Best way to calibrate battery

[betsbillabong]

I have a new 15" powerbook (1.5). I want to get the best battery life out of it as I can.

What's the best way for me to calibrate the battery?

(a) Use it normally (in my case would mean installing software, etc)?
(b) Let it run down without touching it? (in that case, what kind of processor/screen settings?)
(c) Run a DVD until it dies?

Any other tips?

I wish I knew how to post a poll...

 

[betsbillabong]

sorry to bump - but really? no one knows, or even has an opinion? i got the same response on the apple board. zero. huh.

 

[jackieonasses]

sorry to bump - but really? no one knows, or even has an opinion? i got the same response on the apple board. zero. huh.

IF you just get it...Charge it to full, that is it. It is a li-ion battery so there is no memory there. The only calibration that you can do (that i know of) is to discharge it til it falls asleep, but that only fixes it if there is a problem to begin with. You should be ready! Enjoy your new Powerbook!

 

[St Soichiro]

From the horse's mouth:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284

 

[betsbillabong]

thanks... to clarify, i guess my real question is - is it better to do a slow drain, use it normally, or just throw in a dvd until it goes to sleep?

 

[Mechcozmo]

I left it on, then off for some time. Actually, it was off for 20 minutes then I played with it. After it was maxed out the power cable came out. I imported my CDs. I turned on Airport Express and Bluetooth. Turn up the screen. When it went to sleep, that was the calibration process at work... I just needed to recharge it.

 

[atszyman]

I drained both of my batteries by burning CDs into iTunes. I haven't noticed any degraded performance from it.

 

[betsbillabong]

Follow-up

So I decided, for safety's sake, to use the slow drain method of calibration. I left the powerbook on all night with screen brightness turned down to one bar, drive set to spin down, 'book and lcd set to 'never sleep' and just basically let it run until it died. i actually did this twice.

this morning after i'd charged it, and sat down to work off the battery, it gave me 5:07 of expected time! i didn't get that of course, but i did get nearly 3 hours of audio work which was better than i expected.

of course, i may have had results just as good if i'd played a dvd for a while... i guess i'll never know ;-)