Macbook Air 13" new battery questions

[JonLa]

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

Apple would charge you about £110 to replace the battery so it's the same either way. Apple would be the same - the only advantage would be if something goes wrong with their battery you can take it back to the Apple store.

Sounds like the ifixit battery wasn't quite calibrated yet - initially 110% which means it was finding more capacity than it expected or was used to. It calibrates itself so it's had a few cycles and worked out where the 100% mark should actually be.

I just had my magsafe fail and I was terrified it was a problem with the new battery, but no, magsafe 1 were just poorly made. And expensive.

 

[MacbookAlex]

Apple would charge you about £110 to replace the battery so it's the same either way. Apple would be the same - the only advantage would be if something goes wrong with their battery you can take it back to the Apple store.

Sounds like the ifixit battery wasn't quite calibrated yet - initially 110% which means it was finding more capacity than it expected or was used to. It calibrates itself so it's had a few cycles and worked out where the 100% mark should actually be.

I just had my magsafe fail and I was terrified it was a problem with the new battery, but no, magsafe 1 were just poorly made. And expensive.

Ah, okay, that explains things. Do you recommend calibrating it (using down to 0% , leaving five hours etc.....) or will that just mess up the battery? The guy who fitted it who is an Apple Authorised service provider said to never run it down to 10% and under because he said that it would just simply kill the battery

So far battery life hasn't been too bad, far better than the last old apple battery from 2011 anyway

Although I decided that I would downgrade to mavericks to try to get even better battery life. At 100% it claims i will get over 8hrs as opposed to El cap which at 100% said 4hrs lol It is just a bit of a shame, because i far prefer the styling of the old osx versions although i think personally that the flat and minimalistic look of yosemite onwards suits the MBA a lot more, but i can sacrifice that for run time lol.

Cheers,

Alex

 

[JonLa]

pretty sure the under 10% thing is a myth now - applied to much older generations of batteries, but not modern ones. the Apple advice on Calibration hasn't changed:

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25613?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

 

[MacbookAlex]

Thanks for that article, so it looks like apple wouldn't recommend calibrating then, though my new battery is a non Apple battery of course from Ifixit. Did you ever calibrate your iFixit one? Will it hurt?

Thanks,

Alex

 

[JonLa]

calibrating just ensures they're a bit more accurate in the readings, though Sierra got rid of the timed battery reading anyway. Some people on macrumours swear by it, others don't bother.

 

[MacbookAlex]

ok, am on Mavericks now so i still get the readings but it looks like i am going to have to do some more research into the whole calibration thing, because i just have this fear of running it down to flat once and it will struggle forever more lol!

Thanks,

Alex

 

[JonLa]

ok, am on Mavericks now so i still get the readings but it looks like i am going to have to do some more research into the whole calibration thing, because i just have this fear of running it down to flat once and it will struggle forever more lol!

Thanks,

Alex

Can't happen unless battery is faulty

 

[MacbookAlex]

Can't happen unless battery is faulty

ok, thanks

Alex

 

[MacbookAlex]

Unfortunately it looks like the battery is malfunctioning. Yesterday the mac started shutting down randomly whilst on battery power, but was fine when plugged in. I followed i fixit's calibration instructions and after waiting five hours, i go to plug in the mac, it has 24% charge in it already so suggests it never went to 0% and even worse, the battery will not charge, magsafe is constantly green, and as soon as i remove magsafe, the macbook shuts off!

This means that it is very difficult to work on the computer unless i am glued to my chair next to my power outlet and i must save all my work before i move to another location with the computer and the plug. I am currently abroad and will be for another 3 weeks, so this issue with the battery has kind of messed things up to an extent. I have contacted i fixit via email stating my predicament but i still can't see any future reply from them, atleast they haven't bothered yet.

Does anyone have any ideas how i can try and get the battery going again? Have tried smc pram resets but they do nothing for the issue and because the magsafe constantly stays green i can not even tell if the smc is actually being reset.
Coconut battery says condition normal and 94% capacity.


Alex

 

[derohan]

Unfortunately it looks like the battery is malfunctioning. Yesterday the mac started shutting down randomly whilst on battery power, but was fine when plugged in. I followed i fixit's calibration instructions and after waiting five hours, i go to plug in the mac, it has 24% charge in it already so suggests it never went to 0% and even worse, the battery will not charge, magsafe is constantly green, and as soon as i remove magsafe, the macbook shuts off!

This means that it is very difficult to work on the computer unless i am glued to my chair next to my power outlet and i must save all my work before i move to another location with the computer and the plug. I am currently abroad and will be for another 3 weeks, so this issue with the battery has kind of messed things up to an extent. I have contacted i fixit via email stating my predicament but i still can't see any future reply from them, atleast they haven't bothered yet.

Does anyone have any ideas how i can try and get the battery going again? Have tried smc pram resets but they do nothing for the issue and because the magsafe constantly stays green i can not even tell if the smc is actually being reset.
Coconut battery says condition normal and 94% capacity.


Alex

so my gf had the same problem last week & it seems like the charger connection on the laptop is the culprit..
check if the magsafe is dirty with metal bits/dirt, then clean via toothpicks tipped with tissue etc

hope it gets better!

My current laptop had the same so I ordered a new part & cleaned the old one which work again since

(also unplug the charger for a few minutes from the wall so that it doesn't 'remember' the charging state)

 

[MacbookAlex]

so my gf had the same problem last week & it seems like the charger connection on the laptop is the culprit..
check if the magsafe is dirty with metal bits/dirt, then clean via toothpicks tipped with tissue etc

hope it gets better!

My current laptop had the same so I ordered a new part & cleaned the old one which work again since

(also unplug the charger for a few minutes from the wall so that it doesn't 'remember' the charging state)

Hi again derohan, thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately, the magsafe lights up green and maintains the battery, so the charging port is definitely working and as soon as i unplug the cord everything shuts down, thus it has got to be that damn battery lol

i fixit finally replied to me and asked me to send a pic of what coconut battery said, which unfortunately says that it is "normal" when clearly the battery is actually malfunctioning. Hopefully i fixit will just acknowledge the problem and honour me a justified refund or replacement.

Now, the problem occurs even with the magsafe plugged in. The mac will just randomly shut off and i lose any work which is a real problem to me as that is of great importance. Luckily my dad has stepped in to save the vacation by lending me his mid 2015 rmbp 15" (am on cloud 9 with this mac lol)

Glad you sorted out the prob for your gf. These laptops are awesome but it's such an inconvenience when one little component fails on you

Cheers,

Alex

 

[Rocko99991]

I just bought used battery off of ebay. OEM 185 cycles, 91% health. $22 shipped. My old battery was 73% health. Took 5 minutes to swap out.

 

[_Kiki_]

I just bought used battery off of ebay. OEM 185 cycles, 91% health. $22 shipped. My old battery was 73% health. Took 5 minutes to swap out.

good deal

 

[derohan]

Hi again derohan, thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately, the magsafe lights up green and maintains the battery, so the charging port is definitely working and as soon as i unplug the cord everything shuts down, thus it has got to be that damn battery lol

i fixit finally replied to me and asked me to send a pic of what coconut battery said, which unfortunately says that it is "normal" when clearly the battery is actually malfunctioning. Hopefully i fixit will just acknowledge the problem and honour me a justified refund or replacement.

Now, the problem occurs even with the magsafe plugged in. The mac will just randomly shut off and i lose any work which is a real problem to me as that is of great importance. Luckily my dad has stepped in to save the vacation by lending me his mid 2015 rmbp 15" (am on cloud 9 with this mac lol)

Glad you sorted out the prob for your gf. These laptops are awesome but it's such an inconvenience when one little component fails on you

Cheers,

Alex

Hope it worked out... Haven't been using my rMBP but it's now at 256+cycles & came back to 95% after charging correctly -

The gf's magsafe port on the laptop side needed some proper cleaning since the light kept going to green etc but then found out the charger was also fried eventually that point ^^ original one from Apple as well!
Ended up giving her a spare ~65W genuine one to fix that.