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After 134 cycles my batteries still at 100%. I honestly have no idea why, I mean its used daily for a few hours and I don't take particularly good care of the battery...

After my PowerBook battery died, iBatt always reported it as 100% capacity... and it had had like 500-600 some cycles.
 
argh, mine has been 96% since I got it, but suddenly today it drops to 93% !!! :mad:

also coconut is reporting 5 cycles, when it used to say 22.... what happened? I am in the process of calibrating it now...
 
Oh dear - I do calibrate the battery reguarly and have done since I brought my mbp but my battery capacity has gone down to 45%, (from 5500 to 2490mAh) it's only 14 months old but I've clocked up 427 battery loadcycles in that time according to coconut battery. Think it might be time to buy a new battery and try and keep the charger plugged in more often.

I suppose it's best not to use the battery it unless you have to and keep it fully charged. is that right?
 
Mine kind of sucks.
 

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I think that's physically impossible. If it really does report those numbers to you, there must be a bug somewhere in the hardware or software that generates that info.

I'm at 97% after 19 cycles. I'm not sure, but it sounds like the OP needs to find a hobby or something.

How to post screen shot here ???
i'll post it just to confirm :p

what i did is i plug my adapter to a switch before plugged it in electrical socket, so basically everyday i run my mcabook on battery, and if the battery goes below 5% i will switch on the charger, and i'll leaeve it on till about 1~2 HOURS after it stated 100%.

I use coconut battery and iStat pro and both of them stated the same number
now it's :
Cycle : 450
Health : 100%

occasionally it will drop to 85%~98% but it'll raise again, when i leave it charged over night.

that's why i love my macbook so much, everything seems so perfect :p
 
I've only had mine for 4 months not 8 like it says, but when I got my battery it was 100%, and since then everytime i've discharged it which is once a month, it has gone down a percent or two. I think my battery either sucks or i dunno, but I dont think its normal.

You probably have a faulty battery. Go to apple store and you might get it replaced free of charge.
 
what are the standards for batteries? at what cycles/capacity ratio or whatever do they require for you to get a free replacement? I am getting worried about mine....
 
That's pretty bad. Yourself and the other people who said that they had a low health when they turned it on should have told AppleCare and see what they said about it.

But I'm curious, did your health later go up after use / calibration?

Well mine fluctuates from 4800-5000...after I calibrated it got better, but then it goes right back down. It doesn't matter though, I am getting rid of this in Jan. for a MBP
 
Wow, I just opened coconutBattery for the second time since getting this Macbook, and realized how I treat this battery.

7 months.
4 battery-loadcycles.
:eek:

I think I need to calibrate this thing.

Then again, it's still at 94% capacity, so it can't be hurting it much, if any.

jW
 
Ok, there's been a lot of posts in this thread now and I have one final question so that I can continue to keep my battery in tip top condition:

When should I charge it? Should I wait until it goes down to 0% or some other percentage, wait until the "Reserve Battery power" message come, or should I simply charge it whenever I get the chance?

Finally, is charging it while the laptop's on any worse than charging it when it's off or are they essentially the same in terms of keeping the battery healthy?

P.S. Ever since I started this thread, I've calibrated my battery twice, downloaded coconutBattery and saved it's readings over various days:

My original capacity was 5500.

6460 - 1st Dec
6519 - 2nd Dec
6556 - 4th dec (Today)

Is this too good to be true? Or is my battery REALLY getting better and better?! :cool:
 
I use "Battery Health Monitor".

Its been at 99% since I got my MBP 2 months ago.

Current (and correct) stats are:

Original Capacity: 5,600 mAh (100%)
Current Capacity: 5,566 mAh (99%)

Current charge: 4,730 mAh. (84%)

Charge Cycles: 5% (18)

Voltage: 11.988V

Time left: 3:17 :D

Dropped to 93% once :eek:


Edit: Somehow I doubt your battery is getting better. Best bet would to timer run it down. Only accurate way TBQFH.
 
I use "Battery Health Monitor".

Its been at 99% since I got my MBP 2 months ago.

Current (and correct) stats are:

Original Capacity: 5,600 mAh (100%)
Current Capacity: 5,566 mAh (99%)

Current charge: 4,730 mAh. (84%)

Charge Cycles: 5% (18)

Voltage: 11.988V

Time left: 3:17 :D

Dropped to 93% once :eek:


Edit: Somehow I doubt your battery is getting better. Best bet would to timer run it down. Only accurate way TBQFH.

I just downloaded and ran "Battery Health Monitor" it also says (like coconutBattery) that my current capacity is 6556 but it says that my original capacity was 6300 which makes more sense. Still HIGHER than I started with though! :D

So which program am I supposed to trust for Original Capacity; iStat, coconutBattery or Battery Health Monitor? Argh!

Also what does the "Battery Life Remaining" property represent in Battery Health Monitor? It says 8% for 33 cycles. What is the percentage supposed to represent?

You're right about battery time being the most accurate measure. With Airport on and my brightness at FULL (that's how I like it!) using various programs at once I get just under 3:50. When I first got my MBP I'm sure I only used to get around 3:20 so I'm pretty happy!
 
How to post screen shot here ???
i'll post it just to confirm :p

what i did is i plug my adapter to a switch before plugged it in electrical socket, so basically everyday i run my mcabook on battery, and if the battery goes below 5% i will switch on the charger, and i'll leaeve it on till about 1~2 HOURS after it stated 100%.

I use coconut battery and iStat pro and both of them stated the same number
now it's :
Cycle : 450
Health : 100%

occasionally it will drop to 85%~98% but it'll raise again, when i leave it charged over night.

that's why i love my macbook so much, everything seems so perfect :p

I try to discharge fully before recharging too. Run it down to a minute or when it auto-sleeps. My MBP and previously PowerBook and iBook always have great battery life/power.

For people with battery problems,

If the battery is charged all the time, chemical cannot flow around the battery, possibly shorter life when you have a higher cycle load.

Also, do not use it for 5 minutes and charge it! Once in awhile is ok, but if you frequently do this, then you will decrease the life.
 
I just downloaded and ran "Battery Health Monitor" it also says (like coconutBattery) that my current capacity is 6556 but it says that my original capacity was 6300 which makes more sense. Still HIGHER than I started with though! :D

So which program am I supposed to trust for Original Capacity; iStat, coconutBattery or Battery Health Monitor? Argh!

Also what does the "Battery Life Remaining" property represent in Battery Health Monitor? It says 8% for 33 cycles. What is the percentage supposed to represent?

You're right about battery time being the most accurate measure. With Airport on and my brightness at FULL (that's how I like it!) using various programs at once I get just under 3:50. When I first got my MBP I'm sure I only used to get around 3:20 so I'm pretty happy!

What operating system are you running? CoconutBattery does not work in Leopard and will report random, incorrect numbers under Leopard.
 
I try to discharge fully before recharging too. Run it down to a minute or when it auto-sleeps. My MBP and previously PowerBook and iBook always have great battery life/power.

Nice, that's what I do at the moment and if it's working so well for yourself I'll gladly carry on doing so as well. :)

What operating system are you running? CoconutBattery does not work in Leopard and will report random, incorrect numbers under Leopard.

Ah, now it makes sense. Yep, I'm using Leopard; that must explain the Original Capacity differences but at least the Current Capacity values are the same.
 
I just downloaded and ran "Battery Health Monitor" it also says (like coconutBattery) that my current capacity is 6556 but it says that my original capacity was 6300 which makes more sense. Still HIGHER than I started with though! :D

So which program am I supposed to trust for Original Capacity; iStat, coconutBattery or Battery Health Monitor? Argh!

Also what does the "Battery Life Remaining" property represent in Battery Health Monitor? It says 8% for 33 cycles. What is the percentage supposed to represent?

You're right about battery time being the most accurate measure. With Airport on and my brightness at FULL (that's how I like it!) using various programs at once I get just under 3:50. When I first got my MBP I'm sure I only used to get around 3:20 so I'm pretty happy!


% towards 300.

Because if its <80% at < 300 cycles then apple will replace it for free ;)

6300? The only thing I can think of is you have a higher wattage battery :confused: But then you have the 17inch so that is a possibility.

On the top of the battery of my 15" 2.4 October MBP: 60 w/h (Watt Hour)

I'd imagine yours is a 70 to 80 w/h so the 6300 could be true.
 
Coconut Battery is currently broken under Leopard...
Saw it crash under Leopard 10.5.1, PPC, PowerBook.

My measurements above are taken from 10.4.10, MBP 17". How I charge:
- Run on battery until 1 minute or auto-sleep
- Charge until full, stay charged until necessary to move
- Always sleep, never shut down while transporting
 
mine's going in for replacement. 23 claibrated cycles and at 71%. Not a good sign. But should I wait until the last minute to extend my chances of a proper resolution as far as possible? Still 5 months on original purchase warranty, no sign the battery will give out tomorrow. Just a law of diminishing returns and I use the little bugger on adapter 99% of the time. So should i wait it out a while longer?:confused:
 
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