What is the recommended full charge Capacity in mAh for the new Macbook Pro

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Level 1

4 points

What is the recommended full charge Capacity in mAh for the new Macbook Pro

I have a new (late 2008) Macbook Pro, and have noted several issues with regards to power management.

1) I found it was on- fans whirring away, incredibly hot- in my neoprene sleeve once. It was my understanding that these machines did not run with the lid shut unless an external screen was connected.

2) My battery life is WAY below what apple has posted as its 'wireless productivity' tests. On my previous Macbook I have always had over the 4.5 hours of 'wireless productivity' under similar conditions. On this, with the screen 1/3 bright, wirelessly browsing the web and typing on word/pages documents I have failed to ever get over 3 hours of battery life on the 'Better Battery Life' setting. This is a far cry from the 5 hours we were promised. In fact I have never even seen the indicator believe it was going to achieve over 3hrs 44mins.

3) My battery is already at 4464mAh (97% health) Orig capacity for me was 4600. My 8 month old macbook's battery is still at 96% health. I do look after my batteries, and have conditioned accordingly. I have also reset the SMC, to no avail.
NOTE: my old Macbook's Orig capacity was actually 5020 mAh, and its now at 4809. This would lead me to believe that my Macbook Pro's battery was always a dud. The pros have always had bigger batteries, and this model is no exception. This is after 200 load cycles, my new machine has had 8.

4) It takes over 5 hours to fully charge this battery. It doesn't seem to do 70% quick and then crawl at the last 30% as most laptop batteries do. This one just crawls the whole way. I am currently 93% charged, and thus far it has taken 3hrs 45mins. It estimates another 58minutes until fully charged.

This is simply not practical.

Do we think that I just have a dud battery, or that there are other system power management issues at play here?

Macbook Pro 2.4 (late 2008) and Macbook 2.1 (Early 2008), Mac OS X (10.5.5), *1st time Mac user* XD

Posted on Oct 19, 2008 4:52 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 19, 2008 11:51 PM in response to brookieboy

My 2 cents...

1. Find it a bit cooler than my previous MacBook Pro (purchased Jan 08).

2. Getting the same kind of battery life usage of 2-2.5 hours on Better Battery mode.

So far not crazy about it.... although the graphics card is really sweet (been playing Spore and C&C on it) and the new one piece case feels and looks great.

Oh, and is it just me or does the new trackpad "click" sound really loud?

Message was edited by: Giovanny Gutierrez

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Answer 2

brookieboy Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 20, 2008 2:10 AM in response to Giovanny Gutierrez

The Click IS really loud. So much so that I have started using the software 'tap to click' option in system prefs, because I work in the library so much and I was conscious it was disturbing people.

If you go to About this mac>> More info>> Power. Could you post what the mAh rating for your battery is showing for 'Full Charge Capacity' please?

Ta

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Answer 3

brookieboy Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 20, 2008 3:00 AM in response to brookieboy

I have just spoken to applecare and they have told me that the full charge capacity on the new batteries should be 5600 mAh.
Mine was 4600 new, and now already at 4464. it's a dud alright, and they're sending me out a replacement now.
As a matter of interest- the man from applecare kept trying to make me take it back to the store for a completely new one- even before he had asked me anything about the battery.

I had to ask him what the capacity was before he even twigged that it might be a battery issue.

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Answer 4

Oct 20, 2008 5:48 AM in response to brookieboy

AppleCare was incorrect. The full charge capacity of a new MBP battery should be 4600 mAh (nominally, 4630 mAh). The tech was thinking of the previous 15" MBP.

According to the specs, the new MBP has a 50 W-hr battery. All batteries are 10.8 V. So, 50000 mW-hr / 10.8 V = 4630 mAh. The previous 15" MBPs had a 60 W-hr battery, so those had full charge capacities of 5600 mAh.

My guess - you're going to see the same thing with your "new" battery.

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Answer 5

brookieboy Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 20, 2008 6:32 AM in response to neuroanatomist

Thanks for the advice there.
This is awful. I can't understand how they managed to get 5 hour battery life out of this thing.

I'm only so frustrated, because my Macbook battery was so spot on.

Do you think that the amount of time this is taking to charge is right? If the new battery doesn't make any difference, I'm going to have to send this back until they sort it out.

I'm gutted about it, to be fair. I can't imagine how pathetic the battery would be with the graphics card actually turned ON.

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Answer 6

Oct 20, 2008 6:45 AM in response to brookieboy

MacBooks have always been more power-efficient than the Pro models (just as the iBooks always had better battery life than the PowerBooks). Apple's battery life specs are not really real-world tests, IMHO. They do state, +"The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processing document with display brightness set to 50%."+ They don't state which websites, but you can bet they chose sites with no Flash, no animation, etc. Personally, I use MenuMeters, and I can see at a glance that some websites (e.g. weather.com's animated radar) use a significant amount of CPU power.

Having said that, you should be able to get 3.5-4 hrs of use with no trouble. If you can't, have a look at Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor to see if there's something using a lot CPU cycles in the background.

The long time to full charge is normal for the first few charge cycles. It should be a little faster after that. Also, the initial drop in 'health' is normal; do run a battery calibration on the new battery when it arrives:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

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Answer 7

brookieboy Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 21, 2008 1:31 AM in response to neuroanatomist

Thanks for the advice, mate.
As I've said, I do look after my batteries, so I will be calibrating at the first opportunity, and again every few weeks at least.

What I don't understand is why the 'wireless productivity' test is so accurate for the macbook, and so inaccurate for the MBP. Can ANYBODY claim to have obtained 5hours of wifi time? or even 4.5?

I haven't even tried to turn the graphics card on yet whilst it's not plugged in. Whilst it may be true that the smaller-screened consumer products have historically held less battery life the simple fact is that it has been marketed as having the same amount of battery time as the macbook, whilst the graphics card is off...and some of us would not have brought the system if it couldn't handle being a real portable. I'm giving this new battery 5 days, and If I don't see noticeable improvements, the MBP is going back until they've sorted this issue out.

This is an issue that I will be following closely- I also have imported the user settings straight from my macbook (using migration assistant) so the same background processes etc are running. I run Activity monitor in the dock, and the CPU load is never above 30% for any period of time. I will run MenuMeter to see if there are some processes I am overlooking.

Again, thanks for the advice.

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Answer 8

brookieboy Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 21, 2008 6:47 AM in response to brookieboy

I just thought I should update people as to the situation, unless they are in the same predicament.

My battery, today, on its 10th Charge, appears to be charging MUCH faster than before. 3 hrs to total charge, as opposed to the 5 I was experiencing before.

HOWEVER, the battery IS still losing health relatively quickly, and with every (full!) cycle, it is getting less and less healthy. It has gone from 4552mAh to 4402 in a matter of days. I'm no expert, which I'm sure is evident, but that doesn't seem right, drawing on my experiences with other mac laptops.

I am, therefore, going to trial the new battery which applecare have sent me, all shiny and new and wrapped in plastic. I will post my findings over the next week, and then send apple back the presumably dud battery within the 10 days specified.

I hope this helps somebody else in my situation.

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Answer 9

Oct 22, 2008 2:29 PM in response to brookieboy

i recieved my laptop yesterday didnt look what it came with but im at 4623 could have used it more than 6 hours so far and im on my 4rd charge...charged it over night work up in the morning took out the charger and kept the screen closed..came home at 3:30 and was at 90% I am averaging a longer charge time than use time..anybody else?

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Answer 10

brookieboy Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 22, 2008 5:32 PM in response to Richard Weber

I'm deffos averaging a longer charge time than battery life.

On the other hand, this may decrease with further charges. I'm investigating this as we speak, with another battery. 4623 is the jackpot mate. Even this second battery they've given me was at 4552 at its peak.

I can only hope for some sort of update to rectify this issue.

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Answer 11

aimbdd

Level 1

10 points

Oct 23, 2008 6:23 AM in response to brookieboy

my batter shows 5:20 run time

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Answer 12

KevinM

Level 1

0 points

Oct 27, 2008 5:04 PM in response to brookieboy

When I first turned on my MBP (2.53/4GB) on Thursday at work it said I had nearly 5 hours of battery remaining. I turned it off, went straight round a friends house from work and we sat and browsed the internet from about 6PM to 10PM.

Since then I have had it mostly plugged into the mains, but Sunday I took it off and it showed just over 2 hours remaining the moment the connector was unplugged, and it has been that way every time since then that I have let the battery die and recharged it. A shade over 2 hours is pretty poor for basic browsing over WiFi if you ask me.

All I've done since that first day of use is a software update, and installed some programs, none of which I've used.

Here's hoping a future software update will rectify the situation.

Message was edited by: KevinM

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Answer 13

Identiti

Level 1

14 points

Oct 28, 2008 12:33 AM in response to brookieboy

I just got the new 2.53 on Thursday last week... My battery is now reading "3824mAh Max"!!!

What the ****

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Answer 14

butchi

Level 1

0 points

Nov 28, 2008 9:03 AM in response to brookieboy

So the replacement they sent you didn't solve the problem, did it?

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Answer 15

gmartine

Level 1

0 points

Dec 7, 2008 8:42 PM in response to brookieboy

Hey brookieboy... did they replacement battery fix your issue? They are sending me a battery because the same reason. According with Apple Care 4691mAh and 6 cycles was way too low. I doubt that!

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