Mid '13 battery replacement

[HallStevenson]

I've got a mid '13 MBA and have ordered a replacement battery from OWC/MacSales because mine gets 2 hours or maybe 3 at best and this is from nothing more than web browsing, very light YouTube, email, etc. My cycle count only reports (260) but I'm positive I've seen that number higher before. Is it possible to reset it (mistakenly) ? The full charge capacity is 6345 mAh.

When I replace it, will these values all get properly reset ?

 

[Audit13]

You cannot reset the battery count AFAIK.

Your battery is way better than mine which has 456 cycles and a max charge of 5764.

With any new battery, calibration is recommended: http://www.newertech.com/batteries/power-calibration-guide/

 

[HallStevenson]

How long does your last ?

I would be curious if there's a fairly standard 'test' to get a good idea of the actual life. Even if it were playing a movie (with brightness set at 'x' level and volume set at 'x' level), starting at 100%, and seeing where it is at the end of the movie. Or, repeating the movie to see many hours it can go before it hits 0%.

 

[Audit13]

I leave the brightness around 50%, keyboard backlight and Bluetooth off.

I would say I get around 4.5 to 5 hours surfing with Safari and occasionally checking email with the Mac Mail app.

I haven't thought about replacing the battery because the battery life is still fine for my needs, I'm never too far from an electrical outlet, and I tend to use my iPad a lot more than my MBA.

 

[Boyd01]

341 cycles on my 2013 11" MBA. Battery life is definitely less than when it was new, but not too bad. Have not run it all the way down recently, but with screen at full brightness, watching movies in iTunes with home sharing over wifi it looks like I woud get about 6 hours. When it was new, that was more like 8 to 10 hours. Don't feel any need to replace the battery at this point.

 

[HallStevenson]

...and Bluetooth off

Since turning that off, it seems to have made a remarkable improvement in my battery life. Figures too since I had already ordered a new battery (and it's arrived). I've been keeping tracking since Monday evening after I charged it to 100%. I'm just under (4) hours and battery is down to 46% !

An oddity that happened twice (so far) was the battery % went up while the machine slept ! At one point, it was at 88%, slept for ~30 minutes and when I woke it, it then showed 90%. It did a 2nd time but only went from 78% to 79%.

 

[Audit13]

I also found that keeping Bluetooth off on all of my devices helped with battery life. I guess with Bluetooth running that the devices is always scanning for other devices.

Maybe letting the unit sleep let's the battery recovery a bit? I'm just guessing here.

Can you return the battery?

 

[HallStevenson]

Can you return the battery?

Don't know but this evening the thought occurred to me to at least ask....

 

[Audit13]

I'm in the process of deciding whether to fix up an early 2015 MBA that I originally bought for parts. I assumed it was dead but I was wrong and one of the parts that didn't work is the battery.

I was looking at third party batteries from Amazon to keep the cost low.

 

[_Kiki_]

I'm in the process of deciding whether to fix up an early 2015 MBA that I originally bought for parts. I assumed it was dead but I was wrong and one of the parts that didn't work is the battery.

I was looking at third party batteries from Amazon to keep the cost low.

if the battery isn't recognised, there is a possibility of damaged logic board

 

[HallStevenson]

Ended up getting 6 hours out of a full charge (100%) down to 5% before I recharged it.

Can't believe Bluetooth had such a negative impact on the battery ! I think it reduced the time by half.