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Questions about the in-built battery

D

dead goon

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 24, 2009
93
0
Melbourne, Australia
Hi all
Just bought a MBP 2.66ghz, at the moment its charging and I was wonder what the best way to care of the battery is.

Some say if you leave the power plugged in all the time it drains the life of the battery, so when you use it away from the mains it dies within 30 minutes or so.

What have others done? Especially for the first time. I plan to leave it on charge now until the light goes from 'amber' to 'green' (hard to tell with my colourblind eyes) and then once OS X is set up, i will unplug it and drain it all the way down.
 
dead goon said:
Hi all
Just bought a MBP 2.66ghz, at the moment its charging and I was wonder what the best way to care of the battery is.

Some say if you leave the power plugged in all the time it drains the life of the battery, so when you use it away from the mains it dies within 30 minutes or so.

What have others done? Especially for the first time. I plan to leave it on charge now until the light goes from 'amber' to 'green' (hard to tell with my colourblind eyes) and then once OS X is set up, i will unplug it and drain it all the way down.
Click to expand...

you dont have to calibrate it the first time just once every couple of months. as far as care, it's just like a removable battery. every couple of days drain it to 35-40% and bring it back.
 
Check apple.com for more information on battery usage. You shouldn't leave it plugged in all the time though. Drain the battery at least once a month.
 
By the way. I just got my 13" Pro a couple of days ago. Last night I used it, on battery, for about 3 hours, surfing the web but pretty much nothing else at the same time. I had the screen set at about 50%. I shut it down and forgot what the battery gauge said. Today I fired it up and was on the web for about an hour, my battery gauge said 6 hours. Boy do I hope that it keeps working like this. My 13" uni Macbook would only give me between 3 and 4 hours with the same settings. Pumped but cautious.:cool:

Update: I used it an additional 3 hours this afternoon for a total of 4 hours today and it still says 5:00 left. I know there will be another shoe that will fall but in the meantime I remain very excited
 
Thanks for the link above.

So what about someone who uses it mainly at home, how do I go about using it with or without the power connected.

Say if I go to work, and leave the laptop at home I would probably keep it unplugged, then plug it in when I use it? or just use it unplugged until it's empty, charge and use it at the same time?

My old XP laptop was always plugged in, and thats how I used it all the time.

Damn, I never thought batteries could be such an issue.
 
dead goon said:
Thanks for the link above.

So what about someone who uses it mainly at home, how do I go about using it with or without the power connected.

Say if I go to work, and leave the laptop at home I would probably keep it unplugged, then plug it in when I use it? or just use it unplugged until it's empty, charge and use it at the same time?

My old XP laptop was always plugged in, and thats how I used it all the time.

Damn, I never thought batteries could be such an issue.
Click to expand...

You probably want to drain the battery some times so leave it unplugged until it is empty unless you need to charge it for something. At least empty it once a month.
 
I think my first battery died from being plugged in too much, and because it was made by Sony. In my opinion, you should use the laptop on battery power at least once a week, discharging it to around 50% or lower. Draining it all the way down is not necessary except maybe every month or two to calibrate it.
 
I am looking at a 17" MBP with built-in battery.
It says it will charge up to 1000 times. I know this has been
asked before...so the battery will die out near 1000 usage.
Is this covered by AppleCare? Is there a replacement option or
do they force you to buy a new machine?
 
macjiro said:
I am looking at a 17" MBP with built-in battery.
It says it will charge up to 1000 times. I know this has been
asked before...so the battery will die out near 1000 usage.
Is this covered by AppleCare? Is there a replacement option or
do they force you to buy a new machine?
Click to expand...

That just means by the 1000th cycle the battery will not hold a 100% charge, so it will drop below that.
So it may stop fully charging at 95% or 92% etc etc
Sort of what theyre getting at

You can get a new battery for $179 after warranty
it depends as long as its not over cycled and there is noticeable or significant performance decrease they may cover it under warranty.
 
macjiro said:
I am looking at a 17" MBP with built-in battery.
It says it will charge up to 1000 times. I know this has been
asked before...so the battery will die out near 1000 usage.
Is this covered by AppleCare? Is there a replacement option or
do they force you to buy a new machine?
Click to expand...

The battery should keep 80% of its capacity by 1000 cycles. Once you cross 1000 cycles, it is no longer covered by Apple Care. It will probably still work after 1000 cycles, but it just won't last as long. If it goes below 80% capacity before 1000 cycles, AppleCare should replace it. You can check the capacity with a program like Coconut Battery (capacity is listed as "health").
 
Thanks! Is this a hard battery to replace since its 'built-in'?
I haven't looked at it yet.
 
how low do you have to go for it to be counted as a cycle when you recharge?

I've done 2 cycles so far, drained down to 0% the first time and 28% the next. I think I will leave it plugged in when I use for a while. And unplug it when I go to bed.
 
dead goon said:
how low do you have to go for it to be counted as a cycle when you recharge?

I've done 2 cycles so far, drained down to 0% the first time and 28% the next. I think I will leave it plugged in when I use for a while. And unplug it when I go to bed.
Click to expand...

it does not work like that, once you have used 100% of the battery the cycle is counted like...

say you use 40% and then recharge it to 100%

then use it again for 60% on battery...that is 1 cycle count.

the batteries used in the macbooks use apples own technology to manage the battery cells individually thus more even charging and usage of the cells inside.
 
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