Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

mayoke · Feb 5, 2009, 11:29 PM

my battery just went from 87% health to 50% health and things are starting to act weird!

About a week ago, I turned on my macbook pro after it was outside in the cold for a bit (got quite cold!). It was not attached to a charger, and it never managed to calculate how much battery life I had left... it just said "Calculating" for the longest time. Eventually It just turned off suddenly (not sleep, it completely turned off, no white sleep light) after what I assume was the battery running out (and I didn't get the usual "you have 10 minutes before your mac will go to sleep" message). That happened a second time a day or two later. Earlier this week, I was charging the battery while using the mac, and it kept switching from "Calculating" to "1:24" or whatever time was remaining before the battery was completely charged. It seemed to take a while to get fully charged.

Just 2 or 3 days ago, I looked at my battery health, and it's now a miserable 51% whereas a week ago it was 87% 99 cycles! and just over a year old with no apple care.

I'm in the process of trying to completely drain and re-charge, (with the computer turned off) but i notice that the indicator lights on the battery keep changing in a weird fashion: usually I thought it's just a single light that flashes (the level being charged) and the others stay solid to the left of it. Now that happens, but every 2-10 blinks, it goes solid, all lights go off, and then the lights quickly light up all the way to the second last light, which blinks a few times (2-10+) goes solid, all lights off, and repeat. It's been like 3.5 hrs at least, and the battery isn't charged! Is this normal?? Any advice? I tried the hold-the-power-button-with-no-battery-in reset thing (PMC? PMU?), but i don't know if that did anything.

ibook_steve · Feb 6, 2009, 03:03 AM

Sounds like the battery is toast. Confirm it with a genius at an Apple store. You can get an Apple original replacement or a higher capacity Truepower battery from Fastmac. It works great.

As a general rule, if electronics have been out in the cold, you should wait a few minutes before powering up indoors. If you don't, the condensation that forms from going from cold to warm can cause damage.

Steve

mayoke · Feb 6, 2009, 04:48 PM

how much longer does the fastmac truepower battery last? does the mbp recognize it and tell you how long you've got etc...? And how does it manage to be $30 cheaper... is it actually better? I couldn't find any suggestion as to how many hours of battery life it provides compared with the apple battery.

As for the current battery, it's health keeps changing: i've gotten it up to 77%, but as low as 46% ... maybe a few cycles might fix things a bit... my only annoyance is that it sometimes doesn't go to sleep and just shuts the computer off once power runs out.

ibook_steve · Feb 6, 2009, 05:43 PM

Like I said, that battery is toast.

The Truepower battery works and looks exactly the same as an Apple original. I've had no problems with it. And for my MBP, the Truepower is now the same price as the Apple battery. As far as why it's cheaper in general, I suppose it's similar to Apple's infamous markup on RAM.

Steve

Wiskedjak · Feb 6, 2009, 10:18 PM

Originally Posted by mayoke

And how does it manage to be $30 cheaper.

It's probably the lack of the Apple logo tax.

mayoke · Feb 8, 2009, 04:30 PM

is the battery identical to the apple one, or is it a higher capacity one? If higher capacity, any idea how much more battery life you'll get out of it compared to the factory battery?

ibook_steve · Feb 8, 2009, 04:39 PM

Truepower has higher capacity. See the Fastmac web site for details:

http://www.fastmac.com

Steve

nickw311 · Feb 9, 2009, 12:03 PM

Any real world experience with how much more capacity? Naturally they are trying to sell the battery so you can't get much objective information from fastmac.com

Wiskedjak · Feb 9, 2009, 10:50 PM

Originally Posted by nickw311

Any real world experience with how much more capacity? Naturally they are trying to sell the battery so you can't get much objective information from fastmac.com

Well, if they're exaggerating their battery life consistently with how much Apple exaggerates it's own battery life, it should be almost a wash.

tooki · Feb 10, 2009, 06:53 AM

Yeah. A German Mac magazine (MacUP) did a test comparing one brand of third-party batteries to Apple's, and if I recall correctly, those supposedly higher-capacity batteries didn't run as long as Apple's.

ibook_steve · Feb 10, 2009, 12:57 PM

Mine has given me at least a half hour to an hour more compared to when my original Apple battery worked properly.

Steve