MacBook Pro Battery 'Service Battery' after Snow Upgrade

Update: the 'Service Battery' went away to be replaced with 'Battery is Charged' w/o any action on my part. I am NOT holding my breath. 🙂

Go and Vote on This Snow Leopard Battery Life Poll

http://gizmodo.com/5349432/hows-your-battery-life-and-hard-drive-space-with-snow -leopard

One more with this problem on a mid-2008 MBP. Battery performance is now horrible with 75 cycles on the battery. Thankfully, I have a backup of the system prior to the "upgrade" to SL, so I'll likely restore that in the next couple of days unless there is a fix issued by Apple.

In my case, the system powers down (not sleeping - a cold boot is required) without warning at about 64% remaining charge (according to menubar icon).

Installed SL less than 2 weeks ago, updated to 10.6.1 2 days ago. While I haven't got the "Service Battery" indicator, earlier tonight with about 12% power left while running MacBookPro4,1 (early 2008) on battery, I plugged in the AC adapter and it said "not charging". After about 1 minute, it began charging without any intervention on my part. So I came across this thread. Here's my battery info (while charging):

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Manufacturer: Sony
Device name: ASMB012
Pack Lot Code: 0000
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0110
Hardware Revision: 0500
Cell Revision: 0303
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 1646
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4688
Health Information:
Cycle count: 237
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 1698
Voltage (mV): 11971

Additional observations since upgrade to SL:
1) Laptop runs noticeably hotter than with Leopard.
2) Battery performance shorter (by about 1-2 hours).
3) "Battery running on reserve power" notice comes on earlier (tonight, still had 12% health), and it would go to sleep earlier (still showed 5% then off to sleep it went. Under Leopard, would be at 0% for a few minutes, then go to sleep.)
4) BatteryUpdater.bundle no longer existent. (I read in another post that this was purposefully removed with SL.)
5) Fans start running during operations they didn't come on with Leopard ('cause it's running hot...but why is it running hotter?)
6) Slower time to full battery recharge.

I calibrate regularly. I haven't reset the SMC or PRAM nor rebooted in 64-bit mode due to inconsistent results per this thread, although considering resetting the SMC due to the fans coming on earlier.

One person here asked about BatteryUpdater.bundle. I tried to install versions 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 (didn't do 1.1 'cause it wasn't indicated for my model), and got this message:
"This computer does not need this update." Apparently, removed with SL as mentioned earlier.

Update 10.6.1 certainly did not address this battery issue so hopefully 10.6.2 will...so, what to do? "Service Battery" will soon come. I'm sure of it.

Hi joerabbit,

To 'downgrade' your OS just insert the Leopard DVD and it will ask you to restart the mac and the installation process will begin. Just a word of warning - I made sure that the HDD was formatted when I started the installation process (cf letting the mac retain all of the old information stored on the HDD in a separate folder).

Cheers

I don't think this is isolated to Snow Leopard upgrades. I'm running 10.5.8 and started having these shutdowns without warnings issue at about the 50-60% battery life mark. Perhaps it has to do with the recent software security upgrade?

Anyone been able to find a fix?

brownstone-
can you de-install that security update
if you are running time machine could you dial it back to that time?

Message was edited by: joerabbit

Just a guess:

I am still on 10.5.8 but I observed the same behaviour as discussed here. I have tried various times to recalibrate and things. Then things had returned to normal - until I used iStat Pro to check the status. I have uninstalled the widget and things look normal now. Of course, I have only done a limited number of test cycles...

May be it's related to software, but not particularly SL only.

P

I also had upgraded to SL, and had random crash to black, service battery, and rapid draining of battery. Made apt with genius bar, he plugged in diagnostic....determined I had BAD BATTERY (different than CONSUMED battery) and replaced the battery at no charge. I do have AppleCare. and this replacement would have happened anyway as Apple has determined a problem with some of these batteries. New information for me, was the importance of calibrating these batteries.
I was grateful to find this forum discussion as I went prepared with copies of 7 pages of this complaint!!!

Okay, I can give you guys some feedback on my testing now.

After contacting Apple, I suggested that I would reinstall Leopard to see if this issue went away. So, tonight I have reinstalled Leopard from my restore disks.

Unfortunately my MacBook Pro still shuts down without warning. I can only guess that my battery went bad around the same time that I installed Snow Leopard or something has made my battery go bad all of a sudden.

I don't have Apple Care so I guess I'll be forking out for a new battery. It's annoying because it was only a matter of weeks ago that I was working fine from the battery, albeit for a shorter time that when it new.

update

I have been experiencing the same problems as a lot of you, I have a late 2008 15" macbook pro and my battery had 87 cycles on it.

I took it into the apple store and a battery test showed it was bad. Regrettably my computer was just out of the 1 year warranty and I didn't have apple care. I'm ****** that a battery which is supposed to last 300+ cycles crapped out after 87 cycles but I guess that's what happens sometimes.

I'm going to speculate that we're seeing a lot of these bad battery reports because the battery status is a new feature of SL (or at least I thought it was) and it's showing a lot of us that the batteries we thought were good were actually bad or going bad. I like a lot of you thought my battery was good before the update but perhaps it's just because I don't use the battery all that often and I just hadn't noticed it.

I guess it's less likely that SL actually caused damage to the battery hardware but maybe that's an outside possibility. Either way, I'm out $125 but I'll report back if for some reason this battery dies.

Are you running snow leopard?
if so, downgrade it back to Leopard

Most folks get their normal battery performance back after doing so

This seems to be a problem with Snow Leopard which Apple is not currently addressing publicly

Thanks joerabbit.

Okay, folks, let me lay out how my issue got fixed.

I tried zapping the pram. Didn't work. Took it to Apple Genius and they ran a test to see if the battery was operational. The test showed it was not a battery issue. They then tried to boot it from they're Leopard boot drive and waited for the battery to run down to 50%. And it went to sleep and wouldn't wake up until we plugged it back in (not a complete shut down as before).

The fear at this point was that it was the logic board ($1400 CDN). The Genius still felt that it wasn't the logic board and that it was a software issue. They suggested to re-install the OS or upgrade to Snow Leopard. Based on the complaints here about SL I didn't want to do either.

Then the Genius, on a whim, decided to pull the battery out and take a look at it. BINGO! The battery was swelling. The Genius compared a good battery to my battery by placing them both side to side face down on the counter. The bad battery did not lay flat because it was misshapen. She then said that it was definitely the battery and was surprised that her test didn't show that (NOTE: the battery test that they run at the Genius bar should find a swelling battery issue but in this case it didn't so try to check it physically)

My MBP isn't under warranty nor do I have AppleCare but since it was a known issue the Genius pulled a new battery off the shelve and replaced my old one free of charge.

I'm calibrating the battery now and hope that I won't have this issue anymore.

My 17" MBP is from 2007 for those of you that have the same year of manufacture this may be the cause of the issue.

my 15" MBP is from 2007 as well
battery does not appear to be swelling

decreased lifespan, erratic behavior was noted After installing Snow Leopard

The "genius" did not even bother testing my battery one bit

What kind of equipment did they hook up to your battery?

He booted from an ipod that had special diagnostic software on it to check my battery.