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Macbook Pro Battery

M

Macniac M

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 30, 2009
10
0
Hi everyone,

I got a Macbook Pro 13 inch (my first mac) last november, and Im really happy with it =D.

The only problem or concern Ive been having is about the battery. Im really obssesed with my mac being perfect, so Ive read a lot about the calibration, and all that other stuff. But i dont seem to understand what is the correct use of the battery.

What I was doing was, as Im in school I take it everyday fully charged and not charge it until I get home, but as I have homework and a lot of stuff to do, I leave it plugged even after it has been completely charged. Am I doing it right?

But right now Im on winter break, and I was just using it and charging it, recently I went to the apple store and noticed that a macbook pro like mine just had less than 30 cycles and mine has 38 and I guess the one at the store is a lot older than mine. Why is that?

Finally the capacity, acoording to coconut battery, is now on 89% WHYYY??? im really concerned about it.

Please help me, what am I supposed to do?

Thanks in advance.
 
89% capacity over a year's time is fantastic. I wish I could say the same for my Dell battery, which died after a year and a month (thanks, Dell, for the 1 year warranty!!).
 
Macniac M said:
Hi everyone,

I got a Macbook Pro 13 inch (my first mac) last november, and Im really happy with it =D.

The only problem or concern Ive been having is about the battery. Im really obssesed with my mac being perfect, so Ive read a lot about the calibration, and all that other stuff. But i dont seem to understand what is the correct use of the battery.

What I was doing was, as Im in school I take it everyday fully charged and not charge it until I get home, but as I have homework and a lot of stuff to do, I leave it plugged even after it has been completely charged. Am I doing it right?

But right now Im on winter break, and I was just using it and charging it, recently I went to the apple store and noticed that a macbook pro like mine just had less than 30 cycles and mine has 38 and I guess the one at the store is a lot older than mine. Why is that?

Finally the capacity, acoording to coconut battery, is now on 89% WHYYY??? im really concerned about it.

Please help me, what am I supposed to do?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...


89% after one year of use is not bad, but what baffles me is that you only got 38 cycles.
If you use your Mac daily on battery due to school the number should be higher.

I have a white MacBook since August 7th 2008 and it has 188 cycles and 95% health.

There are three applications (maybe more) that can give you your cycle count.
See if all those agree with the 38 cycles.

One is System Profiler (Applications > Utilities - there you look under Hardware > Power > Cycle count), tone is CoconutBattery, the lat one is iStat Menus (www.islayer.com).

If all those three agree, then you might have a case when the battery deteriorates further as Apple has a policy of replacing batteries with less than 80% health (% of original capacity) with less than 300 cycles.
But I don't know if they replace it after the first year, maybe only if you have Apple Care.
 
So far thank you to everyone, But when I said Last november, I meant november as in 2009! so thats just like 2 months ago..
 
Macniac M said:
So far thank you to everyone, But when I said Last november, I meant november as in 2009! so thats just like 2 months ago..
Click to expand...

Then 38 cycles is quite normal if you use it almost daily at class.

Thanks Surely for asking for the year. 2010 is still not in my bones and therefore last year is 2008.
 
Macniac M said:
Hi everyone,

I got a Macbook Pro 13 inch (my first mac) last november, and Im really happy with it =D.

The only problem or concern Ive been having is about the battery. Im really obssesed with my mac being perfect, so Ive read a lot about the calibration, and all that other stuff. But i dont seem to understand what is the correct use of the battery.

What I was doing was, as Im in school I take it everyday fully charged and not charge it until I get home, but as I have homework and a lot of stuff to do, I leave it plugged even after it has been completely charged. Am I doing it right?

But right now Im on winter break, and I was just using it and charging it, recently I went to the apple store and noticed that a macbook pro like mine just had less than 30 cycles and mine has 38 and I guess the one at the store is a lot older than mine. Why is that?

Finally the capacity, acoording to coconut battery, is now on 89% WHYYY??? im really concerned about it.

Please help me, what am I supposed to do?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

The correct use of a battery is to just use it. It'll get worn out no matter what you do, stressing over it will just hurt the end user rather than hurting the computer. I'm currently at 508 cycles with 89% health left on my MacBook Air that I got 7 months ago. I don't really care about the battery except that I use it when I need it.

The battery could have less cycles and still be older because the battery was CHANGED.

89% is fine. Come back when you're under 80%.
 
I use my batteries basically as a ups. generally if i dont need it mobile its plugged in, but i do unplug it form time to time each day for atleast a half hour to an hour so i get out of the habit of keeping it plugged in and keep it moving.


doing too many full drains during each day does wear it abit.
try less frequent drains and you should see your battery health increase.

some of the systems batteries i use go between 93% ~ 100%


I wouldnt worry too much about it, but generally get a good repetition of draining and keeping it plugged in, etc.
 
Heh I'm a pretty obsessive person too...

But its just a battery, you're going to jump through hoops to get a few more cycles from something that ultimately will die. Just use it, if you feel like having it plugged in then plug it in, if not then don't

Just avoid something that will completely kill the battery like leaving your MBP plugged in for 3 months straight and never use the battery. I'd say at least once a week run it down then charge it back up. Besides something like that, don't worry so much.
 
ayeying said:
The correct use of a battery is to just use it. It'll get worn out no matter what you do, stressing over it will just hurt the end user rather than hurting the computer. I'm currently at 508 cycles with 89% health left on my MacBook Air that I got 7 months ago. I don't really care about the battery except that I use it when I need it.
Click to expand...

+1

OP: Just use the computer how you see fit so that it meets your requirements. Actually, it's recommended that you do use the battery on a regular basis just as you are. You just don't want drain the battery from 100% to 0% each time you use it, as this actually is BAD for the battery. But otherwise it's not necessary to obsess over this, so just enjoy your new notebook.
 
Thank you everyone, I'll just keep using it, and if something goes wrong soon, I'll still have a warranty, so I'll just follow your advice of not worrying :)
 
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