Is my MBP battery toast?

[viggen61]

I've been having troubles with my MBP (2.33 Ghz C2D) battery lately. A few months back, on advice from this forum, I recalibrated my battery according to Apple's instructions a few times. Since then, I set up the MBP more as a desktop with an Apple 20" Cinema display, ethernet, and a USB 2 hub. Because of that, I've not been able to religiously calibrate the battery.

Anyway, about a month ago, I noticed that I'd get extremely short life on battery. Like 30-40 minutes. And I would not get the battery warning. The battery monitor would indicate between 25 and 35 minutes left, and it would just shut off. Not sleep, completely shut down.

What's really interesting is that as I sit here now, System Profiler shows:

Charge Information:
  Charge remaining (mAh):	347
  Fully charged:	Yes
  Charging:	No
  Full charge capacity (mAh):	347
  Health Information:
  Cycle count:	25
  Condition:	Check battery
  Battery Installed:	Yes
  Amperage (mA):	0
  Voltage (mV):	12475

Obviously, the 347 mAh is wrong, so something is bad. The cycle count is interesting, because the count was nearly 40 last time I recall looking at it.

Is there any way I can "repair" the battery's corrupted information, or is this a call to Apple Care (thank goodness I bought that...)? Will zapping the PRAM help at all?

Hoping someone knows!

 

[gibbz]

Have you tried Coconut Battery to see what it says?

 

[Watabou]

Sorry to hijack this thread but I didn't want to create a new thread. Am I eligible for a battery replacement if coconutbattery and iStat Pro reports the battery health at 94% after 20 cycles?
Two days ago my battery was at 99% and I calibrated twice a month. After caliberation two days ago though, iStat reports m battery health to be 94%. I have a Penryn MBP and its been only 4 months since me having bought this MBP.


Also to the OP: DO you have a Apple Store near you? If you do, then go to the genius bar and show the battery to them. But I know batteries only have a year replacement or something like that.

 

[nikiski]

The general guideline is 80% at 300 cycles. Thus, to the OP, you should definitely take the computer to an Apple Store. They will very likely replace the battery for you. Hope all goes well for you.