Battery "fix" at Genius Bar tonight!

[ProPedderKustom]

So I have had my MBA for 3 days now and followed battery protocol to the T, from initial charging to the complete battery calibration. However, my battery was showing a fast drop in the initial 30 minutes or so of use [well it wasn't getting the life I thought it should anyway]. I went to the Genius Bar tonight and the Genius said some type of internal power regulator had to be reset. He shut down my MBA and held down Control + Options + Power button + Shift [it spells COPS] for 20 seconds. This supposedly resets this power regulator thingy and when the computer restarted it had to reset its time and date. The Genius said to recharge my computer completely and that I should be good to go...hopefully that proves to be true. He did seem to say that Apple will be addressing our battery concerns in some form though....

[ubercool]

Originally Posted by ProPedderKustom

So I have had my MBA for 3 days now and followed battery protocol to the T, from initial charging to the complete battery calibration. However, my battery was showing a fast drop in the initial 30 minutes or so of use [well it wasn't getting the life I thought it should anyway]. I went to the Genius Bar tonight and the Genius said some type of internal power regulator had to be reset. He shut down my MBA and held down Control + Options + Power button + Shift [it spells COPS] for 20 seconds. This supposedly resets this power regulator thingy and when the computer restarted it had to reset its time and date. The Genius said to recharge my computer completely and that I should be good to go...hopefully that proves to be true. He did seem to say that Apple will be addressing our battery concerns in some form though....

Fab tip, ProPedderKustom! Will try that after I get home from my trip!

[Consultant]

That sounds like "SMU reset" or "PMU reset"

[jdcrow711]

That is on Apple's Support as resetting the system management controller.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319

[clayj]

This appears to have done the trick on my MBA... I let it fully discharge last night, and this morning when I plugged it back in and turned it on, it showed 9 hours and 20 minutes required to recharge fully. I shut down and ran the COPS procedure, and now it's showing 2 hours and 56 minutes to fully recharge.

Thanks for the excellent tip!

[richard371]

yup mine said that too last night. * hours later its at 91% i am not a happy camper.

Originally Posted by clayj

This appears to have done the trick on my MBA... I let it fully discharge last night, and this morning when I plugged it back in and turned it on, it showed 9 hours and 20 minutes required to recharge fully. I shut down and ran the COPS procedure, and now it's showing 2 hours and 56 minutes to fully recharge.

Thanks for the excellent tip!

[jameskohn]

Mine is down to 50%, and is showing 4:31 until full. I tried the reset mentioned above, both the way it was described in this thread and the way it was described in the Apple Support page. Neither one made any difference that I can tell: did not have to reset time/date, and time to fully charge is the same.

How long should it take to charge a battery from 50% to 100% by the way? And is the problem that it incorrectly indicates that it's going to take so long, or that it really does take so long?

[applestew]

I held down C-O-P-S with the C-O-S being the left sided keys. Held for 20 secs. Then waited and started the MBA. My Mac's time/clock still remained correct. Was I successful in reseting the SMC?

[fdot]

worked for me.. it had a 6 hour wait till full.. did cops , now its 2 hours

[Hankster]

Nice tip!

[Khurram]

Not working for me..I did COPS and my charge time still shows 7:15 minutes till full...any helP?

[Khurram]

Originally Posted by Khurram

Not working for me..I did COPS and my charge time still shows 7:15 minutes till full...any helP?

ten minutes later it's showing 1:56 to full charge!!
whooohooo!

[Khurram]

Great, now it's showing 5:45 till charge again! WTF is going on?!

[fdot]

yes mine is doing some strange **** 2... still about 1hour 45 minutes left

[steve31]

mine is the same way I have charged it once but it says that I am already 6 cycles in to it and my battery health is 94%. I have tried the COPS thing and it does not seem to help. My 8 month old MBP has 95% health left. Going to call apple first thing in the am.10hrs for a recharge really cripples this notebook

[BWhaler]

My battery is a mess too.

Apple's quality just gets worse and worse. $3200 spent, and it's going in for repairs in under a week.

[applestew]

Originally Posted by applestew

I held down C-O-P-S with the C-O-S being the left sided keys. Held for 20 secs. Then waited and started the MBA. My Mac's time/clock still remained correct. Was I successful in reseting the SMC?

Hi Guys,

Ehhhh after u do the COPS procedure, does ur MacBook Air's clock get reset? Mine doesn't so I haven't done it right?

[Jimmie Geddes]

Originally Posted by jameskohn

Mine is down to 50%, and is showing 4:31 until full. I tried the reset mentioned above, both the way it was described in this thread and the way it was described in the Apple Support page. Neither one made any difference that I can tell: did not have to reset time/date, and time to fully charge is the same.

How long should it take to charge a battery from 50% to 100% by the way? And is the problem that it incorrectly indicates that it's going to take so long, or that it really does take so long?

I ran my battery down to 50% was using "better performance" to do it, so it would happen faster. When I got to 50% I plugged in my charger and it says 1:26 until full.

I've had my MacBook Air since Friday Feb 2nd, and did not do the C-O-P-S procedure.

[hoyaspook]

I tried the SMC reset as described in the Apple KB article. When I turned the computer on, the time/date were still intact. I plugged the MBA in, and my charge required 10:00 hours. After a bit, it went down to 7:55.

I took the charger out, since I had like 10% battery life left, and ran it down for a bit. I plugged it back in, and my charge time had been reduced to 2:50 minutes. It quickly crept down to 2:30, and it's been going down regularly ever since.

Hope this stays. According to iStat, I'm on my 4th battery cycle in 2 days.

Do you guys think it's a hardware issue, or is it a software thing?

[shadowmatt]

This really sucks, had it since wednesday and still taking 8 hours to charge. Done the smc reset, some times when at 10% it says 2.50 to charge, but coming back a little later and it says 7.49 or around.

Think Apple have dropped the ball on this one, not like they can send out new batteries.

[petestein1]

Originally Posted by hoyaspook

According to iStat, I'm on my 4th battery cycle in 2 days.

4th cycle? That's nothing. I'm on my 13th cycle in 4.5 days. Heck, last night as I sat and worked for 2 hours it jumped from 10 to 12 cycles.

How the heck can you go through 2 cycles while sitting there using the battery for a few hours??

Something is definitely wrong.

[Khurram]

Mine is showing 8 cycles after only 5 days and I know I haven't cycled that much..my battery health is also showing 93%...I'm sure apple will rectify this either through a software update or new battery replacement...this is what you get unfortunately when being an early adopter..
I guess all we can do is hold tight for now.

Has anyone else called up apple?

[NC MacGuy]

I've had mine for more than a week now and I did a COPS, calibration, etc. last Saturday. My charge time is pretty normal in 4 hour range from zero. But my battery health varies from 93% - 97% and really is erratic. Unfortunately it's mostly 93-95% and hovers at 4800mAh. Not the happiest since my year old MB dropped to 83%. Not that the Air's battery is bad now but where will it be in a year? Best case scenario, hopefully 5.2 will remedy this. Worst case scenario, I'll use the holy crap out of it and get the battery replaced under warranty on day 364 if they don't offer a replacement program before.

[hoyaspook]

Originally Posted by Khurram

Mine is showing 8 cycles after only 5 days and I know I haven't cycled that much..my battery health is also showing 93%...I'm sure apple will rectify this either through a software update or new battery replacement...this is what you get unfortunately when being an early adopter..
I guess all we can do is hold tight for now.

Has anyone else called up apple?

I called Apple. The operator didn't seem to know much about it. I told him that I had charged my battery, and that it had taken upwards of 4 hours. He put me on hold to check whether or not that was up to hardware spec. When I said my powerbook charged quicker, he said that the Macbook Air batteries took longer.

As a solution to the battery issue, he told me to calibrate the battery. I didn't press the issue too much, since I have other things to do, and he seemed to be kind of clueless. I may call later and be more of an ass.

Anyone else have any luck?

[teerexx52]

Originally Posted by hoyaspook

I called Apple. The operator didn't seem to know much about it. I told him that I had charged my battery, and that it had taken upwards of 4 hours. He put me on hold to check whether or not that was up to hardware spec. When I said my powerbook charged quicker, he said that the Macbook Air batteries took longer.

As a solution to the battery issue, he told me to calibrate the battery. I didn't press the issue too much, since I have other things to do, and he seemed to be kind of clueless. I may call later and be more of an ass.

Anyone else have any luck?

Calling right now