Bad battery or....

[sulhaq]

Ok so my battery went dead within a few months of replacement for the 2nd time. The battery that came with my macbook pro went dead after few short months of use and Apple gave me a replacement. The replacement didn't last long either as it also went almost completely dead in under 130 cycles. I called Apple again and they told me that there might be something wrong with the laptop itself because the chances of getting two bad batteries were not very big and to take it to an Apple store. I did. The so-called Mac "genius" there just gave me another replacement battery......

I stood there and argued with him for 5 minutes that it might be possible that there might be something wrong with the computer hardware instead of the battery but he wouldn't listen to me. All he did was to go in the system profiler, look at the battery mAh and cycle count and give me a new battery based on that data and remarks that "after checking my laptop thoroughly" it seems to be working properly...

Has this ever happened to anyone before? I am in a dilemma because I want to upgrade my 120gb hard drive to 320gb but I know that voids my warranty and if this 3rd battery also craps out on me Apple will deny all coverage.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Is it possible that I really got two bad batteries or is there something wrong with my macbook pro? Should I go ahead and put the new hard drive in?

I have a 2nd gen 2.33g macbook pro.

Right now I'm running on battery power at full brightness while listening to music and browsing the web and I'm losing 10% battery in approximately 15 minutes. So estimating roughly it will last about 2.5 hours. Is this normal for a brand new battery?

 

[mad jew]

Do you have peripherals plugged in? Is the music playing from the internal drive? I get a lot longer on mine, and it's not all the new anymore.

 

[sulhaq]

Playing music from my internal drive. Although I should mention that this is after charging the battery just once from out of the box. I am calibrating it right now so maybe after that it will yield better results. Also I approximated 15 minutes, but the average after watching it run for an hour and a half is probably about 20 mins per 10%

 

[mad jew]

Hmm... Yeah, calibrate it properly and then start testing again.

 

[sulhaq]

okay I've calibrated the battery. When I just put the battery in the mAh was 5565 or 99% After complete calibration the battery mAh was 5410 or 97% this morning. I've been using the laptop on AC power all day and right now the mAh has dropped to 5392 or 96%

What the hell?

 

[mad jew]

The mAh rating is usually out by a bit each time. Don't worry about the percentage of juice left, either. The Mac won't let the battery start charging again until it dips below about 96%, to avoid constant charging and discharging.

 

[sulhaq]

No I'm not talking about the charge percentage. I'm talking about the battery health. 5410 mAh means the battery can retain approximately 97% of it's total charge.

In any case the mAh is jumping up and down between 5300 and 5500 and this is exactly what happened with my previous two batteries before they gave up on me a few months after so I'm not liking this at all.

And a 320gb hard drive is just sitting there gathering dust while I'm running out of space fast.

 

[MowingDevil]

No batteries can maintain 100% of their charge...if you're getting 97% I'm sure thats fine.

 

[SanJacinto]

MBP Early 2011

Hi everyone,

I know, battery questions are pain for veteran-Forum-Users, but nonetheless I have to ask.
My warranty expires this week and my cycles-count is on 67. I think this is a quite small number for one year of usage. In this time the battery-health declines continuously from 95% (after the two first loadings) to 86% (at the moment, or to be precise since one month).

So my question: Is this enough to ask for a new battery? The next Apple Store is nearly a day's journey away, so I've to think twice to do it.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[TheMacBookPro]

Hi everyone,

I know, battery questions are pain for veteran-Forum-Users, but nonetheless I have to ask.
My warranty expires this week and my cycles-count is on 67. I think this is a quite small number for one year of usage. In this time the battery-health declines continuously from 95% (after the two first loadings) to 86% (at the moment, or to be precise since one month).

So my question: Is this enough to ask for a new battery? The next Apple Store is nearly a day's journey away, so I've to think twice to do it.

Thanks in advance for your help.

No- it needs to drop below 80% for Apple to consider it a defective item.

You could still call and ask though, it's worth a shot.

By the way, please do not reply to a four year old thread, just start a new one especially since your question does not have a direct relationship with the question OP was asking.