2 month old MBP on 50 cycles???

From what you've reported there's no evidence of a battery problem. The typical life of the battery is 500 charge cycles, and depending upon your usage that could mean replacing the battery in less than two years.

The battery's full charge capacity is about 4400 mAh so your battery is fine after 50 cycles.

You'll need to explain more why you believe there's an abnormality.

You are assuming that battery charge drops in a linear or consistent manner. That's not how it works. If you chart the max capacity over time, you will find that it drops, but sometimes holds, and sometimes goes up.

There are many cells in a battery pack and each cell has its own rate of deterioration. It is very difficult to create an accurate composite picture of all the cells in the battery because there are so many cells discharging at different rates. It does not drain like liquid fuel!

Apple's standard is that your battery should retain 80% of its charge after about 300 complete charging cycles. If you get to 300 cycles and you have more than 80%, it is working as expected. I still have 85% after 356 cycles, and I consider myself lucky that way.

maconvertible wrote:
- Full charge capacity (mAh): 4395 (and decreasing!)

FYI, the nominal new full charge capacity for a 15" uMBP battery is ~4600 mAh, so you're still at 95-96% health. Your battery is just fine.

Hi maconvertible: The best way to minimize cycle count is to use your computer on AC power when possible. It will do no harm to the battery to hav eit plugged in to AC.

Stedman

Basically... one full cycle is one full discharge from 100% to nearly 0 then back up to 100%. Partial discharge/recharges count as partial cycles. For example, if your computer was at a full 100% charge and you let it run down to 90% (a 10% drop) before you recharged it, you would need to do this ten times for it to equal one full cycle. Likewise, if your computer was at a full charge and you let it run down to 50% (a 50% drop) before recharging it, you would need to do this only twice to equal one full cycle. As has been mentioned, the more you run off of the power supply, the less you use the battery (obviously)... and the less you use the battery, the fewer cycles you'll accumulate.

But, don't minimize your battery use too much - remember that Li-based batteries need to be used to maintain their health. Apple indicates a minimum of one cycle per month. Personally, I recommend 1-2 cycles per week.

Some tips: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1764220

neuroanatomist wrote:
Apple indicates a minimum of one cycle per month. Personally, I recommend 1-2 cycles per week.

Careful, a cycle is not the same as a calibration. It sounds like you're talking about calibrations. And 1-2 calibrations per week sounds like a lot based on what I've read, where sources other than Apple also say once every 30 days or so.

Network 23 wrote:
Careful, a cycle is not the same as a calibration. It sounds like you're talking about calibrations. And 1-2 calibrations per week sounds like a lot based on what I've read, where sources other than Apple also say once every 30 days or so.

<mild sarcasm>Ummm, thanks for pointing that out</mild sarcasm> (i.e., I am fully aware of the difference 😉 )

Just to be completely clear, an explanation of a "charge cycle" can be found on this linked page. The page specifically on notebook batteries _used to_ state something along the lines of if you use your notebook primarily as a desktop, be sure to complete at least one charge cycle per month. Sometime since I last looked at that page, they changed it to read, +"Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month."+ That sounds even more like calibration, but that's not the intent (I suspect it was changed because many people have no idea what a charge cycle actually is).

Calibration instructions are in this linked kbase article. That article was modified today and now does not even suggest a frequency for the calibration of Intel-based portables, although a suggestion is made for older Mac portables (an oversight which I'll try to have corrected). It +used to+ state that a calibration should be performed every two months, or in cases where the battery is used infrequently, the calibration should be done monthly. Furthermore, except for those periodic calibrations, it's best to never let a Li-based battery fully discharge.

These, and many, many more details about Apple batteries, are all explained in the User Tip which I posted, and is linked in the post above. Here's the link again...

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1764220

neuroanatomist wrote:
Just to be completely clear, an explanation of a "charge cycle" can be found on this linked page. The page specifically on notebook batteries _used to_ state something along the lines of if you use your notebook primarily as a desktop, be sure to complete at least one charge cycle per month.

I see...I misinterpreted! Mea culpa. 🙂

No worries - a good thing, in that it caused me to revisit the now-modified calibration kbase article, which I'll suggest needs to be re-edited.

Where can I find the overall percentage of my battery? BTW: I have had my MBP for 2-months and it reads 30 cycles. I have calibrated it approximately 5-times, which after reading several posts may be too much. I will scale back to once a month going forward.

Many thanks..........