11 months, Battery performing badly - what are my options?

[JamesBerry]

My Macbook air is from Feb 2008. It hasn't been holding its charge particularly well so I looked in the system information... looking at the full charge capacity it's well down.

I guess I need a replacement battery but I have never had any involvement with Apple before (this is my first Mac).

What are my options? Is this something covered by warranty - and if so how/where do I get it fixed?

I am in UK

Best wishes
James


Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 740
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 748
Health Information:
Cycle count: 317
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 1708
Voltage (mV): 7672

 

[McGilli]

Just curious - how long does tha battery last before dying?

 

[gopher]

My Macbook air is from Feb 2008. It hasn't been holding its charge particularly well so I looked in the system information... looking at the full charge capacity it's well down.

I guess I need a replacement battery but I have never had any involvement with Apple before (this is my first Mac).

What are my options? Is this something covered by warranty - and if so how/where do I get it fixed?

I am in UK

Best wishes
James


Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 740
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 748
Health Information:
Cycle count: 317
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 1708
Voltage (mV): 7672

That cycle count is rather high. It seems you need to read http://www.apple.com/batteries/ on avoiding running up your cycle count. Regardless, being on the 11th month, if you haven't purchased AppleCare, now is the time to do so, because once it is 12 months old, repairing is much more expensive. Once AppleCare is purchased, contact Apple and ask them to replace it under warranty.

 

[JamesBerry]

That cycle count is rather high. It seems you need to read http://www.apple.com/batteries/ on avoiding running up your cycle count. Regardless, being on the 11th month, if you haven't purchased AppleCare, now is the time to do so, because once it is 12 months old, repairing is much more expensive. Once AppleCare is purchased, contact Apple and ask them to replace it under warranty.

I don't have AppleCare but there is a 12 month warranty anyway.
Is this something that would be covered by applecare but not by the normal warranty?

I'm afraid that I don't understand what I've been doing wrong with charging the battery - the laptop is used pretty extensively throughout the day and evening - and mostly on battery since it is super portable after all!

Best wishes
James

 

[truz]

James,
Save your time and just buy a new battery. Apple will not replace the battery after 300 cycles. I walked into an Apple Store told them how many cycles I had and he would not even look at my macbook pro, he said I need a new battery after 300 cycles. He walked over, picked up a $129 battery and asked me if I wanted it.

I said no as I was a little pissed because I missed my 12:00 and had to wait until 1:45 to see a tech at the Apple Store just to hear a NO it's not covered.

However I picked one up on ebay (using it now) for $60 shipped and it works flawless. Now my macbook pro runs like new. Currently has 43 cycles.

I don't have AppleCare but there is a 12 month warranty anyway.
Is this something that would be covered by applecare but not by the normal warranty?

I'm afraid that I don't understand what I've been doing wrong with charging the battery - the laptop is used pretty extensively throughout the day and evening - and mostly on battery since it is super portable after all!

Best wishes
James

 

[McGilli]

That cycle count is rather high. It seems you need to read http://www.apple.com/batteries/ on avoiding running up your cycle count. Regardless, being on the 11th month, if you haven't purchased AppleCare, now is the time to do so, because once it is 12 months old, repairing is much more expensive. Once AppleCare is purchased, contact Apple and ask them to replace it under warranty.

I don't agree. Some people need portable laptops. and if you use it every day for 3 to 5 hours then your cycle will be over 300 after 11 months.

 

[JamesBerry]

I don't agree. Some people need portable laptops. and if you use it every day for 3 to 5 hours then your cycle will be over 300 after 11 months.

...and remember if battery life is shortening then the cycle count goes up more quickly

 

[gopher]

Apple will not replace the battery after 300 cycles. I walked into an Apple Store told them how many cycles I had and he would not even look at my macbook pro, he said I need a new battery after 300 cycles.

I find that unusual that they won't replace a battery that is less than a year old. I've known them to replace batteries that are two years old.

Regardless, getting AppleCare now, will make sure if there is a power manager issue that only Apple can fix, that you will get what otherwise would be a $400 job plus a new battery, to only be the cost of AppleCare, and you get two years of free phone support. Not getting it, your jobs will cost $550, and likely similar phone calls will cost $50 - $80 per incident.

Once it is more than a year old, you can't buy AppleCare, and must pay the full price for all services. AppleCare at least is one flat fee for 2 years and one month.

 

[JamesBerry]

Save your time and just buy a new battery. Apple will not replace the battery after 300 cycles.

Is this definitive? My nearest Apple Store is about 50 miles away (at Bluewater). I don't want to go up there and not get it resolved either by paying for a new battery or getting it covered under warranty - can Apple Stores do Macbook Air servicing on the spot?

Best wishes
James

 

[gopher]

Is this definitive? My nearest Apple Store is about 50 miles away (at Bluewater). I don't want to go up there and not get it resolved either by paying for a new battery or getting it covered under warranty - can Apple Stores do Macbook Air servicing on the spot?

Best wishes
James

It depends on parts. Call ahead.

 

[JamesBerry]

Just curious - how long does tha battery last before dying?

Just tried it now... reserve power warning message comes up with 26% left on the status bar battery indicator. After 1hour 15 minutes of surfing in firefox...

Best wishes
James

 

[rogair]

Batteries are only covered for 1 year OR 300 charge cycles, whichever comes first.

This is definitive.

 

[cawesjmu]

I had my battery replaced in an Apple store after 2 yrs. rogair, where did you read about 1 yr or 300 cycles? To OP, try coconut battery and see what your health is (or iStat widget). Mine was down around 50% when they gave me the new one. Besides the drive, it won't hurt to go to the Apple store and try.

 

[ogandojose]

They did replaced mine...

I had mine replaced. It had 293 cycles and could only hold 15-20% of the original charge. it was 18 months old. I just went there and tell them that the battery was supposed to be designed to hold 70% of the charge after 300 cycles (i don't know where i found that figure) and they replaced it. I know mine might not be replaced, but you gotta try.

 

[EnderTW]

It might be a little different because MBA doesn't have a simple user-replaceable battery.

Call them, no matter what a battery should not go below 50% of the advertised time within one year. This is the only thing that is holding me back from the MBAir, when the battery does go down what then?

With or without Apple Care, I shouldn't have to pay for "labor" on replacing a battery.

 

[netdog]

In my limited experience with Firefox, it pounded on the processors. That's the main reason that I switched to Safari. Consider doing the same.

 

[skye12]

But A friend got a new battery after a year for his MBP. Why, because the
cycle count was only 65 or so.

 

[JamesBerry]

To OP, try coconut battery and see what your health is (or iStat widget).

Well, it was saying about 18% (assuming this is the bottom graph). Now it reports some crazy figures, as do the apple diags... (I am on battery now with an indicated 100% on the status bar)

Cell Revision: 0100
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 65370
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 65370
Health Information:
Cycle count: 318
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1573
Voltage (mV): 7876

 

[andreab35]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

To the OP, I'm running into issues also. My battery drains out very fast, and I don't even do intense work on the laptop!
I'm going to be testing to see how long the battery lasts today, because I'm curious... it seems like my old laptop had better battery performance!
But sadly, my rev. B is not even a month old.

 

[miloquacious]

hi there,

just starting to read through posts on other's battery issues, which i know we've all had since early days of rev A.

with only safari open at full charge my battery goes down to 60% in just under 30 minutes. some stats:

current battery capacity: 89%, 4561mAh
load cycles 214

have others had the similar experiences with quick drainage?

 

[JamesBerry]

My story might be going to have a happy conclusion.

I emailed a local independant apple service centre (which can do warranty repairs). He says that they'll fix it under warranty. Lets hope!

If he does, I'll probably buy an applecare pack on ebay in case it happens again in the next couple of years...

Best wishes
James

 

[Pixellated]

My story might be going to have a happy conclusion.

I emailed a local independant apple service centre (which can do warranty repairs). He says that they'll fix it under warranty. Lets hope!

If he does, I'll probably buy an applecare pack on ebay in case it happens again in the next couple of years...

Best wishes
James

I live quite near Bluewater! Small world...

 

[JamesBerry]

Battery replaced

Well, good news

My battery was replaced under warranty. Since my usage habbits are unlikely to change I've just bought an applecare on ebay...

Best wishes
James

 

[pgharavi]

There are my settings, for a MBA that was purchased one week after launch:

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Serial Number: SMP-ASMB017-3847-170e
Manufacturer: SMP
Device name: ASMB017
Pack Lot Code: 0000
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0009
Hardware Revision: 0401
Cell Revision: 0100
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4549
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4590
Health Information:
Cycle count: 230
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -24
Voltage (mV): 8156

What do you guys think? Good? Bad? Ok?

 

[kinkster]

Sorry to bump the thread, but I'm about to get a 1 year old MBA. The battery has probably been hit fairly hard and lost some health.

If it's any less then 1 year/300 cycles can I just bring it to an Apple store and have it replaced if I tell them it's getting pretty weak? Or would they test it out themselves.