New to Mac! MBP 15" Battery help!!!

[Karman]

Hey guys,

So i'm new to Mac (and to the world of Labtop's!) and I just got my MBP 15" 2.53 GHZ Intel Core Duo in the mail on November 5th. I'm a little confused about the battery though!

So one of my friends tried to explain it to me, but I don't really understand what battery-loadcycles are? Can someone please explain this to me?
Also, he told me to download CoconutBattery, which I did, but i'm at a lost on understanding what everything means when you open up the app. Can someone please explain to me what I have to do in order to keep my battery at Maximum capacity and keep it in good condition?

Another thing, I normally only use my MBP for school and when I get home for HW. So basically, when I get to school in the morning, I use it for about 2 hours for one class, and then turn it off. It's off for about 1 to 2 hours. Then later, I turn it back on again for my next class, and by the time I get home the battery's at 50%-40%. My screen brightness is set to the minimum, bluetooth is off, and the keyboard LED is also off. However, I have a couple of questions about this:

1) is it better to use the battery off the charger/main power source all the time? Say if its always at 100%? Will this still change anything with the loadcycles?

2) Should I plug in my Battery when its at 50%-40$% to get it back to 100% before I go to sleep at night (it would be plugged in for at least 7-8 hours while I sleep) or should I leave it, and just take it to school the next day with that percentage and wait until i get home the next day to plug it in?

3) It is bad for me to turn off my MBP completely in between classes? It would be off for like 1-2 hours? Or should I just close the top and leave it in Sleep mode?

^^ Sorry for all the questions guys! I'm just worried about my Battery, and how to use it because this is my first Mac & also my first Labtop!

Thanks for all the help!

Karman

 

[miles01110]

You'll be able to find all your questions answered many times over here.

 

[Karman]

You'll be able to find all your questions answered many times over here.

i dont get it...

 

[Mike Macintosh]

1) is it better to use the battery off the charger/main power source all the time? Say if its always at 100%? Will this still change anything with the loadcycles?

Your computer was made to be a Laptop, so i see no idea why you shouldn't use it as such, and it shouldn't affect the loadcycles at all, in the long run leaving it plugged in constantly actually hurts the battery more I hear then actually using the battery, so just use the battery, and plug in when you want to top off the battery.

2) Should I plug in my Battery when its at 50%-40$% to get it back to 100% before I go to sleep at night (it would be plugged in for at least 7-8 hours while I sleep) or should I leave it, and just take it to school the next day with that percentage and wait until i get home the next day to plug it in?

Go right ahead, I plug mine in whenever, and it doesn't hurt it at all, however I do insist you calibrate the battery from time to time, roughly once a month.

Not Sure what Calibration means?

Well all you have to do is drain the battery all the way down til it sleeps then plug it in and charge it completely, which will allow for the best possible charge, and keep it from dying sooner then when its suppose to.

More info about battery maintenance

3) It is bad for me to turn off my MBP completely in between classes? It would be off for like 1-2 hours? Or should I just close the top and leave it in Sleep mode?

Just leave in Sleep mode by closing the clamshell, it barely uses any power in this mode, I have leaved my computer in this mode for about 24 hours and barely noticed 1% of battery power used, just sleep it, the battery will be fine.

 

[Karman]

Your computer was made to be a Laptop, so i see no idea why you shouldn't use it as such, and it shouldn't affect the loadcycles at all, in the long run leaving it plugged in constantly actually hurts the battery more I hear then actually using the battery, so just use the battery, and plug in when you want to top off the battery.

Go right ahead, I plug mine in whenever, and it doesn't hurt it at all, however I do insist you calibrate the battery from time to time, roughly once a month.

Not Sure what Calibration means?

Well all you have to do is drain the battery all the way down til it sleeps then plug it in and charge it completely, which will allow for the best possible charge, and keep it from dying sooner then when its suppose to.

More info about battery maintenance

Just leave in Sleep mode by closing the clamshell, it barely uses any power in this mode, I have leaved my computer in this mode for about 24 hours and barely noticed 1% of battery power used, just sleep it, the battery will be fine.

Thanks for the info man, really appreciate it! However, can you explain to me what BATTERY-LOADCYCLES are? what do they mean and how they work? also, having them be lower or higher, which is better if any?

Thanks!

 

[Cboss]

i dont get it...

Miles just meant that you should search before asking a question. Basically every question that can be asked here has been at some time.

But to answer your question, don't worry too much about your battery. They are much better than they used to be. I've used mine without worrying about how I use the battery for almost 2 years and I still get 4-5 hours with typing/internet.

If it's easier for you just let your MacBook sleep between classes. When you close your laptop to make it sleep it's recommended that you let your laptop sit awhile (maybe 5 seconds) before moving it around too much. This will help protect your hard drive. Although, this probably isn't too necessary either...

Edit: The cycles on your battery show how much you have used it. One cycle is equivalent to letting the battery run down completely and then fully charging. Partial charges and discharges are all added together to show approximately how many total times the battery has been used. So two 50% charges would equal one cycle, three 33% charges would also equal one, and so on...

Lower cycles mean that your battery has been used less. I believe that Apple guarantees the new built-in batteries to work well for about 1000 cycles. I have 239 on my macbook and it's at 93% health after two years.

 

[Karman]

Miles just meant that you should search before asking a question. Basically every question that can be asked here has been at some time.

But to answer your question, don't worry too much about your battery. They are much better than they used to be. I've used mine without worrying about how I use the battery for almost 2 years and I still get 4-5 hours with typing/internet.

If it's easier for you just let your MacBook sleep between classes. When you close your laptop to make it sleep it's recommended that you let your laptop sit awhile (maybe 5 seconds) before moving it around too much. This will help protect your hard drive. Although, this probably isn't too necessary either...

Edit: The cycles on your battery show how much you have used it. One cycle is equivalent to letting the battery fun down completely and then fully charging. Partial charges and discharges are all added together to show approximately how many total times the battery has been used. So two 50% charges would equal one charge, three 33% charges would also equal one, and so on...

Lower cycles mean that your battery has been used less. I believe that Apple guarantees the new built-in batteries to work well for about 1000 cycles. I have 239 on my macbook and it's at 93% health after two years.

ok cool, thanks for the info! Can you explain to me though what load cycles are? Because what I find weird, is when i opened this thread, i had used CoconutBattery to check my battery, and it said my Mac was 5 weeks old, and it had used 5 load-cycles, and my mac was at 35% battery life. Now right before this post that im writing, I opened the App again, and i see my loadcycles are at 6....and my Mac is 6 weeks old and its 16% battery ...yet I havn't plugged it in...so how could the loadcycle go up?

 

[Mike Macintosh]

Thanks for the info man, really appreciate it! However, can you explain to me what BATTERY-LOADCYCLES are? what do they mean and how they work? also, having them be lower or higher, which is better if any?

Thanks!

Battery loadcycles is just a fancy name for how many times you charged your battery, and how many loadcycles you have gone through that you had to charge it.

 

[Karman]

Battery loadcycles is just a fancy name for how many times you charged your battery, and how many loadcycles you have gone through that you had to charge it.

k would you know any reason why my battery-load cycle would increase by 1 if i didn't plug in my MBP? Because when i opened this thread, i had used CoconutBattery to check my battery, and it said my MBP was 5 weeks old, and it had used 5 load-cycles, and the battery was at 35%. Now it says i'm at 6 loadcycles and my MBP is 6 weeks old but i havn't plugged it in or turned if off since I created this thread about 2 hours ago...

 

[Dan73]

I think you're really over thinking things... Just use the laptop and don't worry about it?