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Running my MBP without the battery.

J

jephyb

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 10, 2006
20
0
Cleveland, OH
Hey all,

Just curious... I run my 2.33 GHz MBP as a desktop computer with AC power a lot and usually use a secondary monitor as the main display. Since it's not the best practice to always have the MBP running off of AC power (instead of the battery) because this can decrease battery life, I was wondering if you think it'd be safe to just remove the battery from the MBP as long as I'm using it for more of a "desktop" unit than a mobile unit. I'm also using a Griffin Elevator stand (if that matter for any reason). Any thoughts?

Jephy.
 
It's ok to do so. However, bear in mind that if you disconnect the AC power, the computer will automatically shut down and you will lose whatever you were working on. Other than that, do it.
 
Luis said:
It's ok to do so. However, bear in mind that if you disconnect the AC power, the computer will automatically shut down and you will lose whatever you were working on. Other than that, do it.
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I agree. Would you ever have to be careful. The magsafe can be so easy to knock out too! I knock mine out all the time even when it is in a "safe" spot.

The best idea would be to run off the battery until it is also dead and then plug it in until it was full and then run off the battery again. You don't want to do that everyday. Apple says if you are running off A/C that you would run your battery down every day or two.

The Stig
 
Not sure if it still applies to the MBP's but I heard that if you take the battery out, the CPU will only run 1 core or half its performance.

Something like that - someone could clarify that for me though.
 
i thought you weren't supposed to remove the battery and run off AC. i'm not sure the exact reason, but i thought i had read that it was not a good thing to do...

but i'd like to know more because i mainly use my MBP at my desk and would like to do the same thing...
 
Kilamite said:
Not sure if it still applies to the MBP's but I heard that if you take the battery out, the CPU will only run 1 core or half its performance.

Something like that - someone could clarify that for me though.
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I think it throttles down to 1 Ghz.
 
Kilamite said:
Not sure if it still applies to the MBP's but I heard that if you take the battery out, the CPU will only run 1 core or half its performance.

Something like that - someone could clarify that for me though.
Click to expand...

I've heard that too and it was certainly the case with the core duo machines and I think it is also the case with the core 2 duos too. Therefore you're effectively handicapping your machine if you do so and, like another poster mentioned, risking all your work if the magsafe pops out by accident.

The main point to make is that you're not really doing your machine any harm running it off AC. The problem comes if you never use the battery. Just make sure to run it off the battery every once in a while to 'exercise' it as it were. I would do a calibration every couple of months or so too to.
 
Kilamite said:
Not sure if it still applies to the MBP's but I heard that if you take the battery out, the CPU will only run 1 core or half its performance.

Something like that - someone could clarify that for me though.
Click to expand...
That makes no sense at all. Taking the battery out assumes you have endless power through the AC. If anything it should be when you are NOT on AC.
 
blurb23 said:
I think it throttles down to 1 Ghz.
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Yeah, that's what I read (I think on Apple's site).

Bizarrely, it supposedly may not have enough power from the power supply to run it at full blast, which is why it does that. That makes zero sense to me though. I mean releasing a system with a power supply that can't actually supply enough power...?
 
overcast said:
That makes no sense at all. Taking the battery out assumes you have endless power through the AC. If anything it should be when you are NOT on AC.
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Maybe you should read the other posts concerning my comment before you post something like that ;)
 
overcast said:
That makes no sense at all. Taking the battery out assumes you have endless power through the AC. If anything it should be when you are NOT on AC.
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Yeah, endless power that can be cut out unexpectedly at any moment. Especially with magsafe releasing so easily.
 
im no electrician, but considering an average PC/tower/macpro psu kicks out 200W +, the power from a mac charger is 85W, therefore extra wattage is prolly needed from the battery to support running of both cores. the charger is exactly that - a charger. not really an external power source like on a tower or mac pro. I assume with a battery in, the charger can act as an external power source.
 
ScottDrummer said:
im no electrician, but considering an average PC/tower/macpro psu kicks out 200W +, the power from a mac charger is 85W, therefore extra wattage is prolly needed from the battery to support running of both cores. the charger is exactly that - a charger. not really an external power source like on a tower or mac pro. I assume with a battery in, the charger can act as an external power source.
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lol, no laptop is using anywhere near 200W. Have a look at the output power rating for a battery. The charger is more then adequate to run it. The external power source is called your power grid.
 
ScottDrummer said:
im no electrician, but considering an average PC/tower/macpro psu kicks out 200W +, the power from a mac charger is 85W, therefore extra wattage is prolly needed from the battery to support running of both cores. the charger is exactly that - a charger. not really an external power source like on a tower or mac pro. I assume with a battery in, the charger can act as an external power source.
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The "charger" is really the unit's power supply, and if it isn't quite large enough, they should make it provide more power, not skimp out and rely on the batter to pick up the slack.

I've NEVER heard of notebooks have this issue until this. Dell's XPS 1710 even came with a bigger power supply to handle it's Geforce 7950GTX versus the 7900GS in the 1705.
 
Mac Pros only have 200w PSUs?

My Gigabit ethernet G4 has a 220w I think...I guess I just imagined an array of hard drives and a beastly Gfx card would consume more power, along with, you know, 8 cores. (I only have two)
 
SuperCompu2 said:
Mac Pros only have 200w PSUs?

My Gigabit ethernet G4 has a 220w I think...I guess I just imagined an array of hard drives and a beastly Gfx card would consume more power, along with, you know, 8 cores. (I only have two)
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No, MacPro's have 1000w power supplies. That doesn't mean they use 1000w. A highend gaming rig can easily get by with 500w, typically using maybe 250-350w. The whole watt race with power supply manufacturers is just marketing.
 
It is rather interesting though... When I had the battery out and running soley on AC power and using that external monitor, I swore Warcraft III didn't run NEARLY as nice... It was still very choppy and even caused a greater amount of lag for me. I found when I actually quit the application, put the battery back in, and booted the game up again it ran as smoothly as it has in the past.

I'm just concerned about killing the battery on this thing too soon. I suppose that what AppleCare is for, but there's some stipulation with battery replacements... Like, they won't replace the battery if you've killed X amount of cycles on it...or something along those lines.
 
overcast said:
Oh so throttling down the CPU will fix that? What does that have to do with a battery? :confused:
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The charger does not have enough power to run both cores, as someone already said. It is a "charger" after all, not an external power supply. It can act as one, but is not designed for that.
 
Luis said:
The charger does not have enough power to run both cores, as someone already said. It is a "charger" after all, not an external power supply. It can act as one, but is not designed for that.
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Yes, it is. It's a power supply. I said it before and I'll say it again. If that adapter doesn't provide enough power to run the system at full blast, Apple needs to provide a bigger/better one.

What happens when you run your system at full blast continuously? There's no reason you shouldn't be able to, but basically Apple is saying you can't with this thing. They're apparently expecting it to have idle time for the battery to catch up. That's an insane design.

And this whole "2 core" thing has nothing to do with anything. The CPU's one of the bigger power draws, as is the GPU, the screen, etc.
 
Wolfpup said:
Yes, it is. It's a power supply. I said it before and I'll say it again. If that adapter doesn't provide enough power to run the system at full blast, Apple needs to provide a bigger/better one.

What happens when you run your system at full blast continuously? There's no reason you shouldn't be able to, but basically Apple is saying you can't with this thing. They're apparently expecting it to have idle time for the battery to catch up. That's an insane design.

And this whole "2 core" thing has nothing to do with anything. The CPU's one of the bigger power draws, as is the GPU, the screen, etc.
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You must be new to Apple. ;)

It's no secret Apple make compromises from time to time. In this case, it's a less powerful power supply in order to reduce size and weight. Does this affect the performance of the machine? No. Is it something to worry about? Not until the battery is old and unable to hold a charge.
 
aquajet said:
You must be new to Apple. ;)

It's no secret Apple make compromises from time to time. In this case, it's a less powerful power supply in order to reduce size and weight. Does this affect the performance of the machine? No. Is it something to worry about? Not until the battery is old and unable to hold a charge.
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Yes, it does affect it's performance if you can't actually use the machine at full blast. And it's just absurd-I think a defect-to sell a system with a power supply that's too small. You'd swear people are falling over from the "weight" of these things or something :D
 
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