80% Battery after 346 cycles, covered under AppleCare?

[davidg4781]

So I was talking to a friend of mine about whether to keep our MBs plugged in or not. On Apple's site it says the battery's designed to deliver 1000 charge cycles before reaching 80%.

I'm at 80% right now with only 346 charge cycles. Is this covered under AppleCare?

I'm covered until August but I'd like to make sure if it's covered it gets taken care of. Anyone have experience with this?

 

[blueroom]

Nope, mines the same. It's normal.

Designed to deliver is not the same as guaranteed to deliver.

 

[Macman45]

The battery needs to drop below 80% for Apple to entertain a replacement.

Things you can do:

Clear and re-set your PRAM by holding down CMD+OPTION on boot up.

Re-set your SMC:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

Use the MBP until the battery goes TOTALLY dead and the machine shuts down, then re-charge.

 

[Nautilus007]

take it in if it bothers you, let them know show them that in writing and flat out ask for a replacement, the worst that happens is they say no.

 

[M5RahuL]

The capacity fluctuates/varies every time you charge. The battery looks normal/healthy to me!

Applecare would only cover the battery if it has any manufacturing defect [ like swells up, health goes down at an unusual rate, .. etc ].

Otherwise, battery replacement is an out of pocket expense!

 

[davidg4781]

The capacity fluctuates/varies every time you charge. The battery looks normal/healthy to me!

Applecare would only cover the battery if it has any manufacturing defect [ like swells up, health goes down at an unusual rate, .. etc ].

Otherwise, battery replacement is an out of pocket expense!

That's what I thought. They've replaced a couple of swelling batteries on my old CD MB in the past. I just happened to stumble across that page and realized I'm right on the edge of what the battery was "designed" to do.

I'm not out to cheat them or anything, but I did pay for AppleCare and if this is covered I'd want them to fix it.

I'll take it in maybe next week and see what happens.

 

[M5RahuL]

Take it in.. like someone else said... the worse they can do is deny a free replacement!

Also, I'm not sure how far you are from Ft Worth, but the Apple store staff on University Blvd is pretty cool to deal with! They never gave me a hard time with replacements .. Of course, that was over a year ago [ moved to CO ] and things/staff might have changed!

Goodluck!

... Waiting for GGJ to chime in...

 

[GGJstudios]

So I was talking to a friend of mine about whether to keep our MBs plugged in or not. On Apple's site it says the battery's designed to deliver 1000 charge cycles before reaching 80%.

I'm at 80% right now with only 346 charge cycles. Is this covered under AppleCare?

Batteries are not covered for normal depletion, only manufacturing defects. For details, read the link below. It's not a good idea to keep your MBP plugged in all the time, as that can shorten battery life. Run on battery whenever you need to and plug it in whenever you can. You can plug or unplug any time you need to, regardless of the charged percentage, and you never need to completely drain your battery. Just make sure you don't run on AC power exclusively, as your battery needs to be used regularly to stay healthy. The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[davidg4781]

Thanks. I "try" to keep it plugged in most of the time, but it's usually when I'm at work and the MBP's asleep or when I'm in bed and I'm listening to a podcast or something.

Usually when I get home from work I'll grab it and use it while sitting on the couch or at the table and unplugged. Hope that doesn't count as being plugged in all the time.

As for Apple Store, I've been taking it to North Star Mall in San Antonio. I was going to La Cantera but wasn't happy with how they repaired my last MB and when I went to North Star they were great.

 

[M5RahuL]

Thanks. I "try" to keep it plugged in most of the time, but it's usually when I'm at work and the MBP's asleep or when I'm in bed and I'm listening to a podcast or something.

Usually when I get home from work I'll grab it and use it while sitting on the couch or at the table and unplugged. Hope that doesn't count as being plugged in all the time.

As for Apple Store, I've been taking it to North Star Mall in San Antonio. I was going to La Cantera but wasn't happy with how they repaired my last MB and when I went to North Star they were great.

Oh man... you're ways off from Ft Worth lol ...

And, I too leave it plugged in [whenever possible] and then my fiance will walk in, unplug it and use it till the battery dips to single digits!!

So, I don't have to worry about using the battery as much lol.. But, it's always good for the battery to get a little occasional work-out

 

[el-John-o]

Li-Po battery technologies work a little bit differently than previous battery technologies (Well, current battery technologies in the PC world, they still haven't quite decided to move into the 21st century with batteries).

LiPo batteries will have a gradual, yet fairly quick drop off down to around 80-85% capacity. Then they will hold this capacity for a great amount of time (this is what makes them so good, they hold most of their capacity for a really long time). THEN, they will start to drop off very rapidly towards the end of their life and fail completely. This 'stair step' way of losing capacity is sometimes confusing when you are used to the gradual loss of capacity over time like with a Li-Ion battery, but it is normal.

For the record, even though a LiPo will drop off very rapidly at the end of it's life, that point at which it begins to drop below 80% is generally hundreds of cycles after a Li-Ion battery has failed completely. Some people have said that LiPo's either work, or they don't. There is no middle ground, and that's mostly true!

If it were me, I wouldn't worry about it. That SMC utility is not the tell-all end-all, it can be inaccurate. It's likely going to hover around 80% for a long time. The real tell is how long your battery actually lasts in your daily use. I suspect it's still close to where it was when new, and I suspect it will remain close to where it's at now for another several hundred or even 1,000 cycles.

 

[Macman45]

Li-Po battery technologies work a little bit differently than previous battery technologies (Well, current battery technologies in the PC world, they still haven't quite decided to move into the 21st century with batteries).

LiPo batteries will have a gradual, yet fairly quick drop off down to around 80-85% capacity. Then they will hold this capacity for a great amount of time (this is what makes them so good, they hold most of their capacity for a really long time). THEN, they will start to drop off very rapidly towards the end of their life and fail completely. This 'stair step' way of losing capacity is sometimes confusing when you are used to the gradual loss of capacity over time like with a Li-Ion battery, but it is normal.

For the record, even though a LiPo will drop off very rapidly at the end of it's life, that point at which it begins to drop below 80% is generally hundreds of cycles after a Li-Ion battery has failed completely. Some people have said that LiPo's either work, or they don't. There is no middle ground, and that's mostly true!

If it were me, I wouldn't worry about it. That SMC utility is not the tell-all end-all, it can be inaccurate. It's likely going to hover around 80% for a long time. The real tell is how long your battery actually lasts in your daily use. I suspect it's still close to where it was when new, and I suspect it will remain close to where it's at now for another several hundred or even 1,000 cycles.

True, but the re-set is worth a shot if it's been plugged in most of the time. My MBA runs at 94% and the TRUE measure is how long the battery lasts when run right down...I still get nearly 7 hours...Good enough on a machine that gets used ( as now) all the time. I sold my big MBP because It was just too heavy to go on a laptop tray!

 

[davidg4781]

True, but the re-set is worth a shot if it's been plugged in most of the time. My MBA runs at 94% and the TRUE measure is how long the battery lasts when run right down...I still get nearly 7 hours...Good enough on a machine that gets used ( as now) all the time. I sold my big MBP because It was just too heavy to go on a laptop tray!

How do you measure how long it lasts? Just unplug it and use it all day?

I can maybe do that on a day off but I don't think I can use it constantly, like when I'm doing stuff around the apartment or whatever. I do multitask... listen or read something online while cooking, so it'll be used then.

 

[blueroom]

It looks completely normal, just use your MBP as you always do. In a couple of years if you still have it splurge on a new battery (but get a SSD first!)

 

[el-John-o]

True, but the re-set is worth a shot if it's been plugged in most of the time. My MBA runs at 94% and the TRUE measure is how long the battery lasts when run right down...I still get nearly 7 hours...Good enough on a machine that gets used ( as now) all the time. I sold my big MBP because It was just too heavy to go on a laptop tray!

The reset certainly won't hurt anything, but LiPo batteries don't need to be calibrated like older battery technologies (Apple even says so on their website in regards to battery calibration on newer, LiPo equipped MBP's)

How do you measure how long it lasts? Just unplug it and use it all day?

I can maybe do that on a day off but I don't think I can use it constantly, like when I'm doing stuff around the apartment or whatever. I do multitask... listen or read something online while cooking, so it'll be used then.

The way the 'reviewers' do it is playing video non-stop until it dies. Put a DVD on loop with the screen brightness at 50% and leave it playing in the other room and check on it occasionally. However, this is only effective if you have a baseline. Otherwise you won't know if the battery life is indeed suffering. So it might be easiest just to use it all day in a scenario where you can pretty much tell whether the battery life is suffering or not. If you CAN'T tell, then I'd say it's a non issue!

Shortly after new, a LiPo cell will lose a chunk of capacity. But after that it'll hold for a long long time. That's where you're at, I wouldn't worry about it, IMHO.

 

[davidg4781]

It looks completely normal, just use your MBP as you always do. In a couple of years if you still have it splurge on a new battery (but get a SSD first!)

Ohhh! Thanks! I forgot about SSD. I currently have a 750GB HDD and I'm using only 270GB. The main reason I've stayed away was because I used to keep a Windows partition on there. Since ML's BootCamp won't play with XP, and I'm too cheap to buy anything else, I don't use that anymore.

Wow, 256 GB one isn't that bad! I do have some movies I've recorded that I could dump onto an external to free up space.

Ok, sorry for getting off topic, didn't mean to threadjack...

 

[dukebound85]

and here ai am at 90% with a machine that has 26 cycles in 6 months of buying it

 

[el-John-o]

Ohhh! Thanks! I forgot about SSD. I currently have a 750GB HDD and I'm using only 270GB. The main reason I've stayed away was because I used to keep a Windows partition on there. Since ML's BootCamp won't play with XP, and I'm too cheap to buy anything else, I don't use that anymore.

Wow, 256 GB one isn't that bad! I do have some movies I've recorded that I could dump onto an external to free up space.

Ok, sorry for getting off topic, didn't mean to threadjack...

You could always stick your 750GB drive in where the optical drive is and use that as overflow storage. You'll take a slight hit in battery life (running two drives instead of one) if you do that though. However, if you run an SSD ALONE (get one big enough for everything you need) you'll GAIN some battery life as they use less juice.

 

[Zwhaler]

Definitely take to Apple and get it replaced.

 

[Macman45]

Definitely take to Apple and get it replaced.

Did you read GGJ's post? Guess not, In words of one syllable 80%=No replacement.

Constantly under 80% in ONE YEAR of use, then yes you can replace it.

Like I posted above, the true test is the time the battery will last.

 

[Zwhaler]

Did you read GGJ's post? Guess not, In words of one syllable 80%=No replacement.

Constantly under 80% in ONE YEAR of use, then yes you can replace it.

Like I posted above, the true test is the time the battery will last.

Guess not, but guess what, if you take it to Apple and ask nicely they might replace it! Happened to a family members laptop and got it replaced.

 

[alexmarchuk]

Here is what my rMBP is at.

 

[GGJstudios]

Clear and re-set your PRAM by holding down CMD+OPTION on boot up.

PRAM/NVRAM has nothing to do with battery/power/charging issues. Resetting it will not help. Only resetting the SMC addresses such issues.

About NVRAM and PRAM​

Use the MBP until the battery goes TOTALLY dead and the machine shuts down, then re-charge.

This won't do anything except burn up another cycle. It's not calibration, which the newer built-in batteries don't need anyway, and Apple batteries perform better if you don't fully drain them.

 

[el-John-o]

Definitely take to Apple and get it replaced.

Again, these batteries are NOT the same as the old batteries that were used a few years ago. Instead of gradually falling, where 80% of capacity might be considered an end-of-life battery, these batteries will drop rapidly and then STOP. Falling to 80% within the first few hundred cycles and then HOLDING at around 80% is expected behavior from these types of batteries (wheras before, hitting 80% meant you were just around the corner from total failure).

It can seem 'odd' if you aren't used to it, but in the end, you're getting a longer-lasting battery, you just have to deal with the 'quirks' like the way they lose capacity over time, in 'chunks' unlike a gradual fade like Li-Ion batteries. This also means that you'll STILL be at 80% 1,000 cycles from now. It ALSO means that when it dies, it's gonna die all at once, not gradually. You might get 6 hours one day, and a week later be lucky to have 20 minutes. But, that'll be after over 1,000 cycles and long after a Li-Ion battery would have already failed.

He might be able to get Apple to replace it just to keep the customer happy, but in another 300 cycles he'll be right back at 80%(ish), but if he'd hang on to it he'd realize it won't drop below that for a looong time.

 

[davidg4781]

Ok, I'm off today and I'm going to try out how long it actually lasts.

It is 11:24a. I've just unplugged it. I'm going to just really use it casually throughout the day, no streaming through as I'm sure that taxes the system more. Well, maybe a youtube video or something while I wash dishes. Screen brightness will be where I need it and same goes for keyboard backlight.

MBP is telling me I have 4hrs 21min remaining.