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calvy

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 17, 2007
1,271
9
Hi all. I'm usually in the iPhone forum, but pop in here from time to time. I searched and didn't see an answer to my question, so forgive me if this has been done. But...

I was sick of the battery life I was getting on my 15" Macbook Pro 3,1 (early 2008 model), so I went to the apple store yesterday to get a new one. I was over 400 cycles, so I had to just buy it, they wouldn't replace it for me. I expected that, so no big deal. But I wanted to treat this battery right. I got home, charged it up to 100%, let it sit at that for a few hours, and then let it drain overnight and rest at empty for a few hours. This afternoon, I plugged it back in with the intention of letting it fully charge and thus complete my battery calibration, but at around 40% charged, the cat yanked the charger cable out from my laptop. And then a little bit later, my girlfriend did it again.

So, has my time been wasted here? Battery calibration is such a pain in my rear. i hate it. I use my laptop often and expect it to be available to me whenever I need it, regardless of how many other computers i own. I really don't want to deal with it again in the near future. And I may not. But for now, did I waste my time?
 
Uh, maybe? Just try calibrating it again, or post what System Profiler says about your battery's capacity.

All it said was that I now had 1 cycle and that it was at full mAh capacity. Honestly, calibrating is too much of a PITA. I think I'll just buy a new battery ever year or so instead.
 
All it said was that I now had 1 cycle and that it was at full mAh capacity. Honestly, calibrating is too much of a PITA. I think I'll just buy a new battery ever year or so instead.

I don't think you understand the point of battery calibration. . . at all.

The point is simply to "remind" your computer how much capacity it has left by letting it drain completely to empty. Then the computer can give you better estimates for how much time you have left. At least until it starts telling you that your health is at 98% or something, when you should calibrate again.

It's not something that you "have" to do, it's not really that hard, and no, it doesn't matter if someone unplugs your computer while it's charging.
 
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