Just calibrated battery, why is it down to 93% so fast?

[WillMak]

I just calibrated my ibook batteryh the first time. I kept using my ibook till it died out completely (I did put it through sleep several times) and then plugged it into the AC until it was fully charged and green. However, 5 minutes after removing the battery, it quickly droped down to 93% Did I do something wrong here?

I also restarted the computer once during those 5 minutes if that makes a difference (my dock dissapeared any wouldn't appear anymore...weird)

[katie ta achoo]

I just calibrated my ibook batteryh the first time. I kept using my ibook till it died out completely (I did put it through sleep several times) and then plugged it into the AC until it was fully charged and green. However, 5 minutes after removing the battery, it quickly droped down to 93% Did I do something wrong here?

I also restarted the computer once during those 5 minutes if that makes a difference (my dock dissapeared any wouldn't appear anymore...weird)


If you had it on FULL brightness, that' drains the battery.
Also having BlueTooth and AirPort on does the same thing.
I'm pretty sure (but don't quote me on this) that turning on a computer takes a lot of battery power. All the HD spinning up, and so.
the processor may also be on highest performance, so check that out.
In preferences, you can mess with the energy saver.

[WillMak]

I hope that's the case. I was very angry at my ibook today when I was trying to drain it down completely...it took forever...damn good battery life. I'm just being too paranoid for my own good methinks.

[aussie_geek]

This has happened to me a few times on my PowerBook. What can happen is that the charge cycle only charges the battery to 95% and then hold it there. The last 5% of the battery charge is the slowest part as the battery is nearly full and sometimes the charger must give up and lets it sit at 95%.

So, when you pull the charger out, although it says it is 100% charged, when you disconnect the power, it quickly jumps back to 95 - then to 93 within a few minutes.

Give the battery another few cycles - the power manager will fix itself up.

If you are interested at looking at the aspects of battery charge, there is a great little app called xbattery (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/12649)

Run it and you will see what I mean about the 95% business.


aussie_geek

[WillMak]

Omg, do you mean...that I have to drain it all the way down to 0% and then recalibrate it all over again!?!?!?!?!

[katie ta achoo]

...when I was trying to drain it down completely...it took forever...damn good battery life.

Well, you don't have to sit with it the whole time..

Just set it on like.. an iTunes visualization, full brightness, full processor, set it for "don't sleep" and it'll drain faster than I can eat a tofu sandwich.

...ok, that was a lie; I love tofu sandwiches.

[mad jew]

...and make it play the music from a CD. The extra heat of the drive should burn through the battery pretty quickly. :)