Has anyone exchanged their MBA due to Battery issues?

stakis · Apr 13, 2008

I've been noticing that my Macbook won't even break the 3 hour mark for battery life... and I'm thinking of doing an exchange through apple care... I've had it for about 5 weeks now....

I just want to know if you've exchanged yours due to battery issues?
1) did you do it at the store or over the phone?
2) what did you say... how did you present your problem?
3) how willing was apple to replace your entire computer rather than just give you a new battery?

any info would be great!

Thanks Macrumors community!!! you guys are awesome!

dibara2003 · Apr 13, 2008

odds are that they won't exchange since you're out of the 14 day period. i'm having issues with mine and they're going to replace my logic board and battery in store... i tried to get them to exchange over the phone and in store.

stakis · Apr 13, 2008

dibara2003 said:
odds are that they won't exchange since you're out of the 14 day period. i'm having issues with mine and they're going to replace my logic board and battery in store... i tried to get them to exchange over the phone and in store.

I see... can you report back here when you get your MBA back and let me know if you find a difference.

dibara2003 · Apr 13, 2008

stakis said:
I see... can you report back here when you get your MBA back and let me know if you find a difference.

of course... but they won't get it for a couple days and then they need to do the work. that's why i tried to exchange it. it's also not so settling that they said my air is the first they're fixing in store.

stakis · Apr 13, 2008

dibara2003 said:
of course... but they won't get it for a couple days and then they need to do the work. that's why i tried to exchange it. it's also not so settling that they said my air is the first they're fixing in store.

Cool thanks a bunch!

as for the fixing part... at least you have apple care... if they mess it up... then you'll most likely get a new one back!

best of luck!

Mhaddy · Apr 14, 2008

I exchanged my first MBA because the battery was taking up to 12 hours to charge. I brought the MBA in store and had a chat at the Genius Bar and after going through all of the "known fixes", they just exchanged it right then and there. I was within my 14 day exchange period though. Because the MBA is/was so new, they didn't know as much about it as I did (because I am I regular on this forum

), so they were a little reluctant at first. However, after reading through some forum posts, their tech database and a short consultation with their manager, it was all good!

Best of luck to you!

aussieinrome · Apr 14, 2008

Mhaddy said:
I exchanged my first MBA because the battery was taking up to 12 hours to charge. I brought the MBA in store and had a chat at the Genius Bar and after going through all of the "known fixes", they just exchanged it right then and there. I was within my 14 day exchange period though. Because the MBA is/was so new, they didn't know as much about it as I did (because I am I regular on this forum ), so they were a little reluctant at first. However, after reading through some forum posts, their tech database and a short consultation with their manager, it was all good!

Best of luck to you!

You did the right thing, in fact anyone else with battery issues should return to their Apple store within the first 14 days too.

MarkF44 · Apr 14, 2008

stakis said:
I've been noticing that my Macbook won't even break the 3 hour mark for battery life... and I'm thinking of doing an exchange through apple care... I've had it for about 5 weeks now....

I just want to know if you've exchanged yours due to battery issues?
1) did you do it at the store or over the phone?
2) what did you say... how did you present your problem?
3) how willing was apple to replace your entire computer rather than just give you a new battery?

any info would be great!

Thanks Macrumors community!!! you guys are awesome!

10 hours to recharge and no more that 3 hours of battery life in light use, so I was in the 15 days and I've returned my MBA (not Apple Store), they give me the choice to get another one or to choose another laptop, MBP, sony or something else.
I don't know what to do, I hesitate to try another MBA, it is so new that it seems clear to me that there will be other issues.
However, it is not so easy to get much more that 3 hours from a MacBook Pro, but for sure the battery should recharge in no more that 4 hours.

Shrek-Moscow · Apr 14, 2008

MarkF44 said:
10 hours to recharge and no more that 3 hours of battery life in light use, so I was in the 15 days and I've returned my MBA (not Apple Store), they give me the choice to get another one or to choose another laptop, MBP, sony or something else.
I don't know what to do, I hesitate to try another MBA, it is so new that it seems clear to me that there will be other issues.
However, it is not so easy to get much more that 3 hours from a MacBook Pro, but for sure the battery should recharge in no more that 4 hours.

I'm getting 3h 50' of light browsing and skype chatting (just text), 3 hours with a much more intensive usage and the battery never takes more than 4 hour to recharge even when completely flat (usually take less).

(1.8 GHz 80 GB PATA disc)

Sesshi · Apr 14, 2008

I would send mine away but given my Applecare experiences I'm paranoid they're going to take ages to fix it, then gank something else on it.

pughchrism · Apr 14, 2008

charging

seems like the first charges can take a really long time and then after a couple times it takes much less time. in addition, the battery life goes up after a couple of near-full uses.

have you turned your bluetooth off? the mba automatically comes in an "on" config and turning it off will give you a bit more time when running on the batt.

another tool is to use coolbook to reduce your processor voltage. i've been able to reduce mine to 0.9v for most of my processor speeds and 0.925 for 1600 mhz. the default is 1.125 so you can see that this is quite a reduction in voltage so your battery should last longer and you will run at lower temps. at 1600 mhz mine runs at 25 degrees C lower!

there is a good thread on coolbook in these mba forums.

stakis · Apr 14, 2008

pughchrism said:
seems like the first charges can take a really long time and then after a couple times it takes much less time. in addition, the battery life goes up after a couple of near-full uses.

have you turned your bluetooth off? the mba automatically comes in an "on" config and turning it off will give you a bit more time when running on the batt.

another tool is to use coolbook to reduce your processor voltage. i've been able to reduce mine to 0.9v for most of my processor speeds and 0.925 for 1600 mhz. the default is 1.125 so you can see that this is quite a reduction in voltage so your battery should last longer and you will run at lower temps. at 1600 mhz mine runs at 25 degrees C lower!

there is a good thread on coolbook in these mba forums.

Yes, I've got bluetooth off... I've done many different tests to see the battery life based on what others have done and my laptop is not coming near the average.... I've also got coolbook running... I was able to under-volt up all the frequencies to 0.9V except for 1600 wich is at 0.9125

I really believe that there is something up with my battery..... I'm currently living in South Korea and I don't get back to Canada for another 4 months... so I don't really want to send it away to the Korean Applecare centre cause A I don't speak Korean, so that could be a hitch, and B there is not APple store, so it would have to be mailed in.

Luckily I have the APple care, so in 4 months hopefully the figure something out with these batteries... even if they just swap batteries thats cool with me as I love every other aspect of this notebook!

stakis · Apr 14, 2008

PS.... its not the charge time I have a problem with... it will charge in 4 hours.... its the battery life I have a problem with.... aka under 3 hours no matter what I'm doing....

I played a DVD the other day with WIFI and Bluetooth off, and just got to the credits and it went to sleep.... that was a 2H 20 min movie.

peterlobl · Apr 14, 2008

I swapped mine for a power issue, which stumped the genius a little i think...

When powered down, my battery continued to drain, until nada left... no matter how charged, how i used it - very strange.. once I convinced genius that i had in fact powered down, and not let it run, sleep, etc - he swapped it out from new box... whole discussion/swap process lasted about 40 minutes

my return was much after 14 days, about 30 I think, but they were really quite nice and helpful. blurbed a quick leave it here (at store) or send it back, i think, but that never was a consideration somehow

as this was/is first mac since SE, I found that service rare

toomuchmac · Apr 15, 2008

Seems like the thread starter probably has issues.

I had my first doubts about battery just yesterday. In the first month or so I had watched a couple movies (from a handbrake file) and after the 90-120 minutes I still had about 1/2 a charge with wifi and BT turned off (airplane ride).

Just yesterday I went from 100 to zero in less than two hours. I was on wifi (not sure if BT was on or off now that I think about it), had a couple windows open of browsing, I was running parallels (maybe this was the big suck), had the screen at 100% brightness (two of us looking at off angle views), had word '08 open for part of the time, and I didn't let the display go to sleep very often and I got, like I said, about two hours or a little less. The fan had kicked on, but wasn't pegged. I didn't open the widget to see the actual RPM's but just based on sound it seemed like it was around 4-5k, but not 6200.

It got down to single digits of percent battery life right around 5pm, so it must have known it was quitting time in more ways than one.

I'm not sure what typical use would be to get 4 hours, but I'm guessing that virtulization wouldn't be in that.

BryanLyle · Apr 15, 2008

toomuchmac said:
Seems like the thread starter probably has issues.

I had my first doubts about battery just yesterday. In the first month or so I had watched a couple movies (from a handbrake file) and after the 90-120 minutes I still had about 1/2 a charge with wifi and BT turned off (airplane ride).

Just yesterday I went from 100 to zero in less than two hours. I was on wifi (not sure if BT was on or off now that I think about it), had a couple windows open of browsing, I was running parallels (maybe this was the big suck), had the screen at 100% brightness (two of us looking at off angle views), had word '08 open for part of the time, and I didn't let the display go to sleep very often and I got, like I said, about two hours or a little less. The fan had kicked on, but wasn't pegged. I didn't open the widget to see the actual RPM's but just based on sound it seemed like it was around 4-5k, but not 6200.

It got down to single digits of percent battery life right around 5pm, so it must have known it was quitting time in more ways than one.

I'm not sure what typical use would be to get 4 hours, but I'm guessing that virtulization wouldn't be in that.

Parallels is the big suck...

Search

Search

Has anyone exchanged their MBA due to Battery issues?

stakis

macrumors member

dibara2003

macrumors 6502

stakis

macrumors member

dibara2003

macrumors 6502

stakis

macrumors member

Mhaddy

macrumors 6502

aussieinrome

macrumors regular

MarkF44

macrumors member

Shrek-Moscow

macrumors member

Sesshi

macrumors G3

pughchrism

macrumors member

stakis

macrumors member

stakis

macrumors member

peterlobl

macrumors regular

toomuchmac

macrumors member

BryanLyle

macrumors 6502a

Our Staff