How to preserve battery

cool11 · Feb 10, 2007

I just bought a new mbp and I wonder how to use it in order to preserve battery from bad use.

I had pc laptops in the past and I all I did is to have them connected to the socket all the time. No special care about their batteries.
Disconnection happened only when I had to travel.
Is this safe to do it with macbook pro too?

What do I have to know and what do I have to do in order to have my battery in good condition for years to come?

topicolo · Feb 10, 2007

Officially, the best possible state for lithium ion batteries is to leave them at about 40% charge at room temp or lower. Keeping them inside of the laptop exposes them to higher temperatures that speeds up the chemical degradation process that begins the moment the batteries are manufactured. I've kept my laptop's batteries separate from my ibook whenever it's parked on the desk and 3.5 years later, Coconutbattery says that it's still at 98% of original capacity and that I've only gone through 36 charge cycles--practically brand new.

66217 · Feb 10, 2007

topicolo said:
Officially, the best possible state for lithium ion batteries is to leave them at about 40% charge at room temp or lower. Keeping them inside of the laptop exposes them to higher temperatures that speeds up the chemical degradation process that begins the moment the batteries are manufactured. I've kept my laptop's batteries separate from my ibook whenever it's parked on the desk and 3.5 years later, Coconutbattery says that it's still at 98% of original capacity and that I've only gone through 36 charge cycles--practically brand new.

Even though this is true, it is a pain to be taking the battery out every time.

I've had my battery for about 6 months and it is still at 99% capacity. I give it a normal use: at mornings I use it without a charger at college, and at evening I have it the rest of the time connected to the wall. There is nothing wrong at doing this, the battery would stop charging when it charges completely.

The best advice is to use your MBP normally, don't care a lot about the battery (just make the normal calibration every 1-2 months). The worst that can happens is that you would need to buy a new one in 2-3 years. When you will probably would be thinking of buying a new Mac.

Roco,

bellychris · Feb 10, 2007

apple's advice http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

cool11 · Feb 10, 2007

How you make calibration of battery?

I see two numbers in the place it display the info about battery. 98% and 100%. What does these two numbers mean?

66217 · Feb 10, 2007

cool11 said:
How you make calibration of battery?

I see two numbers in the place it display the info about battery. 98% and 100%. What does these two numbers mean?

If you are using Coconut Battery: the first one means the amount of charge the battery has. the second is the maximum capacity. This last one can be misleading if you don't make a calibration of the battery.

To make a calibration see the manual of your MB/MBP. It is simple.

1- Charge completely the battery.
2- Disconnect from wall and use it to the point the Mac turns forces itself to sleep mode.
3- Leave it 1-2 hrs like that,
4- Charge it completely again (without tuning it on).

bousozoku · Feb 10, 2007

topicolo said:
Officially, the best possible state for lithium ion batteries is to leave them at about 40% charge at room temp or lower. Keeping them inside of the laptop exposes them to higher temperatures that speeds up the chemical degradation process that begins the moment the batteries are manufactured. I've kept my laptop's batteries separate from my ibook whenever it's parked on the desk and 3.5 years later, Coconutbattery says that it's still at 98% of original capacity and that I've only gone through 36 charge cycles--practically brand new.

I was in a similar situation and my PowerBook just turned 2 years old. I was at 36 charges and 94 %.

I did a calibration after being on the road during Christmas and now, it's showing 88 % with 37 loadcycles, which is more likely due to age and use.

smueboy · Feb 10, 2007

Roco said:
3- Leave it 1-2 hrs like that,
4- Charge it completely again (without tuning it on).

3. Apple says leave it for at least 5 hours.
4. Leave connected until fully charged, but you can use it at this stage:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284

Nuks · Feb 10, 2007

Roco said:
Even though this is true, it is a pain to be taking the battery out every time.

I've had my battery for about 6 months and it is still at 99% capacity. I give it a normal use: at mornings I use it without a charger at college, and at evening I have it the rest of the time connected to the wall. There is nothing wrong at doing this, the battery would stop charging when it charges completely.

The best advice is to use your MBP normally, don't care a lot about the battery (just make the normal calibration every 1-2 months). The worst that can happens is that you would need to buy a new one in 2-3 years. When you will probably would be thinking of buying a new Mac.

Roco,

Wow, that's crazy. I've had mine for 5 months, same usage as you and it's at 77%.

e12a · Feb 10, 2007

Calibrate once a month

Discharge (cycle) at least twice a week.

4 months old and 99% capacity (5455).

Silentwave · Feb 10, 2007

Please remember, you should keep the battery in at all times. The macbook Pro uses the battery to compensate for voltage spikes that could damage the processor etc.

Removing the battery instantly downclocks the processor cores to 1GHz and they will NOT change their speed.

cool11 · Feb 18, 2007

e12a said:
Calibrate once a month

Discharge (cycle) at least twice a week.

4 months old and 99% capacity (5455).

I am not sure I understood the difference between calibration and discharging. Is it the time I wait until I use the machine again?

If i discharge and then charge, is this calibrations process?

I have no problem pull the power cord off.
Untill now I have my mbp always connected and yesterday it was 98, today is 97%, tomorrow maybe will be 96%. Is this normal?

Is it good to discharge every week?

blackscooby · Feb 18, 2007

I'm now at 88%

63 load cycles and 9 months old.

Is there any way I can get the 12% back ?
I've followed the calibration a number of times and I always seem to loose and not gain !

Habusho · Feb 18, 2007

Silentwave said:
Please remember, you should keep the battery in at all times. The macbook Pro uses the battery to compensate for voltage spikes that could damage the processor etc.

Removing the battery instantly downclocks the processor cores to 1GHz and they will NOT change their speed.

I've never heard this before. Where did you hear this?

e12a · Feb 18, 2007

cool11 said:
I am not sure I understood the difference between calibration and discharging. Is it the time I wait until I use the machine again?

If i discharge and then charge, is this calibrations process?

I have no problem pull the power cord off.
Untill now I have my mbp always connected and yesterday it was 98, today is 97%, tomorrow maybe will be 96%. Is this normal?

Is it good to discharge every week?

discharging doesnt necessarily require draining the battery completely, but enough to add one cycle to the battery. This can be monitored by either Coconut battery or iStat. Calibration requires discharging the battery, but they are not the same. Calibration is all about calibrating the onboard chip. Discharging is just "flexing" the battery cells and is usually done in regular use (unplugged).

Silentwave · Feb 18, 2007

Habusho said:
I've never heard this before. Where did you hear this?

it's been posted several times, I think there was also something on apple's site, plus if you use a CPU monitoring utility you can see it happen.

TheCreeper · Feb 18, 2007

weird my brand new MB shows (from Coconut):

CURRENT BATTERY CHARGE= 4984
MAXIMUM BATTERY CHARGE= 5009
99%

CURRENT BATTERY CAPACITY= 5009
ORIGINAL BATTERY CAPACITY= 5200
96%

BATTERY LOAD CYCLES= 1
AGE OF YOUR MAC= 2WKS
CHARGER CONNECTED= YES
BATTERY IS CHARGING= NO

does this seem right?

my 2.5yr old iBook G4 battery does not charge anymore. The second its unplugged it goes into sleep within 10 seconds. i only discharged that battery once (the day I brought it home). it started to do this last month. so the battery slowly started to lose its ability to hold a charge. now it does not charge.

CedarPoint182 · Feb 28, 2007

Just to clarify, if your battery is at 60% after being mobile with it, is it better to let the battery completely drain and then charge it, or is it better to plug it in at its current state?

e12a · Feb 28, 2007

CedarPoint182 said:
Just to clarify, if your battery is at 60% after being mobile with it, is it better to let the battery completely drain and then charge it, or is it better to plug it in at its current state?

It doesnt hurt, because Li-Ion batteries do not have a "memory" issue found in Ni-MH batteries, which affects the total capacity of the battery.

but you also need to cycle the cells (near to complete discharge) to keep the battery healthy.

cool11 · Mar 18, 2007

I disconnected mbp from power and it run out of battery.
No it is charged again but it does not display two numbers, only one(100%).
Why this happened, how can I revert it to display two numbers(current charge & 100%)?

sycho · Mar 18, 2007

Silentwave said:
Please remember, you should keep the battery in at all times. The macbook Pro uses the battery to compensate for voltage spikes that could damage the processor etc.

Simply untrue. The power adapter is a switching power supply, which are extremely stable, even during brownouts and what not. The supply works by converting the incoming 120Volts AC to 120Volts DC, then the internal circuitry then will "switch" the 120Volts DC at extremely high frequencies through (small) transformers, which is then rectified and regulated to the desired voltage. This is why the power supply is much much smaller and more efficient then a standard linear power supply.

Removing the battery instantly downclocks the processor cores to 1GHz and they will NOT change their speed.

This is 100% true, I can verify this and I have even made a thread regarding it.

cool11 · Jun 3, 2007

Please believe me, all this time I read so many opinions about battery life and health.
Still I do not know what to believe and what is the best practice to follow.
Every user seem to do different things about the battery.

I do not know what to do.

Disconnect the mbp once a week and use it until the battery runs out of power?

Just use it on connected to the socket all the time?

After reading your posts, at first I decided to unplug the power cord once in a week. But then I thought, why drain battery without any reason?

From the other hand, I have my mbp connected 3 weeks now and from 99% I see 96%. If it continue like that, in a few weeks I will see my battery about 80%.

Why cant I take a right decision? Of course I will buy a battery sometime in the future but I want to preserve it as much as I can. I use to take care of all my computers, especially now that I have a superb mpb.

Why cant we have a clear guide about it, the majority of us?

thejadedmonkey · Jun 3, 2007

Guys, just use your batteries how you want to. When they die, get a new one. you have superb MBP's and part of them is a 3+ hour battery life. Use it how ever you want, and then get a new one in a few years.

It's what I do

How to preserve battery

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