my battery wears down to 95% in just 5 cycles

noooooo what do i do? i used coconutbattery widget to find out, i always keep my plug in and one day i decided to take out the plg and let die down one the batt so i can have one full cycle now it is 95% ( only had it for 14days.

is it better to charge it right b4 it dies or plug it in right when it warns or around certain percent of life?

 

Battery meters are inaccurate.

 

From the Mac Switcher's Guide:

 

i get slw cycles count because i keep it plug in is this ok?

 

That's fine, in fact, the lower the amount of cycles, the better. So yeah, plug it in when you don't need to use it on battery .

 

I wanted to open a thread to ask that, so maybe I can get answer here

What if I can keep it plugged in all the time? Won't that have bad effect on the battery as written in Apple Battery Care pages?

and is it bad to charge it at for example if its 40% full (incase I wanna hang out and fully charge it)

 

Read the battery guide.

 

Well, don't keep it in forever...but you don't need to use its cycle everyday, is what I mean. Just use the battery every week or so, and its fine.

And yes, it is better to charge it up when its lower, but doing that occasionally isn't going to completely ruin your battery health. So go ahead, as long as you don't do it everytime, don't worry about it.

 

Hehe, I haven't calibrated my battery in 60 cycles. It fluctuates daily from 85% to 97% health

One of these days I'll have the uninterrupted block of time on the computer to actually calibrate it or something....

 

lol, I haven't calibrated my battery ever. It just takes too long, and I use it for long perids of time every day, so taking time to calibrate it is nearly impossible, or very inconvenient.

 

What about you do it when you go to sleep?

 

i read that guide battery, i have to charge it at 10-20%, because i let it die down heheh, but on my laptop it is still 100%, oh well i guess coconut is not accurate. is it better to buy the fastmac batts or orig. apple batt? seems like the fastmac batts are 60w? and apples are 55w any difference?

 

i keep my ac plug in all the time even if it's sleeping. that way i dont drain batt.

 

Because then I wake up to a drained battery, and I can't use my laptop at school.

 

Do NOT drain your battery all the way unless you are calibrating it. You should be recharging back up at 20% or 10% at the lowest, if you go lower you risk damaging your battery. Every 30 cycles you should drain the battery all the way for calibration, other than that do not do it!

I foolishly let my old battery drain all the way down several times this past summer and my old battery ended up with a little over 50% health. I was out of the 1 year warranty and was forced to buy a new one. Don't make the same mistake I did!

 

does the battery software actually says how many cycles you have been through or how do you calculate it?

 

iStat Pro tells you the amount of cycles.

EDIT: a word of advice when using iStat on Leopard: do not put your mac to sleep with it running in your dashboard. When you wake it up it will be extremely laggy, or it won't wake up at all.

 

so iStat should be installed before i make any charges so it detects all cycles or I can install it anytime and it will read the number of cycles then remove it again or something?

 

Nah, just install it and it will know.

 

4h = 240min x 95% = 228min
240-228 =12min
Oh my god, sue someone (maybe apple?) you lost 12 min of battery life... this is the worst thing I have ever heard. You know there are thousands of starving nerds in silicon valley dying from a lack of battery life. If we all got together and just donated 1% of our battery life, we could solve this horrible battery shortage and help prevent this terrible tragedy. Just think its only a few minutes of your laptops time, but it could be saving a nerds life.
a

 

That was necessary? I am surprised someone with as much reputation as you would be flaming...

 

wasn't so much as a flame, as him trying to be funny, but coming off as a complete jackass.

 

Fair enough, in hindsight it was a bit jackass statement, and unnecessary.
I guess after many year in the forum, I sometimes have a short straw with users posting somewhat silly points. At the time I guess I was just trying to point out that had this guy a)done some research/used search button, b) more importantly stopped obsessing about every little aspect of things he might be better off. Unfortunately, computers break down, and have a limited lifespan, its unfortunate but a reality.
I guess I just got a bit frustrated at the guy for perhaps expecting a bit too much from his laptop.
Again sorry
a

 

Well his concern is pretty legit. If it's already down 5% on only 5 cycles, that means in 100 cycles it'll be useless, when it should only be at about 80% after 300 cycles. If his battery is degrading so fast, it could be an issue.

 

I'm at 11 cycles and 95% on my MBP. What can you do?

 

lol, I'm at 52 cycles, 96%. Then again I need to calibrate my battery, maybe you should do the same?

 

I'm at 24 cycles and 95% battery life. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I bought an expensive laptop from a reputable company. I shouldn't have to calibrate this or that. I've never calibrated this battery and don't plan too.

As for Underpantman's response, I must say that was a sshole-ish, unnecessary and there's no excuse for that behavior. I suppose we all have our bad days...

Also, this is a forum for asking questions as well as posting commentary. It's not a search/google forum. If you want people to use search/google, than don't even bother browsing here since you're of no use since a lot of questions have been asked and will be asked again and again by many different users. It's called human interaction, a lot of people prefer chatting with someone especially when it comes to getting help.

 

Yeah I did the calibration thing, and didn't make a difference. I'm not too bothered, to be honest. Heaven forbid I need to buy a new battery in a year or two. Will I even have the laptop then? Probably not. I can see myself buying a new MBP if Apple ever get around to it, and then this one, despite my love for it - will go to a new owner.

 

My battery's amazing.

I'm at 60ish cycles, 100% battery life. However, I'm only a high school student, so I don't need to take my Macbook out too often. Couple times around my house, to the library, and to school for the odd reasons. I've calibrated twice so far, and I'm planning to do it again when I hit 80ish or so.

At home, I almost always use it plugged into the MagSafe, with the three pronged connection.

For yours, I would try calibrating, and waiting until at least the 100 cycle mark before making any assumptions about the battery.

 

The MacBooks DEFINITELY read differently to the MacBook Pros. I have a friend with a MacBook from earlier in 2007, and he's done over 100 cycles and is still at 100%. Nobody I now has a MacBook Pro at 100%. LOADS of people I know have MacBooks at 100%. I wonder why?

 

the program their using is not accurate and they are not calibrated. It''s physically impossible for an early 2007 Macbook with 100 charges to have 100%

 

Naw, they're not accurate enough to make a statistical judgement. Even after calibration, its usually not perfect. I had my MacBook's battery health at 96% for a few weeks, and miraculously its back at 100% .

 

Mine keeps going down even after recalibration. 66 cycles and 91%. =/

I'll probably try to use the warranty before it expires this fall.