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What does calibrating do? I've never calibrated mine and have pretty good battery health.

Pretty much just makes sure the readings you get are accurate, and that it displays the proper health signs, doesnt improve battery life, just gives better indications of it's true health
 
My mac is at 31 months just got another apple battery for my macbook pro early 08
and
97 charges
current capacity 5052
Design Capacity 5500

i get 2 hours tops if that much.
I have done everything your told to do to get full life out of your battery and still get almost 2 hours. Battery is maybe 4 months old.
 
i get 2 hours tops if that much.
I have done everything your told to do to get full life out of your battery and still get almost 2 hours. Battery is maybe 4 months old.
What apps are you running? Screen brightness? Widgets? Websites with Flash? Playing audio or video files? Bus-powered devices attached? There are many things that affect life from a charge.
 
What does calibrating do? I've never calibrated mine and have pretty good battery health.

basically, if your laptop says that it has like 25% battery remaining for example, and then it just turns off dead because ithas ran out of power. it'll fix that, batteries over time start to loose there capacity, and there is a little chip inside the battery which usually monitors this, but sometimes it can go a little bit funky and not get it quite right calibratng allows the capacity to be acurately read :D

people say to do it once a month but i usually do it every 3 months at most, because running a battery right down then charging it damages it slightly, so i think doing it once a month would damage the battery (i could be wrong but all my batteries have lasted well over there expect life, my powerbook G4 which i got rid of in '07 had over 1,500 cycles at 35% health remaining)
 
people say to do it once a month but i usually do it every 3 months at most, because running a battery right down then charging it damages it slightly....
I run it down to about 5%. I had no idea that this was bad. I just use my MBP (bought 6 months ago) and then charge it when it gets that low.
 
Do I have a need to be concerned?
 

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What apps are you running? Screen brightness? Widgets? Websites with Flash? Playing audio or video files? Bus-powered devices attached? There are many things that affect life from a charge.

Nope just web surfing and sometimes burning a CD, but very rarely. I have early 2008 macbook pro 2.6ghz 4gb ram 200 gb HD.
I went to apple store today and they gave me a brand new battery 99$ value.
So I am happy enough. Also do they ever reply to the customer surveys that we respond to after a apple apt. ?
 
i use mine quite a lot everyday. noticed this week it doesnt give me a warning before it shuts off out of power
about 2 years old now
1226 cycles
51% health
its dropped from 81% to 51% overnight :eek: its mental how many cycles i went thru. and some of you are still on like 96% after having it the same time
oh dear
Picture1-28.png

overnight its gone down to 46%. power consumption is 15.8 watts

gonna have to buy a new one. apple store is really expensive. £99
any cheaper places to get it?
dont want anything other than genuine apple one though.
i bought an alternative battery for my ibook years ago and it was awful
 
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Nope just web surfing and sometimes burning a CD, but very rarely. I have early 2008 macbook pro 2.6ghz 4gb ram 200 gb HD.
I went to apple store today and they gave me a brand new battery 99$ value.
So I am happy enough. Also do they ever reply to the customer surveys that we respond to after a apple apt. ?

they gave you one for free? what did you say to them?
 
My Coconut battery and System Profiler match up completly. Both are completely accurate with eachother.
 
Well I have to say now that I truly believe battery life is as much luck of the draw as anything.

My new battery with the same use as the old one (read back further last one had awesome life but started swelling) after 18months and 562 cycles has dropped to 58% capacity. Just to refresh my old one had over 700 cycles and over 90% capacity.
 
i use mine quite a lot everyday. noticed this week it doesnt give me a warning before it shuts off out of power
about 2 years old now
1226 cycles
51% health
its dropped from 81% to 51% overnight :eek: its mental how many cycles i went thru. and some of you are still on like 96% after having it the same time
oh dear
Picture1-28.png

overnight its gone down to 46%. power consumption is 15.8 watts

gonna have to buy a new one. apple store is really expensive. £99
any cheaper places to get it?
dont want anything other than genuine apple one though.
i bought an alternative battery for my ibook years ago and it was awful


I wouldnt recommend after market batteries for macs.
 
i use mine quite a lot everyday. noticed this week it doesnt give me a warning before it shuts off out of power
about 2 years old now
1226 cycles
51% health
its dropped from 81% to 51% overnight :eek: its mental how many cycles i went thru. and some of you are still on like 96% after having it the same time
oh dear
Picture1-28.png

overnight its gone down to 46%. power consumption is 15.8 watts

gonna have to buy a new one. apple store is really expensive. £99
any cheaper places to get it?
dont want anything other than genuine apple one though.
i bought an alternative battery for my ibook years ago and it was awful

you have over 1000 cycles... its not uncommon for such a low health %. the system could be reading it wrong before. I know my jumps around 55% and 90%.
 
So the most accurate reading is via System Profiler??

What does this show you? (sorry I havent got my MBP with me right now!).
Does it show the battery health etc??

I think my cycles are at around 120, and health is 94% (using iStat widget).
Im a little concerned its that low especially since my MBP is only around 9 months old, and I calibrate regularly.

Mine is always on my desk, should I wait until its under 10% before I charge, or are you supposed to always keep it topped up?
 
What exactly is a charge cycle??
Some people have had their systems a year and have only 40-50 cycles???

I dont consider myself to be a high user, but have over 100 cycles in 9 months!
 
is over-calibration is harmful?

When my battery dies, I plug it in and charge it, use it until the battery dies, and this process goes on forever.....

is this considered "calibrating" my battery? If so, is this bad since I run out of battery every day or two; hence, im calibrating my battery every other day instead of once a month?

Apple says calibrating your battery requires you to leave it without power for 5 hours. Does this mean what I am doing is not harmful to my battery?

Nothing is "harmful" to your battery per se. "Calibration" doesn't affect the health of your battery, it just affects whether what the computer displays is correct or not. Obviously each time you use up a battery charge one of your 1000 charges that the battery is supposed to last is gone. So if you use your MacBook somewhere where the power charger is near, you should use it with power plugged in. Otherwise you just waste your charges.


What exactly is a charge cycle??
Some people have had their systems a year and have only 40-50 cycles???

I dont consider myself to be a high user, but have over 100 cycles in 9 months!

Depends on how much you use the MacBook at your desk, or on the sofa, with the charger plugged in, and how much you use it away from home or not plugged in. And depends on how much you use websites with Flash because Flash eats batteries :)

But the MacBook batteries are supposed to do 1000 charges. At your current rate you won't do that in five years.

I wouldnt recommend after market batteries for macs.

I bought one for my old MacBook. It was a lot cheaper than an Apple one. It looked absolutely identical, including all the Apple-related writing that was on the old battery. It didn't last very long, though. The old MacBook is now on a table besides the sofa, cable plugged in permanently. Works fine apart from that.
 
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Depends on how much you use the MacBook at your desk, or on the sofa, with the charger plugged in, and how much you use it away from home or not plugged in. And depends on how much you use websites with Flash because Flash eats batteries :)

But the MacBook batteries are supposed to do 1000 charges. At your current rate you won't do that in five years.

Ah - damn Youtube!!
Ive only just discovered 'ClickToFlash', so Im using that now and am seeing the battery last much longer then before! Hopefully that'll reduce charge cycles!
 
this is from a unibody MacBook (MacBook 5,1). its removable battery is rated for 45mAh and to retain 80% capacity after 300 cycles.

as you can see after a little less than 2 years it has about 88% of capacity after 500 cycles:
 

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What exactly is a charge cycle??
Some people have had their systems a year and have only 40-50 cycles???

I dont consider myself to be a high user, but have over 100 cycles in 9 months!

From Apple Notebook Battery FAQ mentioned above:

WHAT IS A CYCLE?
Determining Battery Cycle Count
A charge cycle means using all of the battery’s power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a single charge. For instance, you could use your notebook for an hour or more one day, using half its power, and then recharge it fully. If you did the same thing the next day, it would count as one charge cycle, not two, so you may take several days to complete a cycle.
So a cycle could be draining the battery all the way and recharging, or draining/recharging it 25% four times, or draining/recharging 10% ten times, etc.​

How many cycles you use over a given time depends entirely on your usage. Someone who uses they computer away from power all the time and drains the battery every day will accumulate a lot more battery cycles than someone who typically uses it connected to the power outlet and only occasionally runs from the battery.

I figure the battery is a consumable that needs replacing every two or three years. Just figure that into your carrying costs of owning the computer.

If you've seen 100 cycles in nine months, then you should be good for another six years or so until you hit the 1000 cycle mark. :)
 
I mainly use my MBP at the desk. Is it better to connect it to the power most of the time then??
 
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