Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Late 2008 MacBook battery replacement?

S

spadz93

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 24, 2009
72
2
My battery barely lasts an hour while just web browsing with chrome (only a few tabs open, max 4). I went to apples site to try and find a replacement, and apparently they discontinued it. I tried OWC's NuPower battery and ultimately wasn't impressed by it's performance. The machine runs ML so maybe that OS is a battery hog (haven't done much research on power consumption between OS's).

I'll buy another NuPower if enough people can vouch for it, but ultimately i'd like to see if anyone has any solid recommendations for me. Thanks in advance!
 
I needed one for mine, bought one on Amazon from Egoway.

It had lackluster performance. I was dead within an hour and the machine would just shutoff. I put a complete charge cycle on it and to see if it improved and returned it.

I ended up finding an official apple battery on ebay that was described as "purchased for my macbook but realized it was the wrong one and I accidentally threw out the receipt". So it was a gamble.

Received it in the mail, Manufactured august 2014, 0 charge cycles. Works great. So I lucked out. I saw a handful of Apple ones and also rebuilt official apple ones on ebay - not sure how well they work.
 
despite their terrible reviews, i've had the best luck with the OEM apple batteries. I'll try to hunt one down, and if not, time for another nupower
 
Apple's are good if you can find one, as stated.

I had bad luck with my first OWC/NuPower battery only lasting a couple hours. So a few months after getting it I sent it back and they shipped me a replacement. It's been working for over a year now and lasts around 4 hours. About the same as the Apple one when it was new.

So if you get a NuPower one and it's just not going well, you might try a replacement. Otherwise, it really depends what you're running. That figure was mostly Safari (on Mavericks) with iTunes and Word. Pretty light, just writing papers and such.

Anything using Flash Player will kill it fast, so use Safari with it's built in flash block or use AdBlock Plus and Flash Block. It helps a lot, especially on these Core 2 machines.

You can also download a small app called coconutBattery to check the health of the battery and make sure it's holding what it should.

I also have an SSD in it. So when it does open apps it doesn't take much time loading it up, so that also may have an impact on battery life.
 
well i've scoured the bay and the internet and can't seem to find a genuine OEM battery, so i'll probably have to buckle down and go for another nupower, since i'm not about to throw cash at an ebay special. what SSD do you got? i'm going to be getting an ssd as this macbook is going to turn into a live back-track machine and the vibrations would screw a rotational drive. I was looking at samsung/crucial drives
 
i know it's against rules, but i want to revive this post. i went with a newertech battery, and it was faulty. battery wouldnt charge, laptop wouldn't start with the battery in it (tried my old battery and my sister's MB battery, both worked). does anyone know where to get an OEM one? or can anyone recommend another reputable company?
 
spadz93 said:
i know it's against rules, but i want to revive this post.
Click to expand...

What you did here is not against the rules at all. Just bumping threads is against the rules, but you are updating with new information and that is totally fine. :)


spadz93 said:
i went with a newertech battery, and it was faulty. battery wouldnt charge, laptop wouldn't start with the battery in it (tried my old battery and my sister's MB battery, both worked). does anyone know where to get an OEM one? or can anyone recommend another reputable company?
Click to expand...

Do you have the white plastic model? You can order a OEM battery direct from Apple here.
 
spadz93 said:
i know it's against rules, but i want to revive this post. i went with a newertech battery, and it was faulty. battery wouldnt charge, laptop wouldn't start with the battery in it (tried my old battery and my sister's MB battery, both worked). does anyone know where to get an OEM one? or can anyone recommend another reputable company?
Click to expand...

I bought one from newertech and installed it yesterday, seems to be working fine for me BUT maybe it's because I downgraded to Lion a few weeks ago. Couldn't take the bad battery life with Yosemite or Mavericks.
 
Weaselboy said:
What you did here is not against the rules at all. Just bumping threads is against the rules, but you are updating with new information and that is totally fine. :)




Do you have the white plastic model? You can order a OEM battery direct from Apple here.
Click to expand...

understood, and nope i have the a1278 unibody
 
I just purchased an Anker battery for my macbook aluminum. Was 59.99 at amazon and have good luck with other Anker products plus has 18 month warranty. Comes Monday so will just have to see how it goes...
 
bubsdaddy said:
Any feedback on the Anker battery?
Click to expand...

Seems to be working well. Coconut showed that the battery capacity was 4356mAh and 100% is considered 4200mAh. It has gone through a handful of cycles and seems to work just fine. Will see how it goes.
 
got my nupower a little while ago and broke it in as per the manufacturers instructions. did a few charge cycles as well from 100 to dead. I can only get about 2 hours out of this thing before it shuts off on me, and I'm only really web browsing (facebook, occaisional short clip, mostly forum browsing). something seems out of whack here
 
ralax said:
Hi everyone. Which one you guys would recommend to buy ?
-Anker Upgraded
http://www.amazon.com/Upgraded-Vers...p/B006ZGCH18/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

-Egoway
http://www.amazon.com/Egoway®-Battery-Macbook-Aluminum-Li-Polymer/dp/B00KOGO70O/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

-Key Power
http://www.amazon.com/Key-Battery-M...p/B00QBD99JS/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
Click to expand...

@ralax, I got your PM but I'll post my reply here so others can see it for what it's worth.

I'd just go with the Anker battery since I've dealt with them before with other products (charging dock, USB power adapters, batteries in various Android devices, etc) and I've had a positive experience with them. That and it's got a good warranty and is a well known company. With Anker and Amazon it should be pretty simple to get a replacement if you get a faulty battery, which does happen sometimes regardless of manufacturer. My OWC one is still working two years down the line, and it lasts around two hours or so. Not great, but better than 20 minutes. Keeping in mind that the OEM Apple battery lasted about 4 hours tops when it was brand new in 2008. And it was lithium polymer I believe.

I'd expect the Anker one to last around three hours new and after a few cycles for it to get calibrated. That being at half brightness, WiFi on, and using something like Safari and Office.
 
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
I found a good OEM battery (legit Apple) from a user called batteryfox7 on eBay January 2015, looks like they're not selling them anymore and nothing active is listed. Bummer. I wish I would have picked up a few after reading this thread and realizing how rare they seem to be becoming.

Also I realized that my Mac is going to be turning 7 soon. Best laptop I've ever owned tbh.
 
BrettApple said:
@ralax
I'd just go with the Anker...
Click to expand...
Thank you for your quick respond, because i want order it today. However that anker battery in amazon have 500+ review and 100 of them complaining that it is crappy battery and sometimes even can't hold charge for 20min or it just shut down the laptop. Or it is also important to charge battery properly to use it's capacity for max?

east85 said:
I found a good OEM battery (legit Apple) from a user called batteryfox7 on eBay January 2015, looks like they're not selling them anymore and nothing active is listed. Bummer. I wish I would have picked up a few after reading this thread and realizing how rare they seem to be becoming.
Click to expand...
I also wanted to find someone who has not used oem battery or used it a little bit with a low battery cycle life...but it is to risky, because it is hard to check whether it is oem or not, also sellers are not accepting them back after you recieved the battery, it might be crappy battery with no warranty or just too old.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ladytonya
ralax said:
Thank you for your quick respond, because i want order it today. However that anker battery in amazon have 500+ review and 100 of them complaining that it is crappy battery and sometimes even can't hold charge for 20min or it just shut down the laptop. Or it is also important to charge battery properly to use it's capacity for max?


I also wanted to find someone who has not used oem battery or used it a little bit with a low battery cycle life...but it is to risky, because it is hard to check whether it is oem or not, also sellers are not accepting them back after you recieved the battery, it might be crappy battery with no warranty or just too old.
Click to expand...

Yeah I suppose I just got lucky. The battery has held up better than expected, but I haven't got a chance to formally test it after the 80% mark. The listing described the batteries as recent stock, not old. May be part of it.
 
Purchased an EGOWAY in late December and it has less life than the 5 year old OEM battery even though its rating is about 25% higher and now the computer shuts down before the battery is empty with no warning.

Returning this and re-installing my old battery.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back