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Battery Conditioning?

dyerucf

dyerucf

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 15, 2008
159
3
Alpharetta, GA
Well I have an Air on order, delivers the 15th but I am eager to cancel that order and pick one up in the store if I am able before then. I just have a battery questions. When I get my new macbook air, when ever and how ever that may be, how do I condition my battery to start to ensure the best battery performance.
 
dyerucf

dyerucf

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 15, 2008
159
3
Alpharetta, GA
First Charge

I remember reading somewhere there was some 'first charge' thing that would help break in the battery or something along those lines.
 
richard.mac

richard.mac

macrumors 603
Feb 2, 2007
6,292
5
51.50024, -0.12662
plug it in straight away. charge it to full charge and leave it for a couple of hours. use it unplugged until it sleeps. leave for a couple of hours. plug it back in and then charge it to full. repeat every 1-2 months. also its perfectly fine to leave it on charge for long periods of time. just remember to calibrate.
 
E

elmo151

Guest
Jul 3, 2007
550
0
NYC
richthomas said:
plug it in straight away. charge it to full charge and leave it for a couple of hours. use it unplugged until it sleeps. leave for a couple of hours. plug it back in and then charge it to full. repeat every 1-2 months. also its perfectly fine to leave it on charge for long periods of time. just remember to calibrate.
Click to expand...

what he said :p
 
NC MacGuy

NC MacGuy

macrumors 603
Feb 9, 2005
6,233
0
The good side of the grass.
richthomas said:
plug it in straight away. charge it to full charge and leave it for a couple of hours. use it unplugged until it sleeps. leave for a couple of hours. plug it back in and then charge it to full. repeat every 1-2 months. also its perfectly fine to leave it on charge for long periods of time. just remember to calibrate.
Click to expand...

Doing that even as I type... The battery was registering only 95% capacity left after 5 cycles (funny, I only did two...) Will see how the conditioning works. Apple says to turn off any app.'s, let it go into deep sleep of 5 hours or more, than plug-in and charge fully.
 
JML42691

JML42691

macrumors 68020
Oct 24, 2007
2,082
2
richthomas said:
plug it in straight away. charge it to full charge and leave it for a couple of hours. use it unplugged until it sleeps. leave for a couple of hours. plug it back in and then charge it to full. repeat every 1-2 months. also its perfectly fine to leave it on charge for long periods of time. just remember to calibrate.
Click to expand...
The only thing that I can add is that every 2-4 weeks might be a little better than 1-2 months, just my experience in the past.
 
A

aiongiant

macrumors 6502a
Aug 8, 2006
542
0
richthomas said:
plug it in straight away. charge it to full charge and leave it for a couple of hours. use it unplugged until it sleeps. leave for a couple of hours. plug it back in and then charge it to full. repeat every 1-2 months. also its perfectly fine to leave it on charge for long periods of time. just remember to calibrate.
Click to expand...

while doing the first charge up... if it's plugged in can i use the laptop??
or is it recommended to just leave it alone while it charges??
 
F

frogywill

macrumors member
Feb 4, 2008
38
8
i was reading somewhere else that the battery takes forever to charge to 100%. I guess it might be true... Went to zero today, plugged it in at around 5:30, came back at 8:30 and it still is not full. (0:52 until full)...

That kinda sucks.....
 
Jeremy1026

Jeremy1026

macrumors 68020
Nov 3, 2007
2,215
1,029
frogywill said:
i was reading somewhere else that the battery takes forever to charge to 100%. I guess it might be true... Went to zero today, plugged it in at around 5:30, came back at 8:30 and it still is not full. (0:52 until full)...

That kinda sucks.....
Click to expand...

My macbook takes about 4hours to go from dead to 100%...sounds about right
 
P

PieMac

macrumors 6502a
Oct 3, 2002
769
29
Full charge capacity seems low after initial calibration...?

So even though there's no mention of a need to calibrate the MBA, I decided that it couldn't hurt and I calibrated my new MacBook Air right away per Apple's instructions on their website for the Macbook/Macbook Pro line: fully charged it when I initially plugged it in, after reaching full charge, let it stay charging for at least two full hours, then unplugged and let it discharge and go to sleep and left it sleeping for five hours (well, actually it may have been closer to 4-4.5 hours-it was in deep sleep mode when I woke it and plugged it back in) and then I fully recharged. Now it's saying that my full charge battery capacity is 4899 mAh whereas the original battery capacity was 5200 mAh...why would it have dropped this much after calibrating? Is this normal?
 
A

ahaxton

macrumors 6502a
Jan 17, 2008
552
0
PieMac said:
So even though there's no mention of a need to calibrate the MBA, I decided that it couldn't hurt and I calibrated my new MacBook Air right away per Apple's instructions on their website for the Macbook/Macbook Pro line: fully charged it when I initially plugged it in, after reaching full charge, let it stay charging for at least two full hours, then unplugged and let it discharge and go to sleep and left it sleeping for five hours (well, actually it may have been closer to 4-4.5 hours-it was in deep sleep mode when I woke it and plugged it back in) and then I fully recharged. Now it's saying that my full charge battery capacity is 4899 mAh whereas the original battery capacity was 5200 mAh...why would it have dropped this much after calibrating? Is this normal?
Click to expand...

Don't worry just software bug. My battery works longer now, but when I first calibrated it, it was stuck on battery finishing charge. Easily fixed it by unplugging and plugging back in then rebooting and it was 100% and my battery life went up.

A note to all if you see it taking longer than it should and if you have already calibrated, simply unplug adapter, shut down mba, plug it back in, turn on mba.
 
P

PieMac

macrumors 6502a
Oct 3, 2002
769
29
ahaxton said:
Don't worry just software bug. My battery works longer now, but when I first calibrated it, it was stuck on battery finishing charge. Easily fixed it by unplugging and plugging back in then rebooting and it was 100% and my battery life went up.

A note to all if you see it taking longer than it should and if you have already calibrated, simply unplug adapter, shut down mba, plug it back in, turn on mba.
Click to expand...

I figured I might not be getting an accurate reading, but I tried what you did plus running repair permissions and then rebooting and it still reads the same...actually it now reads a little lower: 4883 and with 3 charge cycles?? I'm hoping it will eventually creep back up again closer to the 5200 level. My MacBook Pro would fluctuate but then it was almost a year old...not brand new. Otherwise, my MBA seems to be fine-charging up to full capacity and in nominal time with no issues.
 
C

cedar

macrumors regular
Feb 2, 2008
135
0
What would be a reasonable expectation in terms of battery use time from 100% to 0%, surfing the internet?
 
A

ahaxton

macrumors 6502a
Jan 17, 2008
552
0
cedar said:
What would be a reasonable expectation in terms of battery use time from 100% to 0%, surfing the internet?
Click to expand...

I'd say for 1.6/80 it'd be somewhere in the 4 hour range.
Of course if you got SSD you'll enjoy a whole lot more :)
 
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pjmurphy77

macrumors newbie
Oct 9, 2003
28
0
Not per Mossberg this morning....

"In this test, the SSD made little difference in the MacBook Air and, in fairness, Apple is making no claims of any significant battery-life gains on its SSD model. The SSD MacBook gave me just five more minutes of battery life. Apple says this is because its hard-drive model already uses a very low-power drive."



ahaxton said:
I'd say for 1.6/80 it'd be somewhere in the 4 hour range.
Of course if you got SSD you'll enjoy a whole lot more :)
Click to expand...
 
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cedar

macrumors regular
Feb 2, 2008
135
0
I got 2 hours, 54 minutes surfing the internet, with about 5 minutes playing video's on utube. A little disappointed.
 
A

aiongiant

macrumors 6502a
Aug 8, 2006
542
0
i think it does extend battery life

i did it just in case haha
i left it untouched while calibrating the first charge

if i dim down brightness and turn off wifi
i can get around 5 hours 30 min
if i have it full brightness and with wifi watching a movie
i get around 2.5 hours
 
D

diabolic

macrumors 68000
Jun 13, 2007
1,572
1
Austin, Texas
cedar said:
I got 2 hours, 54 minutes surfing the internet, with about 5 minutes playing video's on utube. A little disappointed.
Click to expand...

I'd try doing the calibration or a SMC reset.

I've been getting over 4 hours on battery just doing email, web, and other minor programs.
 
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