash) cause the browsers(firefox,chrome) to be dependent on the graphics solution. For Pros this switches on the graphics card.
For Airs it causes the processor to have higher load which results in higher consumption. Especially the new Airs with sandybridge have higher TDP which means there'll be a lot more heat which in turn ramps up the fan speeds. Sad as it is, I'm afraid there isn't any surefire solution for this problem.
Alfonso
1 year ago
Thanks a lot, it seems you solved my problem. I think Apple is totally aware of the problem, and the cause for this issue to remain unsolved from Apple is just draining out batteries sooner and forcing us to replace them sooner, or to make us believe that our hardware becomes obsolete really soon.
I was about to go back to SL, or even to switch to Ubuntu, but your solution gave me peace of mind on this issue, I felt really bad having spent so much money in a machine to work fast and a whole day without recharging.
Thanks a lot again.
Martin Kamstra
1 year ago
Hi,
I have a macbook prop early 2008
Can you tell me, do I have to uninstall the citrix plug-in to.
To increase the battery life on my macbook pro.
And if so how do I do that?
MJ
1 year ago
Hi,
Does this work with the new MBP 13''? I tried it but then all i could see was the 'i' and it does't change eventhough I click on the Discrete…still Integrated.
Please shed some light on this.
Thanks!
-MJ
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
@MJ The gfxswitcher app works only for MacBook Pros which have 2 graphics solutions. For your macbook pro 13 there is only one available – the integrated graphics. Hence you don't have any discrete card to switch to.
Gunnvor Karita
1 year ago
Hello Dilin
I have a Macbook late 2008 , tried installing the gfx Card status before reading all comments here… I'm unable to switch, and it says Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M in grey (so not available to click on). Does this mean that my card is not working?
Also I tried resetting the SMC, and permissions repair, I have unloaded Citrix and Paralles via Terminal (don't think I had any of them running on my mac…) and it it still running burning hot, and battery is down to 1,5 hours…
Anything else I should try?
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
@Gunnvor Im sorry but Macbooks do not have graphics cards and hence you cannot switch them. Macbooks amd macbook pro 13 only hve integrated graphics. Sorry to say there is no other solution that I'm aware of right now.
Anonymous
1 year ago
Can you tell me if this will work for my 2008 MBP 17"? I am not familiar with all the things that are being discussed here, but my problems are the same as you have described -could you please give me the steps I should use for this fix? I looked at the app that you gave the link to and its says unibody mbp, and I don't think mine is considered a unibody.
Any help will be greatly appreciate.
Thank you, Lisa
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
@Anon Is your mac the Late 2008 MacBook Pro with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M/9600M GT GPUs ?
If so you are covered
Anonymous
1 year ago
No, it is an Early 2008 and when I go to About this mac – more info, I see:
Graphic NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 512 MB
I looked at everything again last night after I posted and saw that the late 2008 was required to install the gfxcardstatus.
If you know of another solution, I will be very appreciative. It sort of looks like I will be stuck with poor battery life until apple gets their act together, right?
Its such a shame because I like Lion and it runs great on my computer and I'd rather not go back to SL – such a hassle. The temperature of the computer has increased a bit and the fans are running at a slightly elevated speed – have you had this problem? Could this be why my battery doesn't last as long?
Does know what a normal range in temperature and fan speed are?
Thanks so much for the help! lisa
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
Yes the higher temp of the computer and the increased fan speed are telltale signs that your computer is working harder than usual(snow leopard) to run Lion. Lion requires far more background processes for it's new functionality – like keeping apps alive even when you close them. This results in greater CPU load, which turns increases temperature and causes the fans to run faster. Each one of these contribute to increased power consumption.
As to solving the problem I'm sorry to say that you'll have to decide between snow leopard (BATT LIFE) and lion (BETTER OS). Perhaps Apple might bring out future software updates that lower the heating issues but I don't expect it to become as cool as when running snow leopard.
Obviously as we upgrade, OS becomes more heavy weight and what your computer is suffering from is just the drawback for getting better performing software.
Enjoy your Mac or might I suggest a new one? The new Macbook air performs far better than your current model and they are pretty inexpensive as Macs go. Plus its sleek, lightweight and will increase productivity because of better performing hardware. The refurbished macbook pros are also great value for money.
Ilhan
1 year ago
This solution doesn't make sense for people who have a 13" MacBook Pro, with only the integrated graphics built-in.
DiLin Anand
1 year ago
That's obvious since Cody's app is designed for switching from discrete to integrated. MBP 13" owners are already on integrated. The low battery life you suffer from is due to the smaller battery compared to the MBP 15".
How to revive battery life after OS X Lion ate it up
1 year ago
[...] from Snow Leopard. UPDATE: There is a better sure-fire solution available now. Read about the Lion gfxswitching issue here. News analysis: Revelations: iPhone [...]
Johny Myko
1 year ago
I have the most recent 13” Macbook Pro i5, so my graphics card is already integrated. But I still have problems with the battery. Any idea? In older 13” Macbook Pros, I would understand the situation, but in this case is kinda strange…
Dilin Anand
1 year ago
The trouble comes with the OS — OS X Lion isn’t as light weight as it’s predecessors. It’s the penalty we have to pay for a more productive OS. If you’ve used older Macintosh OS you might have seen that snow leopard was heavier than leopard which in turn was heavier than tiger. Perhaps Apple might streamline it in future updates. Have you tried updating to 10.7.2 ? You’ll get iCloud and Find My Mac as well.
Alain
1 year ago
I have tried the graphics fix using gfxcardstatus, but to no avail. Not even the slightest difference. I am running a macbook pro December 2010. I have not been able to get more than 2.5 hours of real battery life. Has anyone come up with other ideas/possible workarounds?
— Alain
Dilin Anand
1 year ago
Have you tried the other steps listed – resetting your SMC and calibrating your battery? It’s linked in the article.
RicG PDX
1 year ago
I’m running a mid-2009 13″ MacBook Pro 2.23GHz, 8GB RAM and the battery life dropped by well over 40% after installing Lion (through 10.7.2). ~5.75 hrs down to <3 hrs) Also, interestingly, it would come off the charger and immediately display 99% battery life remaining. This persisted through a few confirmed SMC resets (I got the light to change on the charger plug). It did run noticeably warmer with significantly more fan noise when it was any sort of load. I can barely remember ever hearing the fan before Lion (including while editing HD footage with Adobe Premiere Pro). Also, boot time went from ~20 secs. in SL to 40+ in Lion (with no apps/windows left open at shutdown). Finally, the overall responsiveness of the machine (time to open windows, menu action, application performance) seemed noticeably more sluggish.
I restored the machine back to 10.6.8 (and did another SMC reset just to be on the safe side) and the laptop is back to where it was, performance and battery-wise, before the update. I'm running Lion on two other Macs, a dual quad-core Mac Pro at home and a 27" iMac at work without any significant issues beyond slower boot and shutdown times and a slight performance dip on the Pro (the iMac came loaded with Lion).
Opinion: I'm an "original" Mac user (since Feb. 1984) and Lion reminds me of some a few of the pre-OS X full-version updates that Apple released (notably the first release of System 7 and System 8), which also had performance issues (along with the usual collection of bugs and incompatibilities that appeared regularly in the "Classic" days). OS X has been notable in that each full version release (until Lion) offered a significant performance boost over its predecessor. Considering the fact that Lion appears to perform adequately on systems with more than two cores, I'm not sure how motivated Apple will be to do anything to improve Lion's performance and efficiency.
I do strongly feel that the battery life issue is a "bug" in that it seems to be affecting nearly all MacBook users. It's worth keeping in mind that battery life is measured in recharge cycles, so this issue does affect the lifespan of the battery ($$).
I left feedback for Apple on this (http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html). The most popular thread on Apple's discussion forums has 977 comments at the moment (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3194235). There do not appear to be any across-the-board solutions or even an official acknowledgment from Apple at this point. Personally, I would strongly recommend keeping a full backup of your latest SL image until you've thoroughly tested Lion and possibly postpone purchase of any new MacBooks that ship with Lion if battery life is an issue for you.
Dilin Anand
1 year ago
That was enlightening, thanks RicG!
About the battery cycles affecting the battery life, IMO just keep the mac plugged in as much as we can and hopefully it might not affect the battery much.
cram arrand
1 year ago
i have a 2007 model macbook with the 2.16gHz processor. any tips for me to increase better life? i can’t use the gfx app or whatever since i got an old school macbook
Dilin Anand
1 year ago
My advice would be to stay away from Lion.
Tammera Platero
1 year ago
wonderful put up, very informative. I wonder why the opposite experts of this sector don’t understand this. You must continue your writing. I am sure, you’ve a huge readers’ base already!
10 Perfect Ways to Enhance Battery Life | The Pundit Report
1 year ago
[...] users usually have the Optimus Technology on their systems while Mac users have built-in support (control Mac gfx switching). Related posts:Alienware M11x R3 – petite gaming power houseCyborg R.A.T 9 gaming mouse- the most [...]
Power Saving Tips: Making Your Laptop Last Longer | Mobile Fun Blog
1 year ago
[...] usually has better efficiency and performance. Moreover, when you upgrade your OS – like from Mac SL to Lion – try to go for a full on fresh install rather than installing over the current [...]
The MacBook Harddrive fight: 5400 vs 7200 vs SSD | The Pundit Report
1 year ago
[...] other you would see a lot more difference. But in real life, you would also see a minor drop in battery life for systems using the 7200 [...]
Apple BatteryGate - iOS 5 and OS X Lion 10.7 | The Pundit Report
1 year ago
[...] point to new SMC updates available for MacBook Pro. Until then they have to make with after-market tricks and tweaks that slightly inch-up battery life to pre-Lion [...]
Jon
1 year ago
Battery life on my 1 year old Macbook (non-pro) was up to 10-11 hours when I got it. It had dropped slightly over the course of the year to about 8-10 hours – some normal loss as you’d expect with 100 charge cycles, and partly just because I have a few more apps running, consuming a little extra background processing power.
When I ‘upgraded’ to Lion I lost some of that. At best “Normal usage” I get 7 hours. That’s bluetooth off, wifi on but only used for light/moderate use, screen at half brightness and say Safari, Mail (background), Preview and MS Word open. As soon as I start doing anything moderately intense the life drops dramatically to 3-4 hours.
As far as I can tell, my “best case” scenario now is about 7.5 hours, whereas it used to be 9. Videos/heavy use has dropped from 5 to 2 (worse than my windows laptop) and most annoyingly my “normal use” seems to fluctuate wildly between about 3 and 6 hours, leaving me totally in the dark whereas previously I could bank on 7 guaranteed unless I put a DVD on.
The battery life was the main selling point for me, so I’m a little peeved about it – but mostly I’m annoyed that it can be showing 5 hours, then an hour later be showing me that I’ve got under an hour left: it’s impossible to plan things.
Dilin Anand
1 year ago
There are reports that Apple has started working on the issue, so there is reason to have hope.
JoshS
1 year ago
This isn’t directly related, but if you are concerned about battery life, you should check out low battery saver. It’s an app that makes sure your Mac sleeps before the battery completely runs out and let’s you set a warning to alert you that the computer is about to sleep. (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/low-battery-saver/) It won’t fix your battery problems but at least you won’t lose your work, have to restart your computer etc.
Hollystrafer
1 year ago
Thanks for letting us know m8
Mike
1 year ago
Here’s a funny thing about my OSX Lion experience (late 2010 MBP 15), I did what you said as my battery life was bad, but noticed mine ALWAYS had the i on, never the N (even when watching flash videos or anything of that nature). On top of that, things like scrolling through the dock or in any browser was horrifically choppy. So , I decided to keep the GPU on all the time. My macbook always feels a tad warm now, but never burning hot like it used to when I did anything intensive on SL, or my previous install of Lion (no mater what I did, was always buggy). Even stranger, I get BETTER battery life with my GPU on all the time, and even when doing intensive processes the fan never really kicks up because it doesn’t get extremely hot either. Also all laggy/choppy scrolling is absent from anywhere in my MBP now, i’m loving it. Just an FYI for people who haven’t tried this yet, see how your system fares with GPU always on (the n always showing). I’m guessing it’s because the processor isn’t always at high % of usage when attempting to do things the GPU can do for much lesser power/heat because it has to only extend itself minimally vs CPU killing itself to do anything graphically. Just my 2 cents, hope it helps somebody!
Mike
1 year ago
And just to clarify, it was always showing the i with dynamic switching on, there was no difference between integrated only and dynamic switching on my system basically.
Solve your Lion OS Battery Drain | learningbeyond
1 year ago
[...] Solve the OS X Lion Battery Drain | The Pundit Report. Share this:Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in iLearning by learningbeyond. Bookmark the permalink. [...]
Poor Battery Life – MacBook Pro OSX Lion | Tech4Him - Technology with Integrity
1 year ago
[...] I got fed up and went to do a bit of quick searching. I came across this post from the Pundit Reporter. It indicated that they noticed that the built-in graphics switching was staying in discrete mode [...]