2012 11" Air Battery Deteriorating Rapidly

[MacBassPlayer]

Hi,
I have a 2012 11" Air (2ghz i7, 8gb RAM, 128gb) that has, until today been running fine. I know, with the machine getting older, it was going to eventually need a battery replacement, but today made it evident. A few weeks ago, I checked the battery health and it showed roughly 80 percent at 1280 cycles. This morning, I unplugged it (after charging overnight) and noticed that the battery life was decreasing about a percent a minute (even sitting on the desktop with just a word doc open). I checked the health again and it shows it at 64 percent. I'm not sure what to think of this.

I assume it's just a lemon battery, but I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem.

 

[motrek]

Hi,
I have a 2012 11" Air (2ghz i7, 8gb RAM, 128gb) that has, until today been running fine. I know, with the machine getting older, it was going to eventually need a battery replacement, but today made it evident. A few weeks ago, I checked the battery health and it showed roughly 80 percent at 1280 cycles. This morning, I unplugged it (after charging overnight) and noticed that the battery life was decreasing about a percent a minute (even sitting on the desktop with just a word doc open). I checked the health again and it shows it at 64 percent. I'm not sure what to think of this.

I assume it's just a lemon battery, but I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem.

Saying that the computer was just sitting there with a Word document open isn't necessarily a good description of what the computer was doing, since any one of a million things might have been running in the background taking up CPU (and thus battery) power.

Next time you see the charge decreasing so quickly, best to open Activity Monitor and see what's really going on.

If the battery really is getting old and bad though, Apple will replace it for a pretty reasonable fee (I believe $129?) or you could try doing it yourself. People sell batteries on eBay for cheap and if you have the right screwdriver, they're easy to replace. Although you might not want to risk getting a questionable eBay battery.

 

[Mrbobb]

U get a 1,000 cycles out of the battery, u already got your money worth.

At the end of ANY rechargeable battery's life, they really die precipitously and don't expect the "needle" to slop off nicely.

How much longer were you expecting the battery to last you?

 

[MacBassPlayer]

Saying that the computer was just sitting there with a Word document open isn't necessarily a good description of what the computer was doing, since any one of a million things might have been running in the background taking up CPU (and thus battery) power.

Sorry, I was writing this rather late. I should have specified. I did check the activity monitor and there wasn't anything eating up CPU power (minimum background programs).

U get a 1,000 cycles out of the battery, u already got your money worth.

At the end of ANY rechargeable battery's life, they really die precipitously and don't expect the "needle" to slop off nicely.

How much longer were you expecting the battery to last you?

Honestly, I expected to replace it sometime in the next year, but I've never had a battery die this quickly (my previous Macbook Pros still had roughly 79 percent or more left in them when I replaced the battery or sold them)