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Is this bad? (PowerBook battery degredation)

joecool85

joecool85

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 9, 2005
1,355
4
Maine
Using Capacity Meter my battery on my 2 year old rev a 12" PB is checking out at 2390mAH/4600mAH (it shipped with a 4700mAH battery supposedly, oh well). That's 52% according to the program. Is that abnormal for a 2 year old battery? I mean, I don't really want to shell out the $130 yet because it is still definetly usable, I mean I can be online with airport on, iTunes, Safari, iChat etc for a solid 1.5 hours or so still. BUT, here is the big thing, I still have AppleCare on this thing, will Apple replace it?

**edit**
I was wrong, it shipped with a 47w/hr battery, not 4700mAH battery.
 
njmac

njmac

macrumors 68000
Jan 6, 2004
1,757
2
Nope. Well, you could try, but that didn't help me. My rev b 1Ghz PB 12" had a 5% capacity after 2 years. I got about 5 minutes on each charge. I couldn't get Apple to replace it so I bought a new one.

There are a lot of 12" PB rev b. PB owners who are complaining about the short battery life. Maybe some day Apple will recall them.
 
joecool85

joecool85

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 9, 2005
1,355
4
Maine
I'm not really complaining. All in all, I still get more life out of my battery on this laptop than I can on my gf's 6 month old dell.
 
A

aznsal612

macrumors member
Oct 20, 2004
55
0
joecool85 said:
I'm not really complaining. All in all, I still get more life out of my battery on this laptop than I can on my gf's 6 month old dell.
Click to expand...


No doubt. I had the Dell Inspiron 5150, which was a faulty series altogether, and I never had more than 2:20 with the lowest settings. Mind you, this was under optimal conditions (idle use).

SIGH.
 
JOD8FY

JOD8FY

macrumors 6502a
Mar 22, 2004
633
0
United States
I have the same problem. My 2 yr old battery is down to 29%. I haven't decided whether it's worth the money for a new battery yet, but it's not good when I can only get about 10 minutes of battery life....

Possibly a defect with the 12" PBs?

Good luck,
JOD8FY
 
njmac

njmac

macrumors 68000
Jan 6, 2004
1,757
2
I'm hanging on to my old battery just in case Apple decides to recall them. You never know.
 
MoparShaha

MoparShaha

Contributor
May 15, 2003
1,646
38
San Francisco
Yeah, I'm another rev. B 12" PB user who got shafted. After nearly two years, I was getting around 45 minutes, which actually sounds pretty good compared to some other people. I ended up springing for a new battery a few weeks back because I'm going back to school for fall, and they've just installed campus-wide WiFi :D.
 
joecool85

joecool85

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 9, 2005
1,355
4
Maine
JOD8FY said:
I have the same problem. My 2 yr old battery is down to 29%. I haven't decided whether it's worth the money for a new battery yet, but it's not good when I can only get about 10 minutes of battery life....

Possibly a defect with the 12" PBs?

Good luck,
JOD8FY
Click to expand...

29%, only 10 minutes? You should get at least 30-45 minutes.
 
rjphoto

rjphoto

macrumors 6502a
Mar 7, 2005
822
0
From another thread "Mac OS says battery is 99%"

(Originally posted by Applespider. forgive me if I re-posted a post incorrectly.)

In Terminal, paste the following

ioreg -w0 -l | grep Capacity

And you'll get back something like this



Quote:


| | | "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=3727,"Amperage"=0,"Cycle Count"=45,"Current"=3654,"Voltage"=12380,"Flags"=1090519045,"AbsoluteMaxCapacity"=4200})
 
M

masterapple04

macrumors regular
May 26, 2004
178
0
Massachusetts, USA
I'm sorry, but I have to throw this in, because you Rev. B people make fun of us Rev. A people all the time...

My 2-year-old Rev. A battery still lasts about two hours on a full charge, give or take 15 minutes. So, all in all, I think the Rev. B for some reason uses a fair bit more power than the Rev. A

:::end rant:::

Sorry dude, but batteries die, and manufacturers expect it. :cool:
 
joecool85

joecool85

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 9, 2005
1,355
4
Maine
Oh, I know batteries die, I just wondered since I am 2 years in and my AppleCare is still good.
 
munkle

munkle

macrumors 68030
Aug 7, 2004
2,580
1
On a jet plane
Count me in with the Rev B battery is the sux0rz crew.


"IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=970,"Amperage"=3,"Cycle Count"=234,"Current"=970,"Voltage"=12167,"Flags"=838860807,"AbsoluteMaxCapacity"=4200})
 
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