Fully discharging battery?

[chengt]

I use the recommendations on the apple site and forums regarding fully discharging my battery.

I let it stay at full power (plugged in) for a few days (even though it only recommends a few hrs). And then use it till it shuts down from low power lvls.
Then I wait 5+ hrs (overnight most times as I time it for when I go to bed).
In the mornings when I plug it in, I sometimes see that it didn't discharge all they way still.
I can see this because it doesn't require a boot up. It just seems like its in hibernation.
On the few times that it does need to reboot my power lvls are still pretty bad (right now its around 80% going as high as 92% but never seems to get better than that).
I'm just wondering. Does anyone have a better way to fully discharge the batteries?
Some third party apps that can do it even?
I've tried even writing a small script after reading someone's suggestion that simply writes a random file to the hdd in a loop and that doesn't seem to work neither.
I don't close the laptop after the power down so that doesn't seem to be the issue neither.

This is already my 4th battery that is having life span issues (the first 3 were RMAed). I am trying what I can to make sure that I'm doing my part to extend the battery life but so far no luck.

 

[heatmiser]

This is already my 4th battery that is having life span issues (the first 3 were RMAed). I am trying what I can to make sure that I'm doing my part to extend the battery life but so far no luck.

I think the lifetime your battery will have far more to do with whether you received a good or bad one than how much time, if any, you spend calibrating it. Lots of people never calibrate their batteries and do just fine. Others follow every prescription, and end up with dead bricks over and over again. Regardless of what Apple says, the only real "calibration" anyone can do for a battery is at the battery factory, when they either make it properly or not.

 

[themoonisdown09]

I use the recommendations on the apple site and forums regarding fully discharging my battery.

I let it stay at full power (plugged in) for a few days (even though it only recommends a few hrs). And then use it till it shuts down from low power lvls.
Then I wait 5+ hrs (overnight most times as I time it for when I go to bed).
In the mornings when I plug it in, I sometimes see that it didn't discharge all they way still.
I can see this because it doesn't require a boot up. It just seems like its in hibernation.
On the few times that it does need to reboot my power lvls are still pretty bad (right now its around 80% going as high as 92% but never seems to get better than that).
I'm just wondering. Does anyone have a better way to fully discharge the batteries?
Some third party apps that can do it even?
I've tried even writing a small script after reading someone's suggestion that simply writes a random file to the hdd in a loop and that doesn't seem to work neither.
I don't close the laptop after the power down so that doesn't seem to be the issue neither.

This is already my 4th battery that is having life span issues (the first 3 were RMAed). I am trying what I can to make sure that I'm doing my part to extend the battery life but so far no luck.

Download this program called Coconut Battery. It tells you the number of "battery loadcycles" you've had (how many times you've ran your battery all the way down), your current battery capacity, the original battery capacity and more.

 

[cptpower]

I've tried even writing a small script after reading someone's suggestion that simply writes a random file to the hdd in a loop and that doesn't seem to work neither.

That's just going to exercise the crap out of your HDD, and lead to a shortened life span on that. If you want to really hammer on your CPU (which will suck up battery life pretty quickly as well), then pick a node on your network, and run:
sudo ping -f <address>

This will flood (and I mean FLOOD) your network with ping requests, potentially grinding it to a halt, but it will also ramp up CPU usage, thus draining you battery faster.

In the end though, once it gets to the point of low enough power levels that it shuts off, then there's nothing you can do but wait, since no amount of CPU usage will drain it further (it being turned off and all).

 

[Consultant]

No programs are necessary. For me, batteries from all laptops from G3 to MBP works fine this way (never have to replace a battery due to reduced capacity):

Use laptop until battery is down to 1 minute or sleeps by itself.

Charge until full.

Occasionally run on full for days.

Once in awhile it will be depleted for awhil until recharging to full, if no outlet is available or if I won't be able to charge fully before moving.

Once in awhile I don't recharge fully, but will run the battery all the way down before charging.

Don't recharge if you only use it for a few minutes.