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Macbook Air 13" new battery questions

MacbookAlex

MacbookAlex

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 25, 2017
56
11
London, UK
Hi all,

My mid 2011 MBA 13" has 580 cycles on the battery, Coconut Battery claims it only holds around 80% of its original capacity, and my battery life is pretty awful, imo. Obviously I think that I could do with a new battery........

My questions are-

1. A authorised service provider friend told me that a new battery in this mac will make barely any difference to the run time, is this the case?

2. When I go to buy a new battery on Ebay, are there any that you can recommend? Obviously I would like to try to find a genuine brand new Apple battery but one of those on Ebay got sold a while back before I could grab it :( Am in the UK and Flourion brand seems quite popular, if I can not find a genuine apple one.

3. Is there anybody on here with the same Mac who can remember what the battery run time was like back in 2011 from new out of the box? And will a replacement battery for this mac enable the run time to be the same/similar to that.

Thank you so much for your thoughts,

Alex
 
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I recently bought a battery for my 2010 Air via ifixit. I've gone from 1 hour battery to 4+ depending on load. The one i got was the 2011 battery that they sell which is backwards compatible for my 2010 model.
 
JonLa said:
I recently bought a battery for my 2010 Air via ifixit. I've gone from 1 hour battery to 4+ depending on load. The one i got was the 2011 battery that they sell which is backwards compatible for my 2010 model.
Click to expand...
Hi and thank you for replying. That battery sounds good. I had a look on Ifixit but they are, of course, based in the US and unfortunately it says in small print "iFixit is not able to ship batteries internationally or outside the contiguous US at this time."

Oh well, but thanks very much anyway.

Alex
 
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JonLa said:
I'm in the UK Alex! They have an EU store that ships from Germany.

https://eustore.ifixit.com/en/Parts/MacBook-Parts/Macbook-Air/13/Late-2010/MacBook-Air-13-Mid-2011-Mid-2012-Battery.html?cur=1&listtype=search&searchparam=macbook air 2011

I got the two screwdrivers required from Amazon in a little set, as cheaper than ifixit's own - and yes you do need them both, normal screwdrivers will just damage the screws and the case.
Click to expand...
Whoops, should have looked at that lol:rolleyes:

That looks very tempting, and even better, it seems to have a greater MAH than he original in my Air, so it might allow me to squeeze that bit more battery life. It's so annoying having one of Apples most portable macs, but it gets through about 1% battery per minute at least :mad:

The other battery i was looking at is made by newer tech, and there is a brand new one on ebay that ships from Ireland. Newertech is an American brand and on their website it claims that their batteries hold even more run time that apple's originals. Do you think that battery is a good idea? Otherwise the one you have kindly shown me on Ifixit looks great.

Thanks,

Alex
 
From the research I did, most people don't trust Ebay batteries - many claim to be Apple originals. I think i've heard of newertech but I'd always buy a battery from a reputable company, so it depends who is selling it. I didn't want a fire hazard in my beloved macbook so ifixit seemed to be the most reputable brand that i could get easily, with the best aftersupport - particular the ifixit guides and videos.

And yes it has a higher capacity. Mine is the older model with a cranky old core2duo chip so yours should do even better than mine.
 
JonLa said:
From the research I did, most people don't trust Ebay batteries - many claim to be Apple originals. I think i've heard of newertech but I'd always buy a battery from a reputable company, so it depends who is selling it. I didn't want a fire hazard in my beloved macbook so ifixit seemed to be the most reputable brand that i could get easily, with the best aftersupport - particular the ifixit guides and videos.

And yes it has a higher capacity. Mine is the older model with a cranky old core2duo chip so yours should do even better than mine.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I feel kind of worried about the legitimacy of the ones on Ebay so I think that I will forget about that one and probably go with the one on Ifixit eventually, expensive but it's really needed lol.

When it comes to the screwdrivers, I would rather go to an authorised service provider friend of mine and ask him to install the battery, because in the past whenever I have opened up a mac, I have usually either lost the screws, not been able to ever have the bottom plate fit exactly right or both lol.

If I can get my Macbook air out of the house for a day without needing to use the power adapter i think i'll throw a party :D
 
If you've got a friend who knows what he is doing then it's a five minute job.

Get him to clear out the dust and give the fan a good blow with some compressed air while it is open - mine had picked up a lot of dust

I was wary, but this one was so easy that losing the screws was the biggest problem, so I was prepared with little pots to put them in and make sure i got them back in the same holes.
 
JonLa said:
If you've got a friend who knows what he is doing then it's a five minute job.

Get him to clear out the dust and give the fan a good blow with some compressed air while it is open - mine had picked up a lot of dust

I was wary, but this one was so easy that losing the screws was the biggest problem, so I was prepared with little pots to put them in and make sure i got them back in the same holes.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I must remember to ask, because so much dust has probably got in over the years that the excess heat probably has a slightly adverse effect on battery life for a start.

Also, I am wondering what os x is best for its battery life. Is it best to have the latest os on there( although sierra is a real pain for good battery life) or are newer os versions more demanding and so its best to put an older os x onto it, when I get the new battery?
 
I always stick with the latest just to keep my devices in sync - there have been icloud changes IIRC. I think Sierra is better than its predecessor for battery life...
 
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gosh, when i put sierra on my Air, the battery life was even worse than usual. It is downgraded to el cap now and is better but still pretty awful due to the battery that i must swap.

Perhaps when i get the new battery i will put sierra on it, leave it on for a day or two to do all the tasks it needs to do after upgrading then see how it is.

Alex
 
I just put a new battery in my 11 inch mid-2011. Super easy, took 10 minutes. Surprising amount of dust that I cleaned out. I was at 960 cycles with terrible battery life.

$60 from Amazon with screwdrivers. Probably cheaper from eBay. Wish I had done it sooner!
 
MacbookAlex said:
Hi and thank you for replying. That battery sounds good. I had a look on Ifixit but they are, of course, based in the US and unfortunately it says in small print "iFixit is not able to ship batteries internationally or outside the contiguous US at this time."

Oh well, but thanks very much anyway.

Alex
Click to expand...

If you need a battery shipped internationally you can buy your battery here:
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/BAP13MBA55/

Their batteries fit perfectly too.
 
weezerr said:
I just put a new battery in my 11 inch mid-2011. Super easy, took 10 minutes. Surprising amount of dust that I cleaned out. I was at 960 cycles with terrible battery life.

$60 from Amazon with screwdrivers. Probably cheaper from eBay. Wish I had done it sooner!
Click to expand...
Hi, thanks for replying.

That sounds encouraging that it is a simple task. Did it improve your battery life much?

Alex
[doublepost=1498851105][/doublepost]
DesignerOnMac said:
If you need a battery shipped internationally you can buy your battery here:
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/BAP13MBA55/

Their batteries fit perfectly too.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply,

If i will spend that amount of money on it, then i would rather get it from ifixit Europe bc it will take only 2-3 days to arrive so they say. Thanks for the link though!

Alex
 
MacbookAlex said:
Hi, thanks for replying.

That sounds encouraging that it is a simple task. Did it improve your battery life much?

Alex
[doublepost=1498851105][/doublepost]
Thanks for the reply,

If i will spend that amount of money on it, then i would rather get it from ifixit Europe bc it will take only 2-3 days to arrive so they say. Thanks for the link though!

Alex
Click to expand...

Yes it is much better. The 11 inch has always had mediocre battery life. The overall system performance is much better too. Something was definitely screwy with my old battery.

Replacement was a piece of cake if you are the least bit handy.
 
So, decided to finally bite the bullet and buy it from iFixit, as recommended by JonLa, many thanks for your advice btw :)

Hope its performance and run time justifies the price, i will prob do a review of it or something on here after i have used it for a couple of weeks. The website claims it should get to my area within about four working days.

Alex
 
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JonLa said:
If you've got a friend who knows what he is doing then it's a five minute job.

Get him to clear out the dust and give the fan a good blow with some compressed air while it is open - mine had picked up a lot of dust

I was wary, but this one was so easy that losing the screws was the biggest problem, so I was prepared with little pots to put them in and make sure i got them back in the same holes.
Click to expand...
Hi there again, have been using the battery for 12 cycles now over about a week The battery life is decent though not amazing, of course it has at least improved somewhat. I have a question which am unsure about-

when I put the battery in, i looked at Coconut battery and it said that it had 110% of its original capacity. Fast forward to today and it shows it has 100%, so in just over 10 cycles it has gone down by 10% from its max capacity. Is this normal?
In another 10 cycles will it drop again to 90% then 80% so on and so on, and then i will be with a battery which has the same capacity as the old one which barely gave me any run time? :(

I found out today that apple is still replacing mid 2011 MBA's with brand new batteries, so am kind of kicking myself now as I did not know that when I went third party with ifixit. Do u think an apple's own battery would have been better?

Am by no means complaining lol just enquiring bc after i paid so much money with ifixit,if this battery is not up to standard then I want to know so that i can sort it out with them. Did you experience this drop in capacity so quickly?

Cheers,

Alex
 
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MacbookAlex said:
when I put the battery in, i looked at Coconut battery and it said that it had 110% of its original capacity. Fast forward to today and it shows it has 100%, so in just over 10 cycles it has gone down by 10% from its max capacity. Is this normal?
In another 10 cycles will it drop again to 90% then 80% so on and so on, and then i will be with a battery which has the same capacity as the old one which barely gave me any run time? :(

Cheers,

Alex
Click to expand...
Had the same thing here with a battery for a 2012 retina MBP bought from ebay, you're fine as wine;)
Here's the coconut report ^^
35mr053.jpg


It's funny because this usage is worst case scenario, this laptop draws 16-20W at idle & much higher usually!

Also found charging with 60W adapter while sleeping instead of the 95W or so helped increase back to ~98%
(if on it draws ~16.4V instead of ~19.5 so only been doing that while turned off/sleeping)

ps. I still get 5-7 hours with this thing idleish, screen low, etc
time to move over to a 2015MBA!
 
derohan said:
Had the same thing here with a battery for a 2012 retina MBP bought from ebay, you're fine as wine;)
Here's the coconut report ^^
35mr053.jpg


It's funny because this usage is worst case scenario, this laptop draws 16-20W at idle & much higher usually!

Also found charging with 60W adapter while sleeping instead of the 95W or so helped increase back to ~98%
(if on it draws ~16.4V instead of ~19.5 so only been doing that while turned off/sleeping)

ps. I still get 5-7 hours with this thing idleish, screen low, etc
time to move over to a 2015MBA!
Click to expand...
ok, cheers.

Yeah, i want the 2015 mba so so much, but i just can not justify another mac let alone the cost right now. Perhaps next year i will look into selling this MBA with a company called cash4mac, I think. They send a courier to come and pick it up. I did their online quote and they said £300 for this mac which i thought was pretty good. Then i would start looking at upgrading to a new mba.

Are apple going to discontinue the Airs anytime soon? :eek:

One thing- if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing on your Air to get 5-7 hrs run time? Are you using it constantly? And are there any settings or tweaks that I could try that you have done with it?

Thanks,

Alex
 
Screen Shot 2017-07-14 at 12.46.31 1.png
Screen Shot 2017-07-14 at 12.34.14.png
MacbookAlex said:
ok, cheers.

One thing- if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing on your Air to get 5-7 hrs run time? Are you using it constantly? And are there any settings or tweaks that I could try that you have done with it?

Thanks,

Alex
Click to expand...
It's a retina macbook pro 15" ;) the 2015 Airs consume like ~5W idle and give you around 10-20hrs eaaasy
only tricks I got are pay attention to BT/WIFI when not in use, lower brightness & most of all..
..increase fan speeds enough so your laptop is chilling around 30-50 degrees C (less power wasted as heat)
The fan speeds on mine are both maxed at 5000+ RPM but still getting 5+hrs with the old power-hungry dGPU
 
derohan said:
View attachment 708554 View attachment 708555
It's a retina macbook pro 15" ;) the 2015 Airs consume like ~5W idle and give you around 10-20hrs eaaasy
only tricks I got are pay attention to BT/WIFI when not in use, lower brightness & most of all..
..increase fan speeds enough so your laptop is chilling around 30-50 degrees C (less power wasted as heat)
The fan speeds on mine are both maxed at 5000+ RPM but still getting 5+hrs with the old power-hungry dGPU
Click to expand...
Meant to type "Pro" :oops:

that looks like some nice programs you've got there for monitoring everything lol.Any chance you could tell me what they are so that I could download them for my Air?

Am amazed that at over 200 cycles your battery is at 95% capacity, u must charge it very carefully. Is it the original battery in there from 2012?

My envy of the 2015 Air is increasing :D I really hope Apple is going to continue selling the Airs because they really are so good, but with the MacBooks out with retina display and the iPad pro it seems unlikely:(. I hope they at least keep selling them until I upgrade ;)
 
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