battery life reduced ti 94% in just 128 cycles!

AceNeerav wrote:
What can I do to save my battery from eventual death?

Nothing. Batteries die. You can make them live longer by calibrating monthly and staying plugged in more often (i.e., requiring fewer charge cycles), but your battery will die someday.

20 charge cycles a month seems a little high (I'm at 11 after about six weeks of daily use--but I stay plugged in a lot). If you're near enough to work while plugged in, do so. If you have to be unplugged a lot, your battery will die sooner. Just a fact of life.

AceNeerav wrote:
I'm a bit confused. I have heard people around many internet sites and forums talk about not letting the laptop plugged into the charger for better battery life. I also saw a post in this forum about the same thing.

Fact is, every time your battery drains well down and recharges, you shorten its lifespan. The battery can also "forget" what its settings are unless it does get used at least occasionally and calibrated regularly. You are safe to use it plugged in most of the time, and when you're near enough to the power source you should go ahead and plug it in.

Also, are you sure that letting it plugged in will lead to fewer charge cycles? I thought irrespective of whether its plugged in or not when 100% equivalent of charge is used by the laptop 1 charge cycle is over.

The power management software is much smarter now than it used to be. Charging from 90% to 100% doesn't count as a cycle anymore, and doesn't affect the battery's useful life the way it might have 5 or 10 years ago. Doing what you described above--using it unplugged and recharging twice a day every day--that WILL affect your battery's life, in a negative way.

You can thank god, I am a new laptop user basically
I got a macbook and I actually thought that the best way to retain the battery life is to drain it all the way down and recharge it, and I have been doing so for more than a month now.
Ironically this is the fastest way to kill your battery as I see here.

I am at 51 cycles and my battery is at 96% heatlh as iStat shows just after a month!!
I am currently using my mac with the extended wire. The plug is not leaving this laptop for at least the next six months. *** to stay connected always but there is nothing you can do. Thats the high price you pay for a lower spec computer, just to move it from desk to bed. A desktop should be connected too, but it is cheaper with better display and higher specs. Moving from desk to bed is really expensive.

btw, what are these kind like fangs coming out of my battery charging block. It looks like it locks something, they open and close.

"You can thank god, I am a new laptop user basically...btw, what are these kind like fangs coming out of my battery charging block. It looks like it locks something, they open and close."

Have you read any of the documentation that came with your computer? The "fangs" are the AC power prongs. When the "fangs" are "out" you can "plug" it into a "wall outlet", and the power adapter will "charge" your computer's battery... assuming that you've "plugged" the computer into the "power adapter".
When the "fangs" are "in" (that is, not "out"), you cannot plug the power adapter into the wall outlet.

"You can thank god, I am a new laptop user basically...what are these kind like fangs coming out of my battery charging block. It looks like it locks something, they open and close."

Have you read any of the documentation that came with your computer, or familiarized yourself with the features, using the Apple website? The "fangs" are the AC power prongs for the power adapter. If you want to charge the battery in your computer, you make sure that the fangs are out, you plug the power adapter into the AC wall outlet, and then you connect the DC output cord of the power adapter to your computer.

kingmohd wrote:
The plug is not leaving this laptop for at least the next six months.

Well, no, you don't want to do that, either. You need to unplug it at least occasionally so that the battery can remember what a full charge should be. Calibrate it every 4-8 weeks as documented in the KB article here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

btw, what are these kind like fangs coming out of my battery charging block. It looks like it locks something, they open and close.

You might be referring to the hooks on two corners of the block, around which you can wrap the cord. Which, apparently, you shouldn't do--or only do very carefully--as the 90° bend you put into the cord that way can cause failure. (It has never happened to my chargers over the years, but I have heard stories.)

the ones Jay is talking about
they are on the block, I never thought those were to wrap the wires around them.

Am not sure what the other guy is talking about, but my battery charges fine.
I think he is talking about the tiny piece you insert into the white block and then connect it to the electric outlet

AceNeerav wrote:
Hi,

My macbook is 6 months old and I have had 128 charge cycles so far. The battery life has reduced to 94% (3845 mAh) from the original 4100 mAh.

That sounds just about right. In fact, your battery might even be above average. The typical result that Apple reports is 300 cycles to an average 80% of original capacity. It's not really a linear progression, but your numbers sound fine. Loss of capacity from using and recharging a rechargeable battery is inevitable. There might be some extreme things that can be done for exponentially higher battery life, but I don't think most people would be able to do these things adequately. Let's just say you would have to ALWAYS keep the battery's state of charge between 40 to 75%. This is what hybrid cars do with their batteries, and this maintains their capacity for a long time.

Rechargeable batteries lose capacity all the time. There is better technology (like Apple's new supposedly 1000 cycle batteries) but all will suffer the same fate given enough usage. I've replaced Li-ion cell phone batteries that suddenly lost their charge, and just recently I replaced a car battery. That's what rechargeable batteries do. They hopefully give you a long life, but a little piece of their capacity is reduced for every discharge-charge cycle.

I recalibrated my battery yesterday using the procedure provided on this website here... http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

However, there is no change. This loss of battery life is indicated in 3 different places... the System Profilers, Battery health monitor and iStat Nano widget.

Battery calibration only updates the information on the state of the battery and gives the charging system a better idea of what condition it's in. You might get it reporting the occasional percentage point higher if the previous information was off after not being calibrated regularly. Battery calibration won't restore battery capacity that was truly lost. If it's lost, it's not coming back.

What can I d to save my battery from eventual death?

Don't use battery power if you can find a place to plug in. Calibrate maybe once a month.

If you need to use your machine on battery power, the loss of capacity is inevitable.

One of the ways in which the power management software has gotten smarter is that it will not charge your battery if it falls to between 95% and 100%. This saves you cycles.

This is designed to work once the battery has hit 100%, though, and then used some power. The battery is not designed to stop charging at 95 or 96%. If you think it is doing that, it may be worth resetting the SMC:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411

Hello

I've been using my macbook since 7 months and the battery has 64 cycles.
Last week, I saw on iStat and coconutBattery that the battery capacity was on 99% and I've decided to calibrate it because I've didnt do it before, I had followed every step, the only odd thing it't that after waiting for about 6 hours with my mac suspended (no battery) and charged it for about 8 hours, when I flipped the cover my mac returned from suspension, I thought that the 6 hours of waiting would be enough for ran totally a completelly out of battery
Ayway, the issue is that after callibrating, the health battery is now on 92%! Any clues? Its not that just didn't work, it went worst!

Thanks.