My MBPs battery life sucks

[ghall]

I've had my MBP for almost a year, and the battery life has crapped down to a maximum of about 1:20 (that's an hour and 20 minutes) with regular usage when it used to last close to 3 hours, if not more. I understand that batteries degrade over time, but it's ridiculous to loose more than half of your laptops battery capacity in less than a year. Apple wouldn't replace it under warranty when I had it checked out earlier. I just got AppleCare, would that cover something like a battery? I'm not paying $130 for a battery!

 

[yukon0013]

How many cycles does it have??

 

[ghall]

How many cycles does it have??

381!

 

[flopticalcube]

I would say that is par for the course then. What is your battery health?

 

[vicious7]

I thought MBP batteries were good for 500 cycles

 

[ghall]

I would say that is par for the course then. What is your battery health?

According to CoconutBattery, its 39%

I thought MBP batteries were good for 500 cycles

So did I.

 

[flopticalcube]

I assume you have been calibrating your battery.

 

[ghall]

I assume you have been calibrating your battery.

I've calibrated it once or twice.

Guilty.

 

[Warped1]

Whats calibrating your battery? Drain it all the way and then charge?

 

[aquajet]

Calibration has nothing to do with it. The only thing calibration ensures is that your time remaining estimation is as accurate as possible. Had you calibrated monthly, your runtimes wouldn't be any better today.

Several things can affect your battery's longevity, including manufacturing variances and environmental factors. I suspect your battery was destined to have lower than typical performance from the start.

 

[polycat33]

I've heard that Apple will replace batteries if they get down to really poor health (a certain percent) within a certain amount of time (a year, I thought). You might want to check that out... 39% for sure sounds low enough to qualify, the question is whether the time period was a year (could have been less). Give AppleCare a call.

 

[Ninden]

Hate to say it, but after one year of use the batteries have usually lost a lot of capacity. The only way to get great life from them is to not use them, and then there's no point

Take a look at this page for info on them: http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

Take note of figure 1, the table, especially. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. MacBook Pro's under moderate to heavy use is a terrible condition for batteries. They're kept at close to full charge, and at higher then ambient temperatures due to their location. They suffer permanent capacity loss and there's not much we can do. (Taking it out is a bad idea as well, as then the power is throttled and there's a large hole in the bottom for dust and dirt to get in - not good)

My Powerbook used to hold nearly three hours when I got it. A year and a few months later I was lucky to have it not safe shutdown after an hour. Granted, I didn't know about the recommended monthly power cycling if not being used on battery a lot. I was in college though, so I used it constantly and was often going from adapter to battery to adapter again.

My new MacBook Pro has amazing battery life right now, but in a year, year and a half, I very much expect a similar capacity loss. Although... being done with college and working all day (without my mac T___T ) means it's not being used as heavily, so I might get a longer life out of it...

 

[nerjajames]

Macbook pro 17" battery problems

Think yourself lucky, I have owned my mac for 11 months and kept the battery as per the Apple guidelines, it currently has 281 cycles and just recently I noticed that web surfing was very slow on battery although the battery charge indicator said everything was OK, it then seemed to be OK for about a week and just today I noticed my Mac wobble and thought it was on an uneven surface but no, the surface was flat but the battery is now badly buckled with a large bump on the bottom of the Mac! Hope I get a replacement under warranty? I thought this problem only affected macbook pro 15" models?

 

[Dublinstiofán]

Think yourself lucky, I have owned my mac for 11 months and kept the battery as per the Apple guidelines, it currently has 281 cycles and just recently I noticed that web surfing was very slow on battery although the battery charge indicator said everything was OK, it then seemed to be OK for about a week and just today I noticed my Mac wobble and thought it was on an uneven surface but no, the surface was flat but the battery is now badly buckled with a large bump on the bottom of the Mac! Hope I get a replacement under warranty? I thought this problem only affected macbook pro 15" models?

I'm having the similar problems. Could somebody please post up a screen grab of their power information in 'about this mac' I want to see compare the average 17" MBP battery settings with mine.

Thanks

 

[ghall]

Calibration has nothing to do with it. The only thing calibration ensures is that your time remaining estimation is as accurate as possible. Had you calibrated monthly, your runtimes wouldn't be any better today.

Several things can affect your battery's longevity, including manufacturing variances and environmental factors. I suspect your battery was destined to have lower than typical performance from the start.

Ah well, so I guess my battery is calibrated then, because it's right on the dot with the charge time.

So I could claim a manufacturing defect? I'm not sure what your telling me there.

I've heard that Apple will replace batteries if they get down to really poor health (a certain percent) within a certain amount of time (a year, I thought). You might want to check that out... 39% for sure sounds low enough to qualify, the question is whether the time period was a year (could have been less). Give AppleCare a call.

Well, I haven't quite had it a year yet. It will be a whole year on the 21st. So I'll try contacting them today.

 

[aquajet]

Ah well, so I guess my battery is calibrated then, because it's right on the dot with the charge time.

So I could claim a manufacturing defect? I'm not sure what your telling me there.

Apple claim that a properly maintained battery should retain at least 80% capacity after 300 cycles. I'm not sure if that was the case with your battery, but at this point, I don't expect anything you could possibly argue would convince Apple to replace your battery, unfortunately. They still consider batteries to be consumables, which makes it easy for them to refuse to replace a defective unit unless under the most exceptional circumstances.

Just a FYI, fastmac offer a third-party replacement battery with higher capacity and lower cost than an Apple battery. I've never used one so I can't comment, but just something to consider...