Can charging eventually kill the battery?

Yes it will. If it is to be plugged into the wall, then just take out the battery

thats not true from what i understand. the battery stops charging itself when it is full and leaving it there shouldnt affect it at all.

they are called "smart batteries" and im pretty sure youd be safe doing what you want. i leave mine plugged in most ofthe time and after 6 months, i can still get 3.5 hours + from the battery if i unplug

it'll evetually do, but it depends how much you use it. If you keep recharging and recharging, then it'll die.

I have to disagree with yzedf.

My iBook will be 2 years old in August, and I've run it on battery only about 15 times. The rest of the time it is plugged in with the battery in. Lately, I have been taking it to class and running it on battery. I'm getting 4.5 hours of battery life on a near 2-year-old battery!

I can't explain it, and no one else can either. Each battery is different.

Originally posted by yzedf
Yes it will. If it is to be plugged into the wall, then just take out the battery

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That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. What's the reasoning behind it?

I checked through all of Apple's documentation for something on this and there's not a word about it.

Leaving it plugged in will not kill the battery. However not using the battery will hurt it. The chemicals will get "stale" like a potatoe chip so to speak. Batteries die from both overuse and underuse. Once chemicals in the battery start to decline they are near impossible to get back. Thats why you condition a battery when you get it. To make sure all the chemical gets used. All you have to do is make sure you fully discharge the battery about once every 2 weeks and you should be fine. People who have problems usually use it on battery for a half hour, plug it in, and the rest of the battery never gets used and it loses its effectivness.

I think yzdef is wrong too
plus on the ibook if you twist the little thing too far out of laziness then it will crack the plastic ring and those aren't easy to come by.

i never conditioned my battery

when i got my pb12" it had to go in for service about 24hrs after i first charged it (main board dead... grrr). So i tried to condition and calibrate the battery when i got it back and now it gets maybe 3hrs of life... anyone know how to force recalibration or if its unrecoverable...
i heard something like reset the power manager how do you do that? cos apple says the battery gets up to 5hrs and even maybe a good 4 would be nice.
Thanks everyone, Hugo

Re: i never conditioned my battery

Originally posted by hugov
now it gets maybe 3hrs of life...

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3 and half seems about right if you have the screen brightness up all the way and are doing some intesive stuff. Try turning everything to the min, set the processor to save battery, only surf the web and see what happens. In that case my best is 4hrs 35 minutes. The only real shot you have of recovering is to completly drain and recharge comepletly. No partial discharge and recharge. But its usually tough to get lost battery power back.

p.s. make sure to use a real clock to get battery time and not the estimate in the upper right, its a pretty wild guess when the battery is full.

I am of the better safe than sorry crowd. I have been burned once by a battery crapping out for no reason, and my old roommates ibook 500 battery did the same thing. He now has a 30min battery and a 3.5 hr battery!!!

Originally posted by yzedf
I am of the better safe than sorry crowd. I have been burned once by a battery crapping out for no reason, and my old roommates ibook 500 battery did the same thing. He now has a 30min battery and a 3.5 hr battery!!!

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lucky he
No infact I think there will be done no harm to the battery if you leave the notebook plugged in all the time. It s quite smart, the power and battery management of apple's .
Trust apple's work...

I don't know much about apple's batteries, but I do know that if you have a NiMH battery, then it should be safe from just about anything. If you have a NiCD battery then it could get a memory, and the chemicals can go bad. I wouldn't think apple would use nickel cadmium, so check it out.

I've got a 55 min battery and a 4 hr+ battery when I run in energy conservation mode. I make sure I keep my batt in good condition by running as low as possible. I have to be careful though, because my good batt dies promptly at 20% power without warning. Odd.

well kyle, thats the software, not the battery. Last time i left my computer on all night unplugged, when i woke it up it said 15 minutes left...and i thought, HUH, it should ahve slept after 15 mintues and not been that drained.

turns out it kept saying 15-18 minutes for like an hour. i tried re-sleeping it, but till i plugged her in, she kept claiming 15 minutes....who knows.

Originally posted by Kyle?
I've got a 55 min battery and a 4 hr+ battery when I run in energy conservation mode. I make sure I keep my batt in good condition by running as low as possible. I have to be careful though, because my good batt dies promptly at 20% power without warning. Odd.

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I have a PC notebook from 2000, the battery dies sometimes at 60% sometimes at 20% ... go figure!

Originally posted by uhlawboi80
well kyle, thats the software, not the battery. Last time i left my computer on all night unplugged, when i woke it up it said 15 minutes left...and i thought, HUH, it should ahve slept after 15 mintues and not been that drained.

turns out it kept saying 15-18 minutes for like an hour. i tried re-sleeping it, but till i plugged her in, she kept claiming 15 minutes....who knows.

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I thought so too, but it happens every time. I've had different battery issues before but I've always been able to figure out what was causing it and correct the problem, but this has stumped me.