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im worried after reading this thread. 95% after 4 cycles - is this normal?
or could it be anything to do with the fact that m macbook has been sitting idle for 2 months inbetween buying and first using it?
 

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im worried after reading this thread. 95% after 4 cycles - is this normal?
or could it be anything to do with the fact that m macbook has been sitting idle for 2 months inbetween buying and first using it?

This is from the MBP user's manual and may explain your situation:

If you are going to store your MacBook Pro for an extended period of time, keep it in a cool location (ideally, 71° F or 22° C) and discharge the battery to 50 percent. When storing your computer for longer than five months, discharge the battery to approximately 50 percent and then remove it from the MacBook Pro. To maintain the capacity of the battery, recharge the battery to 50 percent every six months or so.

Also, have you calibrated your battery? That would give you a more accurate reading on your battery health.

Keep using it some more to see if the health goes down anymore. It may have dropped to 95% because you didn't use it for 2 months but hopefully it'll go down in a more gradual way now that you've started using it.

Cheers :)
 
mine is 98% just after 1 cycle lol

so what? was it supposed to be still 100%? i think its because the 1st time i charged the battery yesterday, i dont leave it charging after the light went green ( which we are supposed to leave it for another hours or more before unplugged it and use it )

i dont know it it's that important (the battery life )

because you can always buy a new battery
 
Mine is down to 96% after 5 cycles. All I can say is, what the Hell? I will take it to the Apple store when I get back to school as I do have Apple Care. See what they will do about it if I bitch and moan a little.

-Josh :apple:
 
i dont know it it's that important (the battery life )

because you can always buy a new battery

You can always buy a new computer, too. But if the company does its job right, you shouldn't have to--not that quickly. The battery is supposed to retain 80% of its health after 300 cycles--not 98% after 1. What would you do if the maximum processor speed of your computer decreased by 2% every week? :^)
 
well ofcourse we wouldn't

but i did what we're supposed to do, the 1st thing i do after i get back home from purchasing my MBP was charging it and i leave it until the light went green

and the damn battery life went down to 98%, quite disappointing i know, i just hope the 98% remains the same till atleast 30++ cycles
 
28 cycles now jumping between 98 and 99%.

Still get 4 hours out of it on msn/safari tho with 25% brightness (25% of the bar).

I will re-calibrate it when it gets to 95%.

Currently im well within 80% and 300 for a replacement lol lets just that falls to 79% at 299 cycles ;)
 
Pfft, I'm at 94% after 24 cycles! Beat that!

Nice thing is though, every time the health drops below 85% or so, I just take it into the Apple store and they give me a brand new one. I just tell them that I need it to last through a 3 hour lecture, and it's no good to me if it doesn't.

Hooray for Applecare!
 
mine is at 106% after 31 cycles.

Original capacity 5020 mAh

Current capacity 5324 mAh

Black Macbook 2.2gh, 4gb Ram purchased one month ago.
 
Mine is down to 96% after 5 cycles. All I can say is, what the Hell? I will take it to the Apple store when I get back to school as I do have Apple Care. See what they will do about it if I bitch and moan a little.

-Josh :apple:


Apple portable computer's battery does not show a full charge in Mac OS X
Last Modified on: October 11, 2006
Article: 88344


Some PowerBook G4, iBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook computers may not show the battery as 100 percent charged in Mac OS X, even when the power adapter is plugged in. The battery appears to stop charging between 93 percent and 99 percent. (PowerPC-based computers may stop charging between 95 and 99 percent; Intel-based computers may stop charging between 93 and 99 percent.)

This is normal. The batteries used in these computers are designed to avoid short discharge/charge cycles in order to prolong the overall life of the battery. Because of this, when setting the Mac OS X battery status menu bar icon to display charge state by percentage, you may notice that the reported charge stays between 93 or 95 percent and 99 percent. When the battery level eventually drops below 93 or 95 percent, it will charge all the way to 100 percent.



Also check: http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html
 
Pfft, I'm at 94% after 24 cycles! Beat that!

Nice thing is though, every time the health drops below 85% or so, I just take it into the Apple store and they give me a brand new one. I just tell them that I need it to last through a 3 hour lecture, and it's no good to me if it doesn't.

Hooray for Applecare!

Woah, exactly how many times have you had your battery swapped for a new one? At least you're guaranteed at least 85% health for the rest of your AppleCare life ... ! :D

mine is at 106% after 31 cycles.

Nice one mate :)
 
Hold on a sec, Josheua is talking about battery HEALTH (i.e. capacity) not current battery charge which are two totally different things.

Yea, you're right... I guess I just wanted to point that out for anyone reading the thread and confusing with the menu bar charge percentage! I probably just added more confusion!

My MBP SR:
Current capacity is 94%: 5200 out of 5500 originally
Coconut Battery says 5 life cycles, which is impossible... more like 50+
 
Yea, you're right... I guess I just wanted to point that out for anyone reading the thread and confusing with the menu bar charge percentage! I probably just added more confusion!

It's alright; it's still useful information. :)

When I first got my MBP I was always wondering why the charge would go down even though I had it plugged in and it started to worry me. Then I found the same article you quoted and it all made sense.
 
Woah, exactly how many times have you had your battery swapped for a new one? At least you're guaranteed at least 85% health for the rest of your AppleCare life ... ! :D



Nice one mate :)

Whoops, sorry about that. I've actually only had it replaced once, but the guy at the Genius Bar said I could bring it in whenever the battery wouldn't last for 3 hours anymore. He totally understood the necessity of having it last through a lecture. I definitely plan on taking him up on his offer again!
 
My first battery was doing the "miraculous gaining capacity" thing and showing health above the original capacity. Eventually it dropped to about 98 percent, but after about 130 cycles it started dying without warning when it still showed 20 percent charge left.

My replacement battery, after calibration, is now at 88 cycles and 85 percent capacity. Seems a bit low after reading some of the other people's stats.:confused:

Maybe next time I'm in the States I can pick up a replacement.
 
mine is at 106% after 31 cycles.

Original capacity 5020 mAh

Current capacity 5324 mAh

Black Macbook 2.2gh, 4gb Ram purchased one month ago.

how did you do it?

you calibrate it every day or something?

:eek:

hmm anyway, it's surprising, because today i made my MBP sleep for the whole day after charging it last night, so therefore it went for 2 cycles

but guess what, i checked back and the Battery life went back to 99% from 98% with 2 cycles

and im doing the same thing now to let my MBP in sleep mode, and hopefully until tomorrow, it can go back to 100%

maybe you should try this too
 
So if after 59 cycles my battery like is 87%, should I think about seeing if it is one of those batteries that needs replacement? (My MBP is about 7 mo. old)

It does seem to be dropping pretty fast. Keep an eye on it. There is a spot on Apple's site that says something about 300 cycles you should still have 80%. I called Apple when mine dropped below that in the early 200s and they sent me a new battery.
 
ok can someone tell me what im doing is right?

so i basically keep my MBP idle with the magsafe plugged in ( which it went to sleep ) or sometimes use it to do whatever (also with the magsafe plugged ) during the day

and then when the night comes, i unplugged the magsafe and just make it went to sleep until the morning, then i will be using it for a while until the battery is below 20% then ill repeat it again from the 1st step

so basically i only shut down my MBP once every 3 or 4 days

is that the way to keep your battery health in good form?
 
I dont know how, but my Original battery capacity is 5500mAh; and my current is 6547 mAh unplugged from my adapter at 89% charge remaining

When full charged it reads over 6800mAh! :]

guess i have a super sweet battery since my battery somehow has +1300mAh!

Im new to macs, but if someone would like to see my coconut GUI as proof just tell me how to take a screen shot and i will!
 
I dont know how, but my Original battery capacity is 5500mAh; and my current is 6547 mAh unplugged from my adapter at 89% charge remaining

When full charged it reads over 6800mAh! :]

guess i have a super sweet battery since my battery somehow has +1300mAh!

Im new to macs, but if someone would like to see my coconut GUI as proof just tell me how to take a screen shot and i will!

Did you recently apply the 1.3 battery update? Are you using coconut battery in leopard? My battery went above the brand new mAh when i updated, but then had an issue where it would not go above 68% capacity, but somehow fixed itself in the past week. I was hoping to avoid a trip to apple so i'm glad it's fixed, but i'm not sure if it is a permanent fix or if it will break again. Anyways i'm at 95% after a 14 months and 80 load cycles. If anyone cares, my battery came new with about 98% so stop complaining about 99% after 30 cycles, come on!

Also, how much do you all find that your battery drains when your MBP is in sleep overnight. I could swear mine would go down almost nothing overnight, but ever since my battery had it's little issue, i now go down between 7% and 10% overnight.
 
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