Battery capacity reduced, now what?

[lazybones1987]

Hey guys,
I have a Refurbished Macbook Pro which is 14 weeks old. Lately I have been noticing my macbook to last for only about 3-4 hours (as opposed to ~7hrs that I used to get) when running on battery.

I downloaded this utility called Coconut battery which now tells me that my current capacity is 5524 mAh and my design capacity is 5770 mAh. Is it normal for the battery capacity to reduce by 246 mAh in just 14 weeks?

 

[miles01110]

There is a certain margin of error in battery capacity reporting to begin with. It's nothing to worry about. Your decreased "time remaining" is due to either Lion or running more processor-intensive tasks.

 

[lazybones1987]

There is a certain margin of error in battery capacity reporting to begin with. It's nothing to worry about. Your decreased "time remaining" is due to either Lion or running more processor-intensive tasks.

Thanks for your reply miles. I'm not running Lion (yet) and I'm certainly not running any processor intensive application: Screen is at half brightness, wi-fi on with standard browsing (no flash based pages). I was just curious to find out if it's quite normal for a "new battery" to have its capacity reduced in such a short time frame (or am I reading too much into it?)

 

[Kyzelios]

The reported value for the full capacity of your battery can fluctuate over time, especially depending on your usage.

How many cycles do you have on your battery? You can find this information either in System Profiler under "Power" or in CoconutBattery.

In my opinion, I wouldn't be too concerned over it unless you see a sharp decline in the capacity of your battery (for example, 3500 mAh), at which point I'd recommend dropping by a Genius Bar at an Apple Store (if one is available in your area), or contact an Apple Authorized Service Provider to have the battery diagnosed and replaced.