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nylon

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 26, 2004
1,407
1,058
Wow callibrating my MBP battery improved my MBP battery life by 45 minutes to an hour. I was only getting around 3 hours of battery life on a full charge initially and now I get around 3:45 to 4 hours. At least that's what the indicator says.

Too bad this machine is going back. I'm still waiting for a return shipping label from Apple as they are sending me a new machine due to a logic board error. I've had about a week to play with this one though and it's like being on crack!!!
 

mad jew

Moderator emeritus
Apr 3, 2004
32,191
9
Adelaide, Australia
kkapoor said:
Wow callibrating my MBP battery improved my MBP battery life by 45 minutes to an hour. I was only getting around 3 hours of battery life on a full charge initially and now I get around 3:45 to 4 hours. At least that's what the indicator says.


Yeah, calibrating the battery is a very good idea. It should ideally be done the first time you use a battery and then once a month from there on in. It's done to ensure the computer know exactly how much charge the battery can take. If there is a discrepancy between the computer's idea of the battery's charge and the actual battery's charge then you can get a undercharging (inefficient) or overcharging (dangerous for your battery).


Scratchbc said:
how can I find out if I have a bad logic board?


Tell us the symptoms. Being the backbone of our computer, logic board failures can have all sorts of symptoms. :)
 

eVolcre

macrumors 68000
Jan 7, 2003
1,979
587
Or you could just run the extended hardware test. Put in install disc 1 and hold down D while starting up.
 

Artful Dodger

macrumors 68020
kkapoor said:
Wow callibrating my MBP battery improved my MBP battery life by 45 minutes to an hour. I was only getting around 3 hours of battery life on a full charge initially and now I get around 3:45 to 4 hours. At least that's what the indicator says.

Too bad this machine is going back. I'm still waiting for a return shipping label from Apple as they are sending me a new machine due to a logic board error. I've had about a week to play with this one though and it's like being on crack!!!

What are the specs. of your MBP? Also how bright is the screen when you use it (turned down a couple lines or more)? Sorry to hear your trouble and hope the next MBP works like a champ for you :)
 

sam10685

macrumors 68000
Feb 2, 2006
1,763
1
Portland, OR
katie ta achoo said:
Run the battery all the way down until it puts itself into sleep mode, then charge it up to 100%

you should do it about once a month.

i thought u only needed to calibrate the battery once when u first got it.
 

nylon

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 26, 2004
1,407
1,058
Scratchbc said:
how can I find out if I have a bad logic board?

I ran the extended hardware test by booting of the install dvd while pressing the 'D' key. It gave me a hardware error code which tech support told me was a logic board problem.
 

nylon

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 26, 2004
1,407
1,058
Artful Dodger said:
What are the specs. of your MBP? Also how bright is the screen when you use it (turned down a couple lines or more)? Sorry to hear your trouble and hope the next MBP works like a champ for you :)

I have a 2.0 MBP with 7200rpm drive and 2GB Ram. The brightness is set to 6 bars & the power management is set to 'Better Battery Life'.

Obviously when I'm on battery I do nothing more than surfing, office apps and iLife stuff (excluding hard rendering etc).
 

PatrickF

macrumors 6502
Feb 16, 2006
335
0
Blighty
katie ta achoo said:
Run the battery all the way down until it puts itself into sleep mode, then charge it up to 100%

you should do it about once a month.
The calibration instructions are slightly different for the MBP.

You'll have to charge up the laptop fully and leave the power adapter plugged in for at least 2 hours after it's charged.

Then run it down until it switches itself off and leave it switched off for at least 5 hours before charging it up again.
 
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