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battery health 94%??
- Thread starter zeppelin68
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The information is not necessarily wrong. Sometimes manufacturing variances can result in a battery which actually specs higher than the nominal rating. If you haven't done so lately, you should recalibrate your battery to make sure it's correctly reporting its actual capacity.
I had similar thoughts about battery calibration. I suspect that after a calibration, the numbers will fall a tad bit, and a more accurate picture will be in view.
I wouldn't worry about it, my first 17" mbp battery (until it went south with the battery update) and my current one had a starting mAh of over 6500 with original being stated as 5500. My current battery still is reporting a capacity of just under 6400 mAh and 18 cycles (15 in the last 2 weeks since class has started again) and no re-calibration in that time.
Looks like mine is pretty average. I'm at 291 cycles with 79% battery capacity left on a 14 month old macbook.
Yup, you're on track there. You have a first gen macbook; if you plan on keeping it around for a while longer, you ought to think about replacing the battery in the next three or four months. After that point, you'll begin to notice a major difference in charge capacity compared to a newer battery.
How do I recallbirate ?
Just a silly question,
I bought an over a year old Macbook Pro 2.0 Ghz Intel Core Duo (Yonah).
How do I recallibrate the battery for my 15.4" Macbook Pro ?
Thks!
Just a silly question,
I bought an over a year old Macbook Pro 2.0 Ghz Intel Core Duo (Yonah).
How do I recallibrate the battery for my 15.4" Macbook Pro ?
Thks!
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284
I wonder if the iStat meter is screwy. How does it determine if your battery health is X%?
It uses information directly from the OS X IO registry. You can do this yourself without iStat. Open a terminal (make sure it's wide enough to see the whole line) and type:
ioreg -l | grep -i iobatt
Battery health = Capacity / AbsoluteMaxCapacity
In my iBook's case,
4324 / 4400 = 98%, which is exactly what iStat says.
Recalibration doesn't do anything magical... it just makes sure that the current capacity figure is correct. Sometimes the computer will think the battery should be dead by now, but based on the battery's feedback, it's able to continue providing power... this is why, if you haven't calculated your battery recently, it may sometimes go all the way down to 0-1% and then run for another 10-15 minutes, or it may go to sleep at 2%.
But in any event, keeping the battery calibrated is good, but you can't really do too much about preventing your battery from wearing out. That's what they do. The only things you can do are simple things:
- Use it on wall power when you can
- Try to use it somewhat consistently... don't let it sit connected to the wall for three years and then expect it to work well... I suggest actually using the computer on battery thoroughly (ie for most of a charge cycle) about 1x / 1-2 months.
But batteries wear out. People need to stop being shocked and appalled every time they find their battery has lost capacity. Your notebook battery loses capacity. So does the one in your cell phone, the one in your iPod, the one in your car, etc, etc, etc. When it comes to the Li-Ion and Li-Poly ones in your phone/iPod/computer, you can expect 300-400 cycles, with degradation during that course and pretty limited usability when you get to the end of it. Them's the breaks. Although it happens on occasion, there is no reason to expect that you can cycle the same notebook battery 800 times and still get 5 hours of life out of it.
Cool!
But mine still says 94% after 13 cycles.
That seems low to me. Even more puzzling is that Coconut indicates that it is better than it should be...Attachments
But mine still says 94% after 13 cycles.
It looks like you got a "really good" battery actually. That screen says that your current capacity is better than the factory rating. It happens. It might be that you're right, and that iStat doesn't give the health correctly if your capacity is more than the rated max capacity? Your battery is plenty healthy right now, though, FWIW....
Mine's 98% after 9 months and 521 cycles. I wonder if I have an unusually good battery, or if it is because I completely discharge and recalibrate the battery at least weekly.
You're running through more than two full charge cycles a day?
Given the time it takes to recharge (if you run for four hours, charge for three hours, run for four hours, that's eleven hours already!), how are you using a battery that much?I do wonder, though... my laptop batteries seem to degrade more or less according to prediction. But I've kept cell phones on essentially continuously for three years, charging them essentially every 1-2 nights, and the battery life hadn't deteriorated that much (after what must have been well over 300 cycles). So perhaps you have a point.
That's what it says.You're running through more than two full charge cycles a day?
Of course, it is being used by 6 ppl in my home, so I guess that may be possible.
If your battery indeed has 98% specified capacity, then I'd say you're doing really well after 521 cycles. Have you manually timed your actual running time?
I've put 220 cycles on my battery in about eight months. Current capacity is reported at 90%, but the last time a calibrated my battery two months ago, it was more like 86% IIRC. So it's probably not correct at the moment. It's due for another calibration so we'll see what happens.
Wow! 500+ cycles? That battery deserves a gold watch and a retirement party!
Heh, yeah. I never run my MacBook off the adapter except when it's charging. I charge to 100%, run on battery until the meter turns red, and start charging again. I've been doing that since I got it 14 months ago. Is this what I should be doing? I hear it's good to not run off of the adapter since it keeps the juices flowing.