How does AppleCare deal with bad batteries?

[Lobos]

My PowerBook is just over one year old and a couple of weeks ago while on vacation the battery went from holding a good 2.5-3 hour charge all the way down to 30-40 minutes (if i'm lucky.) This seems pretty unacceptable and not normal for one year of use. I've had it plugged it for a large amount of the time as well.

I'm planning on taking it down to the Palo Alto store today. I've done the whole recalibrationg thing a few times and nothing happens. Does anyone know how AppleCare/in store help will most likely react?

 

[nbs2]

Normally one year/70% capacity is the cutoff.

Mine was around a year, give or take (it was the replacement for the PB recall) and I was sending in my PB for another issue (latch) and made mention of it since it had only been through 15 load cycles or so. When it was returned to me, it had a new battery, so if you can get past the geniuses, you have a good shot at getting lucky...

 

[WildCowboy]

Try recalibrating the battery (run it all the way down until it goes into the power-saving sleep mode, then fully recharge). If it still behaves this way and you don't have a lot of cycles on the battery, then you shouldn't have a problem getting a replacement.

 

[Lobos]

How can you tell how many cycles you have? I've tried recalibrating a few times now and nothing worked.

 

[WildCowboy]

Use coconutBattery...a handy little app.

 

[Lobos]

I looked in the system profiler and it says i have 150 cycles. Is that good? Bad? Should I be getting so little out of my battery at that many cycles?

 

[WildCowboy]

150 cycles is a decently high number for only a year of use, but such a drop in power doesn't sound right. Take it in and talk to them...that's the best you can do.

 

[Lobos]

Is a cyle a full drain and recharge? Or will two half drains and charges count as a cycle?

 

[nbs2]

Is a cyle a full drain and recharge? Or will two half drains and charges count as a cycle?

The latter. A cycle is a combined 100% use and recharge of the battery (so if you drain 10% each time over ten charges, one cycle).

 

[Lobos]

Well, they're replacing it