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How long did your laptop battery last for?

H

haiggy

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 20, 2003
1,328
76
Ontario, Canada
Alongside the 'How long did your iBook harddrive last for?' thread, I thought I would make this one.

How long has your laptop battery lasted? Which laptop do you have? Have you replaced it? When? How much charge does it have left now?

You can find this out with a program called coconutBattery, incase you don't already have it.

My 14" iBook battery is 26 months old (original) and I've used 196 charge cycles. It has 3% of it's charge left... quite depressing.
 
haiggy said:
My 14" iBook battery is 26 months old (original) and I've used 196 charge cycles. It has 3% of it's charge left... quite depressing.
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Seems like you're a good candidate for a replacement battery.

My PowerBook 12" battery still lasts for about 3 hours on normal surfing and email, and it's 18 months old. Probably about 100 charge cycles.
Here's to the Crazy Ones ​
 
Lacero said:
Seems like you're a good candidate for a replacement battery.

My PowerBook 12" battery still lasts for about 3 hours on normal surfing and email, and it's 18 months old. Probably about 100 charge cycles.
Here's to the Crazy Ones ​
Click to expand...

Replacement as in go out and by a new one? or do you think Apple might give me a new one for free? It's not a huge deal to me... I don't use it for portability reasons a whole lot... and I'm almost always near a wall outlet.
 
My original Apple battery in my TiBook lasted about 4 years before suddenly dying. It was still holding an hour or two charge with light use, then it just stopped completely.

My new battery on my TiBook says 165 cycles, and 4.165mAh left. It's a NuPower, though, so it's got a 4800mAh charge (supposedly).
 
livingfortoday said:
My original Apple battery in my TiBook lasted about 4 years before suddenly dying. It was still holding an hour or two charge with light use, then it just stopped completely.

My new battery on my TiBook says 165 cycles, and 4.165mAh left. It's a NuPower, though, so it's got a 4800mAh charge (supposedly).
Click to expand...

Are you sure its 4.165mAh? or do you mean 4165mAh? Mine has like 167mAh after 197 cycles. It sucks because new batteries are like $150.
 
haiggy said:
Are you sure its 4.165mAh? or do you mean 4165mAh? Mine has like 167mAh after 197 cycles. It sucks because new batteries are like $150.
Click to expand...

Yeah, whoops, you're right. 4165. This NuPower battery is really great. They're pricey, but really worth it. I found mine on eBay for around $80, so I'd check there before hitting up OWC.
 
livingfortoday said:
Yeah, whoops, you're right. 4165. This NuPower battery is really great. They're pricey, but really worth it. I found mine on eBay for around $80, so I'd check there before hitting up OWC.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I might do that... when I need the whole portability thing. lol
 
29 months old 98% battery capacity :) Its half of what a lot of you have as far as cycles but it still holds a great charge :)

Ed
 

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so what drains the battery? take it off charge too much or keeping it on charge? I know that you should let the battery drain once in a while...
 

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Wow, this is really interesting. I just checked my own battery, 93% after 20 months. Not that bad I think. I'm going to email my friend with an iBook G3 where the battery is not strong enough to finish booting OSX. I want to see his numbers!
 
have you guys tried to recalbirate your batterys to see if it gives a better reading, when i first did mine i got a extra 196ma but when i re did it i lose 2% :(
 
I used to take very good care of mine (i.e. discharging and recharging it several times a week), but after a period of neglect the battery deteriorated quickly. Now I'm a bit kinder to it, and try at least to discharge/recharge a couple a times a month...
 

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I'm fairly haphazard about plugging in, discharging etc, and I guess it shows. I've had my PB for about a year and 4 months. It had a sudden drop in time a while back, but seems to have stabilised now at 2-2.5 hours with airport on and screen at full brightness.

Maybe I should have been a bit more careful with the battery, but I bought the thing to be mobile, even if that usually means sitting cross legged in an armchair surfing the net without the minor inconvenience of a power cord. :p
 

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Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Have you discharged and recharged it regularly?

If you've just kept it plugged in, then the battery deteriorates quickly. According to Apple the battery needs to be in use (to keep it's juices flowing, sort of speak) to stay fresh.
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Dammit, I guess that is why. I wish I knew that when I got it. There were times where I had my iBook plugged in without being unplugged for weeks probably.
 
haiggy said:
Dammit, I guess that is why. I wish I knew that when I got it. There were times where I had my iBook plugged in without being unplugged for weeks probably.
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The odd part about this is that my iBook is always on the power adapter, if you looked at the picture i posted in an earlier post it only had 50 some odd power cycles. A lot of times the auditoriums, classrooms and libraries i was in along with my office had a power outlet for me to use so i rarely used the battery.

I do have to say whenever i used it via battery power i usually always at least used half the charge if not all of it, maybe that makes a difference?

Ed
 
Ed H said:
The odd part about this is that my iBook is always on the power adapter, if you looked at the picture i posted in an earlier post it only had 50 some odd power cycles. A lot of times the auditoriums, classrooms and libraries i was in along with my office had a power outlet for me to use so i rarely used the battery.

I do have to say whenever i used it via battery power i usually always at least used half the charge if not all of it, maybe that makes a difference?

Ed
Click to expand...

Whenever I used my battery I used it more than half or almost all of it.
 
Well, after having my powerbook shut down only an hour into being off the a/c nipple, I found:

(via coconutBattery 2.1)

Current 2046mAh
Max 2047mAh

Current Cap 2047mAh
Original Cap 4400mAh
46%

450 load cycles
28 months old.

Dang, time and tide... The older posts about NuPower batteries seemed less than favorable, but I wanted to ask you guys what you think? $129.00 to apple or Nu?
 
haiggy said:
How long has your laptop battery lasted? Which laptop do you have? Have you replaced it? When? How much charge does it have left now?
Click to expand...

The stock one that came with my Powerbook G4 15" lasted about two weeks before it died and I had to get it replaced, for free, at my local Apple store.

The new one, however, is at 98% capacity since I've had it. So far so good. :D
 
I have been using my machine for almost a year and half never really running the battery below 25% other than the recommended first charge and drain conditioning process. Is there any consistence to what people are actually getting from there battery or is it just as it seams - luck:confused:

battery.jpg
 
Powerbook 15" DL drive. Only about 2 months old my battery dropped to 30 min of juice. Got a replacement though which work much better then the first did to start with. Get about 4 - 4.5 hours of surfing etc.

14 cycles, Full charge capacity = 4483 mAh
 
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