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Battery query
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samsontan
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May 12, 2007, 02:14 PM
 
My MB's battery has about 84% left after 51 cyles, 10 months old. mistake was cuz i'd left it on ac together with battery attached. This as we all know is bad for the Li-on battery.

My question is what can i do for now? is there a way to restore my battery capacity? Like running few cycles of totally draining the battery or calibrate etc..

PS. i do calibrate once a month every since i got my MB 10 months ago
     
analogika
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May 12, 2007, 02:37 PM
 
You should completely drain the battery (work until the machine goes into forced sleep, and then let it sit until the pulsing light goes off) and fully recharge it every two months or so.

At least, that's what Apple recommends.

Beyond that...not much to do.

How do you figure the "84%" figure?
     
samsontan  (op)
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May 12, 2007, 03:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by analogika View Post
You should completely drain the battery (work until the machine goes into forced sleep, and then let it sit until the pulsing light goes off) and fully recharge it every two months or so.

At least, that's what Apple recommends.

Beyond that...not much to do.

How do you figure the "84%" figure?
with an application called "coconut battery"
pulsing light goes off? or just at pulsing light is when i leave for 5 hrs at least and later recharging it again. right?

pulsing light means sleep right?
     
analogika
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May 13, 2007, 05:46 AM
 
yes, but all MacBooks have "safe sleep", meaning that the entire memory is backed up to disk before it sleeps, so that when the battery runs down or is swapped during sleep, nothing is lost.

Wait until the sleep light has died before recharging.

Mind, this may not help much now.
     
frdmfghtr
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May 13, 2007, 08:11 AM
 
Here are the instructions from Apple regarding the battery calibration.

Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance
     
samsontan  (op)
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May 13, 2007, 10:35 AM
 
Originally Posted by frdmfghtr View Post
Here are the instructions from Apple regarding the battery calibration.

Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance
Quote from point:
4. Continue to keep your computer on until it goes to sleep. Save all your work and close all applications when the battery gets very low, before the computer goes to sleep.
5. Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.

I feel this is misleading as it doesn't mention clearly. Shouldn't "saving work" and close all applications be first then wait till it go low>goes to sleep right?
Secondly, it doesn't state that after a while of leaving it at the blinking sleep light and it will turn off completely(no more light) as mentioned earlier in the forum.

I need clarification for point 4.

So i'm suppose to turn it off? or just leave it at the completely depleted battery condition? for 5 hours.
( Last edited by samsontan; May 13, 2007 at 10:43 AM. )
     
analogika
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May 13, 2007, 05:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by samsontan View Post
Quote from point:
4. Continue to keep your computer on until it goes to sleep. Save all your work and close all applications when the battery gets very low, before the computer goes to sleep.
5. Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.

I feel this is misleading as it doesn't mention clearly. Shouldn't "saving work" and close all applications be first then wait till it go low>goes to sleep right?
That's just for safety. You shouldn't lose any data if everything is working correctly.


Originally Posted by samsontan View Post
Secondly, it doesn't state that after a while of leaving it at the blinking sleep light and it will turn off completely(no more light) as mentioned earlier in the forum.

I need clarification for point 4.

So i'm suppose to turn it off? or just leave it at the completely depleted battery condition? for 5 hours.
Just let it sleep for 5 hours. That's about the time the battery will take to completely run down.

It will run down if shut down also.
     
samsontan  (op)
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May 13, 2007, 10:45 PM
 
Originally Posted by analogika View Post
Just let it sleep for 5 hours. That's about the time the battery will take to completely run down.

It will run down if shut down also.
how do i shut it down wgen i can't turn it on.. do u mean by just holding the power button?
     
samsontan  (op)
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May 13, 2007, 11:31 PM
 
update:
first it was


then later it became


is it normal?
     
frdmfghtr
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May 14, 2007, 08:35 AM
 
Originally Posted by samsontan View Post
how do i shut it down wgen i can't turn it on.. do u mean by just holding the power button?
As has been stated, just let it sleep for five+ hours. Don't worry about turning it off.

And yes, you capacity could rise. I've noticed that occasionally the battery capacity will adjust a few mAh up or down if I've used the battery for a while (sometimes down after something CPU-intensive, and back up again after extended light use), even if it's not a full calibration cycle; I've always suspected that running on battery for an extended period of time would give the processor on the battery enough info to adjust the capacity estimate, even if it wasn't a full calibration cycle.
     
   
 
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