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Rab Mush · Sep 19, 2006, 06:35 PM

My dad just got done telling me horror stories about how his Laptop batteries fail because he used the computer while charging, and didn't let the battery run all the way down before letting it charge. I don't think that's still a problem with laptop batteries, but thought I might as well ask.

How good is your Macbook's battery?

Rab Mush · Sep 20, 2006, 07:41 AM

Bump, and I think I need to rephrase the question

How do you charge your battery, and how much has it gone down in maximum battery life?

C.A.T.S. CEO · Sep 20, 2006, 08:39 AM

You won't have to worry. remove the battery if you don't use it a lot.

Hi I'm Ben · Sep 20, 2006, 08:50 AM

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO

You won't have to worry. remove the battery if you don't use it a lot.

Don't do this, there's no point. The battery life will not be affected by leaving it on your unit

Here's my battery after 18 months of leaving it in my iBook. I pretty much always kept my iBook on the charger,

Batteries stop charging after they are full.

SSharon · Sep 20, 2006, 12:24 PM

OP: don't worry about it.

Ben: Am I reading that right. In 18 months you only have 34 full recharge cycles? I have had my ibook for about 25 months and I think I have had 10 times as many charge cycles. I am down to 51% original capacity.

SSharon · Sep 20, 2006, 02:39 PM

I decided to download coconut battery to get the same info as you and apparently I only have 193 cycles even though I thought I remember reading more via command line or an earlier version of this program. It also says 53% life instead of the 51% that capacity meter tells me.

In any case, I am still surprised.

dmetzcher · Sep 20, 2006, 05:28 PM

Originally Posted by Hi I'm Ben

Don't do this, there's no point. The battery life will not be affected by leaving it on your unit

Here's my battery after 18 months of leaving it in my iBook. I pretty much always kept my iBook on the charger,

Batteries stop charging after they are full.

Your battery is going better than mine. I have 168 loadcycles after 18 months and am down to 81% total capacity.

The point however, is that all the Li-Ion batteries will eventually die. I will probably need to replace mine in another six months (I lose about 3% total capacity every month, if the last five months' numbers are correct), which will be the two year point. Some will last longer than others. If you take care of the battery, using the notebook normally (i.e. - charge, unplug, use, drain battery, plug in, charge again, repeat), you will probably get more life out of it. I prefer to keep my on AC power all the time, as I rarely use it in a place where there is no power, and only unplug it once in a while. I let it run down to 0%, until it sleeps and will no longer wake from sleep, about once per month. This is supposed to help preserve battery life, but who knows.

OP: Don't worry about the battery. If you have to replace it in two years, it's not the most-annoying thing in the world that can happen. Just enjoy your MacBook and use it however you like, so long as you aren't a slave to the thing.

C.A.T.S. CEO · Sep 20, 2006, 10:12 PM

Originally Posted by Hi I'm Ben

Don't do this, there's no point. The battery life will not be affected by leaving it on your unit

Here's my battery after 18 months of leaving it in my iBook. I pretty much always kept my iBook on the charger,

Batteries stop charging after they are full.

I've used mine for 3 years and the batteries max charge is 97% when it should be 100%

steve65 · Sep 21, 2006, 12:48 PM

Apparently my battery capacity is increasing! lol

boomerdang · 06:39 PM

hey I just downloaded coconut too-- for some reason it says I am at 99% charged while my battery icon on the menu bar says I'm fully charged.

Anyway, could some one explain what a battery loadcycle is? My impression from the number I have is that it means the number of times you use the battery whatsoever.

frdmfghtr · Sep 21, 2006, 09:41 PM

Both could be right...even when plugged in after a full charge, the battery will s-l-o-w-l-y drain. The charger won't kick on again until you pass 95% going down. Once you drop below 95%, the charger will come on whenever the laptop is plugged in until it hits 100% again. This prevents going from 100% down to 99% then the charger coming on again. Extended trickle charges at full charge tend to kill battery capacity and damage cells, if I recall correctly.

A battery cycle is a 100% discharge/charge. If you charge/discharge is shorter cycles, a full cycle is recorded when the discharge cycles add to 100%. Five discharge/charge cycled down to 80% and back will add to a single charge cycle.

I have some doubts about this, since I've looked a graphs of my battery usage and could swear that cycles were counted when the discharge cycles didn't add to 100% so I'm trying a controlled test. I started at a battery with 12 cycles on it and 100% charge. I ran it to about 50% and fully charged it. I should be able to run it to about 50% again before a cycle is recorded.

dmetzcher · Sep 26, 2006, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by boomerdang

hey I just downloaded coconut too-- for some reason it says I am at 99% charged while my battery icon on the menu bar says I'm fully charged.

Anyway, could some one explain what a battery loadcycle is? My impression from the number I have is that it means the number of times you use the battery whatsoever.

99% is considered fully-charged. I have rarely seen it go to 100%, as it really shouldn't do this, I've read. The battery is supposed to stop charging at 99% to preserve battery life. As far as the Mac OS is concerned, 99% is completely charged. CoconutBattery, however, displays it as the correct percentage, because that is the number returned to the software when it does its thing.