2020 MBP Battery swelling?

[Fishrrman]

alex moaned:
"What do you expect me to do?"

You asked, so I'll answer.

Care for the MBP's battery this way:
1. DO NOT leave it plugged into the charger all the time.
2. 3-4 times a week, take it OFF the charger and run down the battery to 35-40%, then re-connect it.
3. EVERY NIGHT, unplug the charger from the wall outlet. Do this whether you let the MBP sleep at night, or power it down. Plug it back in, in the morning.

 

[chrfr]

alex moaned:
"What do you expect me to do?"

You asked, so I'll answer.

Care for the MBP's battery this way:
1. DO NOT leave it plugged into the charger all the time.
2. 3-4 times a week, take it OFF the charger and run down the battery to 35-40%, then re-connect it.
3. EVERY NIGHT, unplug the charger from the wall outlet. Do this whether you let the MBP sleep at night, or power it down. Plug it back in, in the morning.

That's a lot of unnecessary battery cycles.

 

[hollandog]

Apple publishes the $200 price on their website. If you're quoted $700, it's necessary to escalate it, but you should be paying $200.

I've been quoted $800 by Apple Support ($695 + tax & shipping) and $695 + tax by Apple Store. I had to run around few Apple Stores to get $200 for the fix. Good luck doing that in places where Apple Stores are 50 miles apart.

 

[chrfr]

I've been quoted $800 by Apple Support ($695 + tax & shipping) and $695 + tax by Apple Store. I had to run around few Apple Stores to get $200 for the fix. Good luck doing that in places where Apple Stores are 50 miles apart.

If you call Apple support you should be able to prearrange the repair.

 

[703541]

alex moaned:
"What do you expect me to do?"

You asked, so I'll answer.

Care for the MBP's battery this way:
1. DO NOT leave it plugged into the charger all the time.
2. 3-4 times a week, take it OFF the charger and run down the battery to 35-40%, then re-connect it.
3. EVERY NIGHT, unplug the charger from the wall outlet. Do this whether you let the MBP sleep at night, or power it down. Plug it back in, in the morning.

Apple has an article named "Maximising Battery Life and Lifespan"

The Link for the article is -

Batteries - Maximising Performance

Maximise the life and lifespan of the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries in your MacBook, iPod, iPhone and iPad.

www.apple.com

Please read this article to brush up your knowledge on lithium ion batteries.

And please stop giving archaic advice on how to care for lithium ion battery, as none of the points you mentioned are suggested or recommended by Apple in the given article.

According to that article the most important thing for extending battery lifespan is avoiding extreme ambient temperature.

 

[Fishrrman]

paranoid wrote:
"And please stop giving archaic advice on how to care for lithium ion battery, as none of the points you mentioned are suggested or recommended by Apple in the given article."

Just because Apple doesn't post it, doesn't mean it can't apply. Apple has been notably negligent throughout their history acknowledging defects and being less-than-forthright about problems with their products.

I'll continue to post my recommendations as I see fit.
If you don't like them, don't read them.

 

[hollandog]

If you call Apple support you should be able to prearrange the repair.

I did and was quoted $695 + tax and shipping. I tried another time which they quoted $200 BUT if they find additional damage caused by the battery they will adjust the bill. That sounds like just rolling a dice on your luck.

 

[RED84]

Didn’t intend for this to become a battery debate, but since it was implied my 2 month old battery became swollen because I may have kept it plugged in all the time, here we are.

All the knowledge and guidance I can find about lithium ion batteries all say the same things. Heat is a big no-no, leaving it plugged in all the time is not a danger like older battery tech was, you should try to avoid full discharges when you can, and lifespan is mainly tied to charging cycles. Often times the device you’re using will run off of wall power cutting the battery out of the equation when it’s fully charged.

If you choose to micromanage your battery that’s your choice, of course, but it’s not recommended or necessary.

 

[jerryk]

When you take/send it in. Be sure to do a backup if you have anything you do not want to lose. I would not be too surprised if they just swapped the unit rather than repair it.

 

[RED84]

When you take/send it in. Be sure to do a backup if you have anything you do not want to lose. I would not be too surprised if they just swapped the unit rather than repair it.

Yes, I do keep regular time machine backups and keep most of my important files backed up in cloud storage, So if they do swap me out I should be good. Being so new I didn’t really fill it up with much. Thanks!

 

[Sedulous]

I’m pretty confident that using it charged most of the time isn’t detrimental. A lot of the advice to the contrary here seems to be older ways of thinking about older Battery technology and times when the OS didn’t manage it through trickle charging and other means. Everything official I’ve read supports this and only comments on forums seem to not agree and only have personal anecdotes to support them.

Staying at 100% (or near it) for a long time is bad for lipo battery. Something to do with polarization. Charge uptake is most efficient between 30-80% with the last 20% being harder on the battery. I remember seeing a video about the chemistry and why lipo loses capacity (it basically develops little shorts that pass through the electrolyte). Tesla and perhaps Apple actually “hide” that last 20% so charging does not hit that inefficient part of the cycle.

 

[UBS28]

Totally agree.

How can the charging behaviour of a user blamed for a SWOLLEN battery in a consumer electronic product.
BATTERY HEALTH [The Maximum amount of charge a battery can hold] may be affected by the way a user charge.
But a SWOLLEN BATTERY is clearly a defect no matter how a user charges his/her electronics.

Blaming a user for a SWOLLEN BATTERY and asking them if they always use their laptop plugged in is totally uncalled for.

I agree. I have had many devices with batteries and only with the latest MacBook pro’s I have experienced swollen batteries.

 

[chrfr]

I agree. I have had many devices with batteries and only with the latest MacBook pro’s I have experienced swollen batteries.

I’ve dealt with Dells and Thinkpads at work with swollen batteries and I’ve seen swollen batteries in iPods and older Apple laptops too. Swelling is common in all kinds of lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries when they fail.

 

[UBS28]

I’ve dealt with Dells and Thinkpads at work with swollen batteries and I’ve seen swollen batteries in iPods and older Apple laptops too. Swelling is common in all kinds of lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries when they fail.

Not with mine. None of my iPads, iPhone, older gen MacBook Pro’s, HP’s, Dell’s, Lenovo laptops, .....

Only the 2018 15” MBP had a swollen battery despite not being used the most on a charger relative to other devices. So I’m sure Apple did something with the latest generation of MacBook Pro’s that causes it to swell more than other devices.

 

[lobo1978]

I’ve heard plenty of advice that modern batteries aren’t negatively affected by constant charging, and it is in fact the amount of cycles that are more detrimental.

It is exactly opposite 😂.
My opinion is based on +15 years of my hands on experience.

When you “save” cycles you are accelerating battery deterioration. Batteries chemistry cause them to slowly deteriorate starting with the moment of production, whether they are used or not.

3 years old battery with 100 cycles is a junk comparing to 3 years old battery and 300-500 cycles.

 

[Merode]

That's a lot of unnecessary battery cycles.

That's what I did with my late 2013 13" and the battery lasted me 5 years.

 

[RED84]

It is exactly opposite 😂.
My opinion is based on +15 years of my hands on experience.

When you “save” cycles you are accelerating battery deterioration. Batteries chemistry cause them to slowly deteriorate starting with the moment of production, whether they are used or not.

3 years old battery with 100 cycles is a junk comparing to 3 years old battery and 300-500 cycles.

thanks for the input! Can you please provide sources? I’d like to read up on it more.

can you also comment on how the other technologies are involved, such as trickle charging, OS battery management, etc? Everyone seems to be talking about how having it charged all the time means the needle is pinned at 100%, which would seem to be bad, but isn’t actually the case.

 

[chrfr]

That's what I did with my late 2013 13" and the battery lasted me 5 years.

I did nothing like it and got 5 years out of a 15" late 2013. There's nothing but anecdotal data that anything is better than anything else here.

 

[hollandog]

Just adding to the data. My 2011 13" MBP still working perfectly with under 300 cycles and 80%+ health good condition. Docked most of the time and no swelling. The new macs have extremely poor ventilation to make them thinner. Look at all these threads about how hot their laptops get. I think the heat is the major issue how easily these new batteries get swollen.

 

[macagain]

Just adding to the data. My 2011 13" MBP still working perfectly with under 300 cycles and 80%+ health good condition. Docked most of the time and no swelling. The new macs have extremely poor ventilation to make them thinner. Look at all these threads about how hot their laptops get. I think the heat is the major issue how easily these new batteries get swollen.

I was just thinking about the heat issue as well. I'd think that most people that use it plugged in all the time also have it hooked up to external monitors which really does make it run quite a bit hotter. In my case (2018 15), running with 2 external 4k's, it easily runs about 15-20F consistently than w/o.

That being said, the battery on my 2011 15" ended up swelling. At that time, it'd basically been plugged in for several months w/o being used at all.

Who knows... my belief is the combo of being constantly in a fully charged state and the heat are definitely at play.

 

[raymanh]

paranoid wrote:
"And please stop giving archaic advice on how to care for lithium ion battery, as none of the points you mentioned are suggested or recommended by Apple in the given article."

Just because Apple doesn't post it, doesn't mean it can't apply. Apple has been notably negligent throughout their history acknowledging defects and being less-than-forthright about problems with their products.

I'll continue to post my recommendations as I see fit.
If you don't like them, don't read them.

Where have gotten this advice? Any sources? Any research? So much of battery advice is just either anecdotal, left over knowledge from older battery technologies or gained from some random article read a while ago. I know I'd rather adhere to Apple's official advice which is very likely based off research and having considerable amounts of data on the issues.

As others have said I'm not sure why there's so much user blaming when it comes to poor battery health/swelling. Sure poor user habits could reduce battery health but unless the user is subjecting it to extremes in temperature, as Apple warns against, then there's no excuse for swelling. The likely fact is that it's simply a faulty battery.

If that's not enough, and you want some anecdotal evidence, my 2016 Pro with original battery has 674 cycles, 85% health (according to coconutbattery) and I almost always have it plugged in all day, and ALWAYS plugged in overnight. No issues. Still great battery life. It appears some of you would call it a miracle that my battery isn't swollen 😂.

 

[hollandog]

I was just thinking about the heat issue as well. I'd think that most people that use it plugged in all the time also have it hooked up to external monitors which really does make it run quite a bit hotter. In my case (2018 15), running with 2 external 4k's, it easily runs about 15-20F consistently than w/o.

That being said, the battery on my 2011 15" ended up swelling. At that time, it'd basically been plugged in for several months w/o being used at all.

Who knows... my belief is the combo of being constantly in a fully charged state and the heat are definitely at play.

When I was googling on swollen batteries most cases were 2016+ MBP and 2013-2015 cases. Could be Google was showing more recent results or more people brought it up now but I feel it's definitely getting more common as the MBP keep getting thinner.

 

[macagain]

Where have gotten this advice? Any sources? Any research? So much of battery advice is just either anecdotal, left over knowledge from older battery technologies or gained from some random article read a while ago. I know I'd rather adhere to Apple's official advice which is very likely based off research and having considerable amounts of data on the issues.

As others have said I'm not sure why there's so much user blaming when it comes to poor battery health/swelling. Sure poor user habits could reduce battery health but unless the user is subjecting it to extremes in temperature, as Apple warns against, then there's no excuse for swelling. The likely fact is that it's simply a faulty battery.

If that's not enough, and you want some anecdotal evidence, my 2016 Pro with original battery has 674 cycles, 85% health (according to coconutbattery) and I almost always have it plugged in all day, and ALWAYS plugged in overnight. No issues. Still great battery life. It appears some of you would call it a miracle that my battery isn't swollen 😂.

Hmm... 674 cycles over 4 years, which is roughly 170 cycles every 365 days, or roughly gets cycled every 2-3 days... doesn't quite compute with "almost always plugged in all day".

My 2018 15 stayed plugged in (w/ 2 4k's) except when i travel which is maybe about 40-45 days a year, when it runs on battery maybe 1/2 of each day. It only had about 80ish cycles after 2 years. It swelled.

My 2013 15 was fine the first couple of years when I ran it the same way, but with only 1 cinema display. I then switched to 2 4k's (when it ran much hotter than just 1 cinema display) and after about 18 months or so, it swelled.

Again, just anecdotal evidence I'd say. I'm now using AlDente set at 55%, and no travel for the forseeable future... so, I guess I'll report back in a couple of years...

 

[lobo1978]

thanks for the input! Can you please provide sources? I’d like to read up on it more.

There is battery university website. Google that for more information on LiIon chemistry.
Other posters pointed out temperature which is critical for battery health. Apple website on general battery handling explain that as well.
My suggestion would be: If you can afford that, just follow one “School” and collect your own experience.

 

[alexjholland]

alex moaned:
"What do you expect me to do?"

You asked, so I'll answer.

Care for the MBP's battery this way:
1. DO NOT leave it plugged into the charger all the time.
2. 3-4 times a week, take it OFF the charger and run down the battery to 35-40%, then re-connect it.
3. EVERY NIGHT, unplug the charger from the wall outlet. Do this whether you let the MBP sleep at night, or power it down. Plug it back in, in the morning.

I'm a freelance sales copywriter. My time = money.

It makes more financial sense for me to buy a new battery every two years than dick around stroking my electronics and hoping they last longer.

Don't assume everyone else is running the same penny-pinching economics as you and try to patronise them.