MacBook battery going crazy...

[ITASOR]

Hi everyone,

Haven't posted on here in a while, but my MacBook is having a problem that's driving me crazy.

This is an original 1.83Ghz MacBook (17 months old). Never had an issue before and I use it all day, every day.

When I was using it last night off battery power, when there got to be about 40 minutes left (2 green lights on the actual battery), the MacBook completely shut off. No warning, no nothing...screen went black and it was totally off.

I wasn't sure what happened so I tried to turn it back on but it was totally dead. Plugged it in and noticed no light on the MagSafe. I pressed the power button and the MagSafe turned green for a split second, then amber, and the MacBook started up. I let it charge up to 100%.

Fast forward to tonight. Again, running off battery power, about 40 minutes left it completely shuts off. Same thing about not starting and the MagSafe. Now even though it's shutting off with about 40 minutes left, I'm getting a bit more than 2 hours battery life before it's shutting off. I'm not sure if it's actually dead or it just think it is but still really has 40 minutes left.

What could be going on? In System Profiler it says Health Information: Cycle count: 51, Battery health: Good. However in CoconutBattery, it says I only have 7 cycles on the battery (yes, seven) but says the battery capacity is 91%. The 51 cycles is the correct number.

While I don't run off battery power that much (51 times in 17 months proves that...), I have calibrated it as necessary and it has never given me any issues before.

Any ideas? Any ways I can get this thing into shape? I figured I would need to run it completely empty and charge it back up to get it back into shape, but there's no way to discharge it if the computer shuts off at 41 minutes.

Thanks!

 

[lavrishevo]

Zap your pram just to be on the safe side and try to recalibrate your battery. You know the whole process when you charge to full, turn off all sleep funtions and let it go to sleep when all power is lost and stay sleeping for 6-8 hours before you charge it to 100% plus leave it pluged in for a few hours after fully charged. If this does not calibrate your charge meters to sync with actual battery life then most likely your battery is going bad. Coconut does not work with Leopard so don't use it to gather battery information. Just do the old about this mac and so on.... Good luck.

Hi everyone,

Haven't posted on here in a while, but my MacBook is having a problem that's driving me crazy.

This is an original 1.83Ghz MacBook (17 months old). Never had an issue before and I use it all day, every day.

When I was using it last night off battery power, when there got to be about 40 minutes left (2 green lights on the actual battery), the MacBook completely shut off. No warning, no nothing...screen went black and it was totally off.

I wasn't sure what happened so I tried to turn it back on but it was totally dead. Plugged it in and noticed no light on the MagSafe. I pressed the power button and the MagSafe turned green for a split second, then amber, and the MacBook started up. I let it charge up to 100%.

Fast forward to tonight. Again, running off battery power, about 40 minutes left it completely shuts off. Same thing about not starting and the MagSafe. Now even though it's shutting off with about 40 minutes left, I'm getting a bit more than 2 hours battery life before it's shutting off. I'm not sure if it's actually dead or it just think it is but still really has 40 minutes left.

What could be going on? In System Profiler it says Health Information: Cycle count: 51, Battery health: Good. However in CoconutBattery, it says I only have 7 cycles on the battery (yes, seven) but says the battery capacity is 91%. The 51 cycles is the correct number.

While I don't run off battery power that much (51 times in 17 months proves that...), I have calibrated it as necessary and it has never given me any issues before.

Any ideas? Any ways I can get this thing into shape? I figured I would need to run it completely empty and charge it back up to get it back into shape, but there's no way to discharge it if the computer shuts off at 41 minutes.

Thanks!

 

[ITASOR]

Zap your pram just to be on the safe side and try to recalibrate your battery. You know the whole process when you charge to full, turn off all sleep funtions and let it go to sleep when all power is lost and stay sleeping for 6-8 hours before you charge it to 100% plus leave it pluged in for a few hours after fully charged. If this does not calibrate your charge meters to sync with actual battery life then most likely your battery is going bad. Coconut does not work with Leopard so don't use it to gather battery information. Just do the old about this mac and so on.... Good luck.

Hey thanks for the reply. I will try all the PRAM stuff, didn't think of that.

One of my problems is that I CAN'T recalibrate the battery. There's no way for me to let it go to sleep when power is lost, sleep itself dead, and then charge it all the way up. At 40 minutes left it's like I pulled the battery out (screen black, fans immediately stops). I cannot get it to run past that spot. So yeah, no way to calibrate it.

 

[UniAce]

ITASOR, I'm having the same problem w/ a 2ghz MacBook. I've got AppleCare so I'm planning to just bring it in and hopefully get the battery replaced, but haven't had time! Any luck with yours?