Servie Battery- 220 Cycles- 59% Health

[Eli727]

"Mid 2012" MBA- purchased new in 2013.

My battery is showing "Service Battery"

Downloaded Battery Health App and I show:

220 cycles
59% health
3935 mAh (originaly 6700 mAh)

Noticed this after my computer shut off when I should have still have some battery (granted, not alot, but at least 10% I thought)

NOTE:
While typing this, I unplugged my cord, while charging, and plugged it back in and now it says:
72% Health
4811 mAh

Still says "Service Battery" though.

Any thoughts? Seems crazy to have service battery on and to have lost so much health at only 220 cycles.

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My wife's "Mid 2011" MBA has:

5803 mAh out of 6700
87% Health
"Good" Status
270 cycles

And its a year older than mine.

Just for reference.

 

[motrek]

...
Any thoughts? Seems crazy to have service battery on and to have lost so much health at only 220 cycles.
...

Weird. But you're not the only person to have dramatically decreased battery capacity after not many cycles.

My pet theory is heat damage. Have you left your laptop in a car on a hot, sunny day, etc.?

In any case, I believe it costs $129 to have Apple replace your battery. Not a small amount of money but hopefully not too big of a hardship.

 

[gnasher729]

It's not right, and it shouldn't happen. Not with a 2012 model after 220 cycles.

If you have AppleCare, it will be replaced.

If you are in the USA, and all that you have legally is one year warranty, you don't have a legal right to a repair or battery replacement, but you may try going to an Apple Store and see what you can get. Since you have no legal rights, but the Apple employees have some amount of freedom, the best tactics is to make them feel like a hero who helps a poor unlucky customer with their problem. The alternative to make them feel like the stupid mug who gives in to a demanding, threatening and/or shouting customer is much less likely to work.

(In Europe, you have some further consumer rights, and I would ask "when exactly in 2013 did you buy this MacBook". Older or newer than 2 years will make a difference).

Then of course a new battery isn't _that_ expensive. And I suspect that at some point the age of the battery should make a difference, but not two years. 6 years and 220 charges I wouldn't be surprised if the battery stops working, but two years and 220 charges should be absolutely fine.

 

[Eli727]

Yeah, that was kind of my feelings as well. Possibly, not shouldn't be happening.

I do not have AppleCare, I purchased it from BestBuy and they do not seem to sell it (though I have learned the Apple Store says they do but will not offer it).

$129 isn't the end of the world, I thought it would be much more honestly but after researching last night I saw that. I will definitely wait till it gets worse though to do it.

I do not typically leave my laptop in a hot car- I do travel for business and if I'm on the road, it will be in my car while traveling and meeting clients. I would consider that normal though and should be capable of handling it...

Guess Ill continue to monitor it and eventually have it replaced. Laptop is still perfect otherwise, just frustrating that after only 220 cycles, I have such a degraded battery!

 

[motrek]

...
I do not typically leave my laptop in a hot car- I do travel for business and if I'm on the road, it will be in my car while traveling and meeting clients. I would consider that normal though and should be capable of handling it...
...

Sure, "normal" use should be fine, but sometimes things can get exceptionally hot in cars. I remember leaving a wristwatch in my car for a few hours when it was ~100 degrees outside and when I got back, the watch was too hot to touch. (I'm a little surprised it wasn't damaged by that!) I can't imagine such temperatures would be good for a laptop battery, and it would be easy to forget it happened if you just left the laptop there overnight and it had cooled off by the next morning.

Best of luck talking with Apple!

 

[cbdilger]

Heat kills lithium-ion batteries, and hot cars are WAY too hot, above the 30°C range. If you must leave your devices in the car on a hot day, put them in the trunk.

For comparison, my MacBookAir6,2 (Mid 2013, purchased July 2013) has 94% health after 238 cycles.

Apple doesn't suggest conditioning batteries any more, but it won't hurt — run the battery all the way down, then recharge it all the way up in one sitting, and see if that number improves. Good luck!

 

[Dirtfarmer]

Apple doesn't suggest conditioning batteries any more, but it won't hurt — run the battery all the way down, then recharge it all the way up in one sitting, and see if that number improves. Good luck!

No offense but that is 100% wrong.

Deep discharge damages all batteries. If you don't have a NiCAD (aka "memory effect") battery you should never discharge it below ~20%

This commonly-repeated bit of misinformation is responsible for a lot of damage to a lot of batteries -- possibly even the OP's.

Spread the word: Never run your batteries down, and leave your devices on the charger whenever possible.

PS check out www.batteryuniversity.com

 

[motrek]

...
Deep discharge damages all batteries. If you don't have a NiCAD (aka "memory effect") battery you should never discharge it below ~20%
...

When a MacBook says it has 0% charge left and turns itself off, it probably still has about 20% charge left.

Of course the device is designed to prevent damage to the battery.

I think the justification for running the battery down sometimes is that the lithium ions get attached to the anode in a certain configuration and if you don't "discharge" them then they might get "stuck" there somehow. I don't know the physics behind it and I think the wear put on the battery from discharging it almost completely probably doesn't outweigh whatever benefit you might get from unsticking a few ions. But I don't know the exact science and physics of it--I'm not sure that anyone completely does. I just saw an article on Engadget in the last few months that scientists were only recently able to take photographs of the internal structures of batteries with enough resolution to identify wear.

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Heat kills lithium-ion batteries, and hot cars are WAY too hot, above the 30°C range. If you must leave your devices in the car on a hot day, put them in the trunk.
...

I agree that cars are terrible places for anything on a hot day but 30C should be no problem.

Apple specifies a storage temperature for a MacBook up to 113F which is 45C, so temperatures up to there should be fine.

But if you live in a hot environment and it's maybe 90F outside, then it would be very easy for the temperature inside a car to go over 110F. Heat gets trapped in cars. Even worse if the laptop is left in sunlight.

 

[GGJstudios]

Apple doesn't suggest conditioning batteries any more, but it won't hurt — run the battery all the way down, then recharge it all the way up in one sitting, and see if that number improves. Good luck!

That doesn't do anything but put another cycle on the battery and it's not good for the battery. That doesn't "condition" or "calibrate" the battery in any way.

The built-in batteries in the newer Mac unibody notebooks come pre-calibrated and do not require regular calibration like the removable batteries in older Apple notebooks.

Run on battery whenever you need to and plug it in whenever you can. You can plug or unplug any time you need to, regardless of the charged percentage, and you never need to completely drain your battery.

​

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions, including tips for maximizing battery performance. If you haven’t already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​