MBP battery is at 22% health, is it under warranty?

[e12a]

This is absolutely untrue. Batteries are NOT covered by the warranty or AppleCare, unless they are defective. See my post #14 for links to the actual Warranty and AppleCare agreements and read it for yourself.

whos to say short battery life isn't a defect? cells used in the manufacturing of the battery have abnormally bad life spans.

got mine replaced just over a year when it took a nosedive from 2 1/2 hours to 1 hour after the battery update on my old 2.33. I had 68 cycles at 34% health. Compared to my current 2.4 SR with 96 cycles and 88% health.

but you can go check for yourself, it is "covered under Apple Care Limited Warranty" if you have access their service site.

thank you!

just to note, you don't have to use all the battery all at once. You can use little by little between charges until it adds to a cycle as well.

 

[n8236]

I had my mbp battery around 150 charge cycles and hold only an one hr charge. The genius was a bit reluctant to replace it, but he did it out of courtesy.

Batteries are a consumption item, so it depends on the # of charge cycles, how old the battery is, how long the charge it holds and the mood of the Genius.

 

[Tastannin]

You don't it's in the menu bar, click on the battery icon > show > percentage

Well, duh me! Thanks to you and everyone else in this thread! I've learned a couple of things I didn't before.

 

[Beau10]

This is absolutely untrue. Batteries are NOT covered by the warranty or AppleCare, unless they are defective. See my post #14 for links to the actual Warranty and AppleCare agreements and read it for yourself.

Which means it's covered by AppleCare. AppleCare only covers defects, lol.

An abnormally fast drop in capacity is a defect. As reported in several threads in the forum, the criteria Apple appears to use is 80% charge/300 cycles within one year, but it appears they go outside of this on a case by case basis.

 

[88888888]

where do you guys find your health %?

 

[Glaxx]

I called Apple Support today about this issue. My battery is at ~35% health with 108 cycles. I get just over an hour of usage on a full charge. My MBP was purchased in August of 2007 and I didn't buy extra Apple Care. The support guy asked me to open System Profiler and read off some information for him. After I did, he said he would have to check to see if I was eligible for a replacement. He came back on after about 5 minutes on hold and told me that I wasn't eligible.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what I could do? I was thinking about taking it to an Apple Store, but the closest one is a 2 hour drive one way. Does anyone have experience buying replacement batteries from somewhere besides Apple? I really don't want to have to spend $129 on a new battery.

 

[Neil321]

where do you guys find your health %?

istat pro

 

[brop52]

My battery life on my 2GHz Late 2008 MB has been fine up until today. I was normally getting at least 3.5 hours at high 90% health but now I'm getting roughly 2 hours max and in 50% or so health. I calibrated it when I got it in late October but now it is at 51 cycles. I figure I should calibrate it again and see if that helps it at all. I just reset the SMC/PRAM but that didn't seem to help.

What I don't understand is how it was fine for nearly two months and then just failed like this. (Maybe the firmware updates had something to do with it?) It wasn't a progressive health loss but it was a pretty drastic near cut in half of battery life.

 

[mackmgg]

i started a thread the other day about mine at 42%, and i just called apple now and they fixed it i got it last june.

 

[brop52]

Just an update on my battery. After leaving my computer sleeping for 8 hours and turning it on it was at first still 50% health telling me the time remaining was 1:30 hours. Now after using it for about half an hour it is telling me over 4 hours of battery life and 99% health. Something weird is going on as nothing else changed in the meantime. Now it a few hours later from being fully charged and it is back down to 69% health and telling me the battery life is under 2 hours.

 

[brop52]

Ok I've been monitoring the battery over the last few days and I've found the health is usually worst when the capacity is in the 70s. I let it go down to where it was telling me I had less than 20 minutes and had health in the high 40%. As it inched lower it jumped to 2:35 and near 100% health. I'm assuming this is a calibration issue and not a battery issue. Either that, or the firmware update screwed something up. I'll recalibrate the battery and see if anything changes.

 

[Kevster89]

How to check battery health?

In system profiler, I notice various things about the battery:

Health (Good)
Cycles (110)

But do not see the percent health y'all are talking about. Where can I find this in system profiler?

 

[hit2cho]

i wish it was true

I think it's every time the full capacity is charged and discharged, ex:

The Glassbook Pro battery is 4600mAh, officially, so every time a total of 4600mAh is charged, and a total of 4600mAh is discharged, it ads 1 to the cycle count.

I'd love it if this was the case. I have probably only let my Glassbook Pro discharge fully about five times. The others--I've probably let it discharge to random levels: 25%, 50%, 80%, et cetera. I got it the day it came out, and my cycle count reads 45.

However, my full charge capacity currently reads 4682 mAh (which an Apple rep told me was "superb"). The only issue is that I don't get the actual 5 hours (on the 9400) or the 4 on the (9600). I get about 3.5 hours on the 9400 with the contrast at half (running Pages, Adium, and sometimes Firefox).

What do you guys think?

 

[Semiopaque]

In system profiler, I notice various things about the battery:

Health (Good)
Cycles (110)

But do not see the percent health y'all are talking about. Where can I find this in system profiler?

An easy way is to download the iStat Pro widget. I'm not sure it's 100% accurate but it seems to be pretty close, as close as anything I see in profiler at least.

 

[brop52]

I'd love it if this was the case. I have probably only let my Glassbook Pro discharge fully about five times. The others--I've probably let it discharge to random levels: 25%, 50%, 80%, et cetera. I got it the day it came out, and my cycle count reads 45.

However, my full charge capacity currently reads 4682 mAh (which an Apple rep told me was "superb"). The only issue is that I don't get the actual 5 hours (on the 9400) or the 4 on the (9600). I get about 3.5 hours on the 9400 with the contrast at half (running Pages, Adium, and sometimes Firefox).

What do you guys think?

You'd get well over 5 hours if you turn off wireless, bluetooth, IR, and use it at about half brightness. If you don't use bluetooth or IR you might as well turn them off.

As for an update on my battery everything seems fine again after calibrating. So maybe zapping the PRAM plus the firmware screwed up some things.

 

[Beau10]

An easy way is to download the iStat Pro widget. I'm not sure it's 100% accurate but it seems to be pretty close, as close as anything I see in profiler at least.

It's 100% accurate, as is the profiler. It's all coming from the same place.

All it's doing it reporting what the chip on the battery tells it. It knows the original spec capacity and gets a percentage from what the battery is saying is the current capacity.

The issue comes when the chip on the battery drifts from actual capacity, which is why calibration comes into play (lithium ion batteries don't have memory issues, it's simply calibrating the chip). That's where the inaccuracy lies.

 

[kvasir]

Batteries are covered for 1 year after purchase, regardless of AppleCare extension or not. Then its up to you to buy or to convince apple that you need a new one.

i've heard they've been particularly good at replacing swollen batteries (past 1 year)

I've had 4 batteries replaced in the last 2 years for my MBP. One of those was within the first year and the other three have been past the one year mark. I do have AppleCare, which probably helped. No swollen batteries, but I have had batteries fail at an abnormally high rate. I've followed all of the battery recommendations Apple gives, but it seems that these batteries (or cells within them) have issues.

 

[Schtumple]

Yes batteries are under warranty. So you should be ok (though I guess if you've charged and discharged the battery...oh... several thousand times since May you may have trouble arguing your case )

I barely average at 1 cycle every 2 days, I fail to see how someone could go through several thousands cycles in such a short period of time.... OP, you should be fine, that's such a huge drop in performance, Apple have to replace it.

 

[Beau10]

I've had 4 batteries replaced in the last 2 years for my MBP. One of those was within the first year and the other three have been past the one year mark. I do have AppleCare, which probably helped.

There was an extension for the Core Duo (pre mid 2k7) machines -

http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/

"For MacBook and MacBook Pro systems with Intel Core Duo processors, this program extends repair coverage on the battery for up to two years from the date of purchase of the computer."

 

[borjasanz]

195 cycles at 100%. You can use iStat Pro, or you can use Coconut Battery, which I think is a bit more specialized.

http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/

 

[Semiopaque]

It's 100% accurate, as is the profiler. It's all coming from the same place.

All it's doing it reporting what the chip on the battery tells it. It knows the original spec capacity and gets a percentage from what the battery is saying is the current capacity.

The issue comes when the chip on the battery drifts from actual capacity, which is why calibration comes into play (lithium ion batteries don't have memory issues, it's simply calibrating the chip). That's where the inaccuracy lies.

This is why I said it wasn't 100% accurate. While you could say it is reporting the info it is given 10% accurately, it isn't 100% accurate on what is actually going on. Even after calibration, it took my battery awhile to get accurate information to profiler/iStat. After calibration, I started out around 80%ish health and it slowly climbed to around 93% which is where it is sitting now. It does fluctuate a little bit now and then as well.

There seems to be some wiggle room as to what the battery chip actually says and what the battery is at, so I think no matter what you use, you're not going to get 100% accuracy, even after calibrating.