Aluminum MAcbook Battery SUCKS!!!!

[aznguyen316]

How come the new macs seem to have a smaller battery @ 4200 mAh? I have a sept. 2007 macbook and the battery on this is a 5000mAh one. Is this much of a big deal? Just curious. I get around maybe 4 hours on it if I don't do any video watching. Video kills it as my fan just goes on and goes crazy at 6200RPM lol.. stupid GMA 950

 

[ensgaard]

Did you jsut bring it to the apple store? Did they give you any hassle?

Mine has gotten worse and worse and I"m wondering if I should bring it back or not

Yup...i just bring it over to the apple service centre & told them about the problem...oh i did call before that n they told me to drop by the shop for them to check...base on the guy there, he said mine was the first with battery problem...hahahah..

Ok...i read this here n there even in apple did suggest the best practice when dealing with battery life....
how do u guys use ur machine?? plugin most of the time?? let say 80% plug in n sometimes leave it run with battery for couple of hours?? or totally using battery powered right after full charge & leave it to 5% before recharging?? i have a friend of mine once told me that it's ok to leave ur charger on after full charged since the MAC is so brilliant & it will bypass the battery not to overload it?? is this true??

 

[MattyK]

As we say here on Mac Rumors, Pics or it never happened...

 

[VSMacOne]

Yup...i just bring it over to the apple service centre & told them about the problem...oh i did call before that n they told me to drop by the shop for them to check...base on the guy there, he said mine was the first with battery problem...hahahah..

Ok...i read this here n there even in apple did suggest the best practice when dealing with battery life....
how do u guys use ur machine?? plugin most of the time?? let say 80% plug in n sometimes leave it run with battery for couple of hours?? or totally using battery powered right after full charge & leave it to 5% before recharging?? i have a friend of mine once told me that it's ok to leave ur charger on after full charged since the MAC is so brilliant & it will bypass the battery not to overload it?? is this true??

let say 80% plug in n sometimes leave it run with battery for couple of hours?? -- definitely something like this one. That's what Apple recommends.

i have a friend of mine once told me that it's ok to leave ur charger on after full charged -- that is correct. it won't hurt the battery, as long as it gets a couple of hours of "workout" here and there..

How come the new macs seem to have a smaller battery @ 4200 mAh? I have a sept. 2007 macbook and the battery on this is a 5000mAh one. Is this much of a big deal? Just curious. I get around maybe 4 hours on it if I don't do any video watching. Video kills it as my fan just goes on and goes crazy at 6200RPM lol.. stupid GMA 950

The Unibody has a smaller battery than the prev gen MB. But I think the gains in efficiency (CPU, LCD Display, etc.) make up for that difference and allow for a battery life pretty comparable to the older MB.

 

[Nik73]

let say 80% plug in n sometimes leave it run with battery for couple of hours?? -- definitely something like this one. That's what Apple recommends.

i have a friend of mine once told me that it's ok to leave ur charger on after full charged -- that is correct. it won't hurt the battery, as long as it gets a couple of hours of "workout" here and there..

Just curious VS, but someone told me it was the opposite. Leaving it plugged in all the time does damage the battery. Personally I didn't believe it but have found it seems to be true with my Dell. I used mine plugged in a lot but also use it on battery for, on average, an hour a day. But often more. When new, I got about 3hrs from the battery but now I'm lucky if I get 1!!! It's about 2 1/2 years old. Could just be a crap battery.

Just wondering as I'll be getting a new MB and don't want the same thing to happen with that battery.

 

[VSMacOne]

Just curious VS, but someone told me it was the opposite. Leaving it plugged in all the time does damage the battery. Personally I didn't believe it but have found it seems to be true with my Dell. I used mine plugged in a lot but also use it on battery for, on average, an hour a day. But often more. When new, I got about 3hrs from the battery but now I'm lucky if I get 1!!! It's about 2 1/2 years old. Could just be a crap battery.

Just wondering as I'll be getting a new MB and don't want the same thing to happen with that battery.

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

That's what I understand from reading the instructions in the link above. Also, I've been doing this with my MB bought in November, and so far my battery hasn't once shown dropped health, it's still at 100% health. Now my friend who bought his a couple of weeks before me, has shown a drop in battery health, and he's let his die down close to zero before plugging back in, and unplugging as soon as the battery hit 100% charge.
Mine is plugged in at the office all day long, and when i get home at night I use it on battery for a little bit, and then plug it back in and use it plugged.. This way I make sure the battery gets a little bit of "practice" and at the same time I'm not using up a lot of cycles (seeing how batteries are only guaranteed an average of 300 cycles or so). Oh and make sure you Calibrate about once a month or so (have you ever done this with your Dell? - i know i never did it with my Toshiba Satellite and had crappy battery life)

 

[Nik73]

Thanks for that VS. Yeah I regularly calibrate the battery, especially recently as it's so poor now. I think I've just not been using on battery enough as it does say on that page that they don't recommend it being plugged in all the time. Even though it was getting used on battery a lot I think it was getting used a LOT more plugged in. So percentage wise battery use was reeeeeally low.

 

[VPrime]

I just got my macbook yesterday... Currently the macbook has been going on 5hr and 4 minutes on a full charge... according to istat i have 1 min battery life left. I have been just surfing the net with it all day, and playing with the isight cam..

edit:haha my battery died right when I clicked the submit post button.

 

[ensgaard]

let say 80% plug in n sometimes leave it run with battery for couple of hours?? -- definitely something like this one. That's what Apple recommends.

i have a friend of mine once told me that it's ok to leave ur charger on after full charged -- that is correct. it won't hurt the battery, as long as it gets a couple of hours of "workout" here and there..


Thanks for the info VS....

 

[aznguyen316]

The Unibody has a smaller battery than the prev gen MB. But I think the gains in efficiency (CPU, LCD Display, etc.) make up for that difference and allow for a battery life pretty comparable to the older MB.

Thank you

 

[itsALIVE]

i get about 3 to 4 hours on mine but i dont think i have ever been able to get 5 or 6.

 

[spaceballl]

talk about jumping the gun

 

[ZDDP1273]

I can get a little bit over 4 hours with mine. Maybe you just have a battery issue.

 

[jpvaz]

Pffff... you call that a good battery ?!?

 

[aznguyen316]

been trying to calculate or figure out my power consumption for best battery life. I calibrated the battery a couple days ago and at full charge it calculates to be 4:08 w/ brightness at half and safari + mail + finder + sys profiler open. The amperage is -974. I'm trying to figure out if this amperage is correct? Seems a bit high just for those programs open =/ Either way I feel like I should be getting better battery life. The batt only has 8 charge cycles on it. Could this be why? activity monitor shows only safari using the most CPU @ 8-10. Anyway, thoughts would be great.

 

[Patriks7]

I am spoiled with 4 hour battery life. My last computer was a Compaq which lasted 1 1/2 hours.

I love my Macbook.

Exactly my thought. My Acer before my MacBook hardly got 1 hour, and you guys are complaining about 3.5 hours

 

[andrewag]

I bought the 2.4 a few days back and haven't done it yet and it's at 4229mAh.

My partner never calibrated his Mid 2007 macbook and the battery is @ 98% of it's original capacity according to coconut battery. He uses it for a few hours and returns it to charge where it sits for most of the time.

My rev a black Macbook battery is left at around 450mAh just under 3 years old. I regularly ran it down and calibrated it. Even before that I had a PowerBook G4 with a replaced batter (recalls etc) that I plugged in when I got to work, used for a few hours on battery and plugged in at home and the battery stayed in top condition.

I think I will be doing the keep in power most of the time advice like the scenario on Apple's website.

 

[riceboidavid]

My battery sucks! I was wondering if I should take it in?

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2646
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4054
Health Information:
Cycle count: 73
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1192
Voltage (mV): 11578

73 Cycles in 4 months...O Lordy

 

[Sesshi]

My battery is awesome!! Man going from a 9 pound Gateway that got 1.5 hours to this getting 5 hours!!! Amazing battery life.

Which is a bit like saying "My Panda is so much better than my previous tank".

The Macbook / Air are the worst-enduring compact / ultralight notebooks I have/had of late. It's interesting that with most of my Vista notebooks I can eke out more than the advertised life if I kick in all the power saving features. With Apple, I can never approach the quoted runtime despite doing the same.

Which brings me to a question: How much extra runtime do you guys think I might squeeze out if I replaced the drive with an SSD? I find it an occasional hassle with the need to carry 3 additional batteries to match the runtime of my Sony + spare battery (not to mention the huge additional weight).

 

[peepboon]

Mine is great, i tend to have the wireless off/dimmed screen, etc etc

 

[bobbyroller]

I think the stock problem has more to do with the current economy then your battery.

I second that!

 

[DeusInvictus7]

My battery sucks! I was wondering if I should take it in?

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2646
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4054
Health Information:
Cycle count: 73
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1192
Voltage (mV): 11578

73 Cycles in 4 months...O Lordy

To be honest, you're battery seems perfectly fine. It will hover around the 99%-100% mark for a while.

Just yesterday I was at 4068 (99%) for my max charge, and today I'm at 4143.

I'm at 67 cycles, 4 months old.

 

[riceboidavid]

Yeah, I finally found the reason why my battery always ran out so quickly today. I had a program running that drastically drained the battery. But now that I don't run it, my numbers are fine. 3-4 Hrs with average use

 

[Stachelsk]

Am I imagining things, or do the new Alu MacBooks have significantly less charge than do the old plastic White/Black MacBooks?

My White MacBook is exactly a year old... still have 100% health, 5368mAh... battery usually lasts at least 6 hours on a light load.

 

[Stachelsk]

My battery sucks! I was wondering if I should take it in?

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2646
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4054
Health Information:
Cycle count: 73
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1192
Voltage (mV): 11578

73 Cycles in 4 months...O Lordy

Your battery qualifies for a free replacement at the Apple Store... if a battery drops below 70% health in less than 1 year or 300 charges (whichever comes first), bring it in and complain and they'll give you a brand new one for free.