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New Late 2008 Unibody MBP Battery charging very slowly

M

MajereXYU

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 11, 2005
125
0
Hello!
Just bought a new Unibody Late 2008 MBP base model (2.4GHz 2GB Ram 256MB GPU) and I find that the battery recharges really slowly when plugged in if I use the computer at the same time (nothing intensive, mind you). My previous Santa Rosa Macbook (non-pro) would recharge pretty quickly even when using the computer.

This new MBP is starting to worry me.

For example: just web browsing on Wi-Fi (CPU usage at 2-3%), with my battery at 83%, it show 1:27 hours until full. This is with brightness at 70% and keyboard lighting a 1-2 bars.

My old Macbook would charge from 10% to 100% in about 2 hours while using it at full brightness...

I am starting to wonder if I got a bad battery or an insufficiently powerful charger.

Anyone with the same experience?
 
Same Here

Hey, I'm having the same problem. Been chargings from 25% for the past 4 hours, is at 88% now and says (1:44) to go. This is rediculous. Is that what it is supposed to do?
 
I will try calibrating but it does not seem normal.

Anyone else with the same issue?

It seems like either the charger is not supplying enough current or the computer is drawing too much. Other option is battery is not well calibrated and is mis-reporting.

Computer does not seem to be drawing too much power, as I get around 4 hours of battery life, without even trying...
 
You need to calibrate. Nothing matters until then.

These batteries seem like other recent ones from Apple, the first few charges take longer. Once the battery has cycled a few times it gets faster. Mine seems to charge fast enough initially then slow charges the last percent or two.
 
me too!

I'm getting similar problems. I'm in the middle of a second calibration run at the moment and it's been charging for 5 hours now with the led STILL on red! Similar situation last time as well. Another problem I'm having is that once it's charged for a century or two the battery then runs down in under 2 hours... Not what expected from apple!

I'm hoping I got a dodgy battery and they'll replace it - going to see the genius people tomorrow.
 
Here, battery life is decent. Not great, but decent. I used to get up to 5 hours on my Santa Rosa Macbook (non pro) and I am getting around 3.5 - 4.0 hours on my new MBP with integrated graphics chosen in energy saver preferences.

It's just the charging that's killing me.

Also, when I put my MBP to sleep (while fully charged) and then connect it to power say, a day later, battery shows ~88% and takes 1h to charge to full. My old MB could sleep for 3-4 days and only drop to 95% battery.

There seems to be an issue with the way the battery subsystem is designed on the new machines.
 
Do you live in the US?

I live in the UK and on a recent trip to the US I was amazed at the difference our voltage makes. Boiling a kettle in the US took ages for example.

Maybe things are better in countries with 220-240V? Or maybe the adaptor acts the same wherever it is.
 
I just got my replacment MBP a few days ago. I got a chance to callibrate it and the charge time seems to have improved. It is currently estimating 2 hrs 43 min to charge up from 27%. Before callibration it was telling me similar times to charge up from about 80%.

I can get between 2-4hrs on battery ussage depending on what I am doing (but always using the 9400 graphics card). I could probably get 5 hrs if I was just working in MS word with wirelesss off.

spg
 
I'm having the same problem. While reading this thread I am recharging, so I took a quick look at my iStat and the battery is at 99% and it says that it has 13 mins left to charge. But I have not calibrated since i bought a few weeks ago, plan on doing that soon.
 
RealEvil said:
Do you live in the US?

I live in the UK and on a recent trip to the US I was amazed at the difference our voltage makes. Boiling a kettle in the US took ages for example.

Maybe things are better in countries with 220-240V? Or maybe the adaptor acts the same wherever it is.
Click to expand...



er... I don't think that makes a different, as long as the output voltage on your power adapter is the same.


Although I have to say the unibody one charges much more slowly than the previous one.
 
MBP - battery

I have been hauling MBPs around for about two years. The new MBP Unibody has its' own charging characteristics I guess. I don't spend much time watching that. I use the thing and rarely get down to where it is about to shut down because of low battery. I use 3 to 4+ hours battery time daily and have not had it shut down on me yet.

Also, my power adapters are mostly the 85W flavor from older MBPs. You may notice that these older devices are labeled at 85W as are the ones that came with the new MPB which are considerably smaller in size. Like I said above, I have not paid much attention to charge times and discharge rates so I don't have an opinion if the older power adapters affect the charge rate.

But I do love the new MBP, it is a real work horse and it "feels good".

Neil
 
I love mine too...

I will soon call up Apple about the charging issue as it's bugging me.
The computer also loses too much charge while sleeping. My MB non pro used to be able to sleep for 3-4 days before losing 10%, while my MBP loses 10% in a few hours of sleep.

The charging time is also irritating, 4-5 hours from 25% to full is a letdown.

Mine also locked up a few times (screen frozen, no mouse response, no keyboard response, even cmd+alt+esc) had to hold down power button for 5 seconds to shut it down...

After thos lockups, I reset PRam and everything seems to be back to normal.
 
Same issue here.

Also, there is a slight battery drain in sleep mode 2-5%/hour.
 
Now I am really considering take it to Regent Street, take a loot at the photo guys.



I wonder what the OP and others have done to their slow charing problems??
 

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All you people seem to be charging over 80%. Last i heard, the macbook pro battery was like the iPhone. The battery charges to 80% really quickly but then it goes very slow after that. (although on the iphone im sure that when it gets to 80% it says its full but its rly not, only 80%)

It is a feature of the batteries. Rather than charging at a normal steady rate, it charges faster than normal to 80%. I'm not 100% sure though since i don't own a macbook pro...yet ;)

In fact, heres some evidence straight from apples site.
http://www.apple.com/batteries/

chargechart_20090106.gif

Most lithium-ion polymer batteries use a fast charge to charge your device to 80% battery capacity, then switch to trickle charging. That’s about two hours of charge time to power an iPod to 80% capacity, then another two hours to fully charge it, if you are not using the iPod while charging. You can charge all lithium-ion batteries a large but finite number of times, as defined by charge cycle.
Click to expand...

Looks like everything is normal.

And your old macbook has a significantly smaller battery that takes less time to fully charge. The large screen on the pro offsets the large battery size with more power consumption, along with the more power-hungry components. Looking at that graph it looks like 4 hours to fully charge is normal for the pro.

And the bit i made bold suggests that your macbook is similar. When not using it there is a normal trickle charge rate. When using it you are using the battery while it is charging and significantly lowering the rate at which it charges.
 
Mine's calibrated and charges very slowly the whole way, not just after 80%. And the battery seems to discharge so much more quickly than my other non-Apple laptops.

So far, this is the one thing I really dislike about my new laptop.

aresinferno said:
All you people seem to be charging over 80%. Last i heard, the macbook pro battery was like the iPhone. The battery charges to 80% really quickly but then it goes very slow after that. (although on the iphone im sure that when it gets to 80% it says its full but its rly not, only 80%)

It is a feature of the batteries. Rather than charging at a normal steady rate, it charges faster than normal to 80%. I'm not 100% sure though since i don't own a macbook pro...yet ;)

In fact, heres some evidence straight from apples site.
http://www.apple.com/batteries/

chargechart_20090106.gif



Looks like everything is normal.

And your old macbook has a significantly smaller battery that takes less time to fully charge. The large screen on the pro offsets the large battery size with more power consumption, along with the more power-hungry components. Looking at that graph it looks like 4 hours to fully charge is normal for the pro.

And the bit i made bold suggests that your macbook is similar. When not using it there is a normal trickle charge rate. When using it you are using the battery while it is charging and significantly lowering the rate at which it charges.
Click to expand...
 
Hardware: Unibody MBP (high-end version)

I used my battery down to red (~8%) up to about 3.5 hours and it has been charging for three hours now and it's only at 56% charged (w/ 54 mins remaining). Is that weird?:confused:
 
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