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Does your battery charge past 98%

T

toydriver00

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 26, 2006
14
0
I have replaced my battery and still I have a problem with my Macbook not charging the battery past 98%. Does anyone else have this problem or is it normal?

Thanks
 
mine does that sometimes, like right now its been stuck on 97%, usually i just unplug the power adapter for a few minutes then plug it back in
 
Sometimes mine will only display 99%. Usually if I unplug the magsafe, then plug it back in, it will display 100%.

edit: this is on a MBP
 
by design they won't charge unless it dips below 95%, but you should get charge to 100%...
 
Mine charges to 100%, then I shut it down, turn it back on the next day and it is at 98%. That is with the Magsafe connector plugged in.
 
I've had it charge to 100 % occasionally but not that often. It's usually at 98 %, even after it's "fully" charged.

After almost 2 years, you'd think the thing would work as I expect but that's not the case.
 

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sycho said:
How do you only have that little charges? Mine MacBook is a month old and is just shy of that.:confused:
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I haven't been away from home enough or there haven't been enough hurricanes. I really needed it in the 2004 hurricane season since I went around 5 days at a time, 3 times without power.

Even when I take it out when I'm photographing something, I don't always pull it out to edit just then for fear that someone will try to steal it while I'm shooting again.
 
bousozoku said:
I've had it charge to 100 % occasionally but not that often. It's usually at 98 %, even after it's "fully" charged.

After almost 2 years, you'd think the thing would work as I expect but that's not the case.
Click to expand...

That's normal. It's not good for a battery to fully charge to 100% every time, so the OS will stop it from charging to 100%, usually anywhere between 95-100%.
 
My ibook battery does that excact same thing and a calibration doesn't help it, it's just a waste of a battery cycle. Stop thinking about it, if it works, it ain't broken.
 
bousozoku said:
I haven't been away from home enough or there haven't been enough hurricanes. I really needed it in the 2004 hurricane season since I went around 5 days at a time, 3 times without power.

Even when I take it out when I'm photographing something, I don't always pull it out to edit just then for fear that someone will try to steal it while I'm shooting again.
Click to expand...

You are getting enough juice to transfer pictures to your comp and make some edits over the course of 5 days? That is insane; you have a magic battery. How do you keep it going so long?

(n.b. this question is posed assuming a new, low cycle count battery or close to it)
 
toydriver00 said:
I have replaced my battery and still I have a problem with my Macbook not charging the battery past 98%. Does anyone else have this problem or is it normal?

Thanks
Click to expand...
here's what apple says about it :D and for those too lazy to click, here ya go :D
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.
Click to expand...
 
I'm pretty sure that the 98% is just a minor calibration error. It's not that you're not charging you battery to its maximum, it's just that the sensors are reading it as 98% full. It tends to happen when there's a large space of time where you don't drain your battery. A calibration will surely fix this problem if it bothers you. Otherwise, it's really nothing to worry about.
 
Quick question:

What is the *preferred* behavior regarding battery usage?

If the MBP is used at home - if you have access to an electrical outlet 24/7, is it better to use that as much as possible rather than battery power to reduce the amount of your recharge cycles? Or is it better to use your battery frequently? I'm just not sure and I haven't seen recommended usage in terms of when to use battery vs. when to use A/C.
 
fustercluck said:
Quick question:

What is the *preferred* behavior regarding battery usage?

If the MBP is used at home - if you have access to an electrical outlet 24/7, is it better to use that as much as possible rather than battery power to reduce the amount of your recharge cycles? Or is it better to use your battery frequently? I'm just not sure and I haven't seen recommended usage in terms of when to use battery vs. when to use A/C.
Click to expand...
i think the rule is that you can keep your laptop plugged to the wall outlet but you should do a charge - discharge cycle at least once a month :D
 
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