Q: MacBook Pro Battery 'Service Battery' after Snow Upgrade

Don, parisontour asked a question and I answered it. I know it takes a few more words to deal with this stuff properly than it does to simply chant "Its Snow Leopard", but I guess some people just prefer to keep on chanting their own slogans, no matter how inane and misleading they may be.

Cheers

Rod

Rod Hagen wrote:
Don, parisontour asked a question and I answered it. I know it takes a few more words to deal with this stuff properly than it does to simply chant "Its Snow Leopard", but I guess some people just prefer to keep on chanting their own slogans, no matter how inane and misleading they may be.

Cheers

Rod

Rod,

I'm sorry, by "some people" are you referring to the 95% of the users on this forum who are beginning to ignore your blatherfest?

Don

Ok. I think we are all being a little hard on Rod, who has clearly taken a lot of time to explain his POV, based on what is clearly a wealth of experience and knowledge. As far as I can see we are all in the same boat here and we just need to try and find a fix to this issue. Rod ha provided some useful comment (all be it a little long winded at times there mate!) and clearly disagrees with the 'snow leopard bug" theory. fine.

However...if you read this tread and look at the thread links I posted a page or two back, it is clear that this is more than just a few users who just happen to all have duff batteries all at the same time. There is clearly an issue. Which Apple need to address.

I have mailed a colleague of mine who is the tech correspondent on one of the daily papers here in the UK to see if he cannot pick up the story that "while Apple gets all excited about iPod, iPad and the new iMakeloadsofcash, it core users are being ignored". I think this is fair comment. Let's see if that helps shake the tree.

Andy

ajophoto wrote:
Ok. I think we are all being a little hard on Rod, who has clearly taken a lot of time to explain his POV, based on what is clearly a wealth of experience and knowledge. As far as I can see we are all in the same boat here and we just need to try and find a fix to this issue.

Thanks Andy, but if you were really "all in the same boat" it would be much easier to deal with I suspect. The simple reality is that there are actually a whole flotilla of issues involved in this thread, not just one.

There are many people who are upset that their old batteries are dying and they found this out after upgrading to SL, simply because it gave them the additional information that they needed to "Service Battery". SL may well pose some extra loads in some circumstances, but the same users would suffer the same problems regardless of the OS they were using when running CPU intensive apps. Most of the "service battery" warnings that people are now getting are just letting them know something that they didn't bother to even look at before.

There are a far smaller number of people complaining that they get very erratic reporting of battery condition. (This, I think, is largely a separate issue from those reporting "sudden shutdowns" and the like, and I have not attempted to offer any substantial explanation of it. I simply don't know the answer. Erratic behaviour can be a symptom of a bad battery, but a few here don't readily "fit" that group).

And then there a variety of "odd cases" with general battery or computer issues who have simply jumped on board because they recently updated to snow leopard - people whose batteries simply aren;t recognised and the like - these happen occasionally regardless of OS and are not really related to the primary thrust of this thread

Rod has provided some useful comment (all be it a little long winded at times there mate!) and clearly disagrees with the 'snow leopard bug" theory. fine.

Don't you love it when people ask a question, and then question the answer, and then want some more answers and then get upset that it takes at least a minute to read an A4 page equivalent to respond properly to it!

However...if you read this tread and look at the thread links I posted a page or two back, it is clear that this is more than just a few users who just happen to all have duff batteries all at the same time. There is clearly an issue. Which Apple need to address.

Which "issue" are you personally concerned about ajophoto? The complaints about "sudden shut downs" with old batteries? Or the complaints about "erratic battery reporting". Or somethings else altogether? There is actually a veritable cornucopia of different "issues' mentioned in the threads you link to.

The "sudden shut down" issue is , I'm afraid, inevitable with computers of this age. There were millions of them made. They have reached the point where their batteries are getting mighty fragile. A few thousand of these batteries are dying every day regardless of the OS in use. Millions of their owners have updated to Snow Leopard over the last few months. You don't need an Excel spreadsheet or a copy of SPSS to tell you what this means in terms of probability of the juxtaposition of such failures, but it will do so if you ask it to!

The fact that a couple of "known processes", like the Adobe Flash issue, add to the obviousness of the battery problem is undoubtedly of significance, as is the new "Service Battery" reporting, but it isn't really going to make any of these old dud batteries any healthier! We have seen many people in such situations here already indicate that simply installing a new battery completely resolved their issues

The "erratic reporting of condition" question is a different matter. From what I can see it affects far, far , less users than the regular, run of the mill, "my battery cut out unexpectedly" or "my battery doesn't last as long as it used to" stuff that always is found here, but it would be nice to know what it was due to. I've seen no decent technical argument from anyone here suggesting a rationale explaining it, apart form the erratic nature of batteries that are already below the 80% total capacity industry standard for Lithium battery replacement. I'd love to see someone offer one. Perhaps Don , and Alex, et al could clink a few brain cells together to come up with one that is directly associated with SL?

I have mailed a colleague of mine who is the tech correspondent on one of the daily papers here in the UK to see if he cannot pick up the story that "while Apple gets all excited about iPod, iPad and the new iMakeloadsofcash, it core users are being ignored". I think this is fair comment. Let's see if that helps shake the tree.

Well, Andy. I'm sure he or she will jump at the chance. The media love these sorts of stories. But the proposition is simply crud. Three quarters of Apple's computer sales, and a huge hunk of their revenue flow, comes from the sale of notebooks. Three quarters of their sales of SL come from notebook owners. Yep, you and I may be arguing about the cost of a $100 battery, but for them vastly more than this is involved on the "profit and loss" sheet. If the problem genuinely existed they would be doing all they can to put it right. Trouble is, that when trying to address the sort of chimera that arise in this thread, coupled with a fair number of customers who really don't want to hear that they simply need a new battery, doing so probably simply isn't possible!

If your journo mate wants a genuine story, with an alternative view from a genuine user with absolutely no financial interest in the company, then I'm more than happy for him to contact me. I'm not that hard to find. My email address is in my profile and if you try a Google I'm the first one who pops up who is NOT a male escort living in California! I won't be the least bit surprised if getting down to the real nitty gritty doesn't seem as appealing to him as generating a nice headline, though!

Cheers

Rod

Alex,

Your post is much less helpful than Rod's, from which I have learned a lot. He's taking the trouble to explain what might be wrong and to suggest actions that might help. You're just whingeing.

It's not compulsory to read his messages, so if you don't want to, don't. Personally, I do and find them informative and helpful. My computer had poor battery life and suffered instant shut-downs when still showing plenty of time on the battery meter. I am not on Snow Leopard and a new battery fixed it.

All the best,
Stephen

Good that you pointed out "you are not in Snow Leopard"... STCav

Hello everybody. I had the same problem with my battery as many people describe here: shortly after upgrading my February 2008 MacBook Pro to Snow Leopard I got the "Service battery" message. I experienced severely reduced battery life (no more than 15 minutes) and unexpected shutdowns with no warning. The battery capacity was fluctuating between 1000mAh and 1800mAh and at one point it read a little more than 64000mAh(!). I was following this thread and I was pretty sure it was a software related problem. It turns out that I was right, because I found a solution that works for me. It is very likely that it is only a temporary one and the underlying bug in Snow Leopard still needs to be fixed, but it should be enough to convince those of you that plan to buy a new battery to wait until Apple release a fix. It is possible that this solution may not work for all or even for anybody, but I believe it is worth trying and I really hope I can help.

So here's what I did:
1. Booted from the Leopard Install DVD that came with my laptop. The System Profiler utility still said my battery needed checking.
2. Disconnected the power supply and left the computer running on battery power until it shut down.
3. Removed the battery and waited for about half an hour.
4. Put the battery back and connected the power supply.
5. Booted from the Leopard DVD again. This time System Profiler said my battery was good! The capacity had increased to 4900mAh which seems normal for a year and a half old battery.
6. Waited until the battery had fully charged.
7. Booted from the HDD into Snow Leopard. System Profiler showed that my battery condition was Normal with capacity 4900mAh. And that's it!

I will be happy if you try this and share your results. And, please, I don't want anybody telling me that my battery is faulty! After all, Snow Leopard with its advanced battery management said it's OK.

Greetings from Bulgaria!

And this is to add another one to the already long list...

I'm experiencing the exact same issues on my late 2008 MBP running SL, as described in the above posts: the Service Battery warning, and reduced battery life.

For the record, the cycle count of my battery is only 23. And until recently I never ever encountered any issues with the battery.

I already filed a feedback ticket with Apple, so that they hopefully start noticing that something's not entirely functioning as expected (Duh!).

It's pretty annoying to see the lack of response from Apple, especially since the MBP was not exactly a bargain...

Hi Petar,

Removing and replacing the battery re-establishes communication between the battery and the computer (as does resetting the SMC) and resets the monitoring software. This is why Apple recommend that you first try one of these process if you receive a battery warning (see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3782 )

In your case you have also successfully re-calibrated the battery by allowing it to discharge to the point of shut down and then let it rest , followed by full charging.

So yes, the process you have followed is, indeed, a good one to try in such a situation, and essentially follows Apple's own guidelines. In fact you have probably expressed the essence of the process more succinctly than the actual Apple documents about the subject do.

Cheers

Rod

Hi VC01,

In your case too, resetting the SMC or removing the battery , followed by a recalibration would make sense as a first step.

If that doesn't fix it then take the battery in for testing.

Just by the way 23 cycles in over a year suggests that you use your battery less than is really desirable for maximum life. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1764220 provides some good advice on such things.

My own experience is that amongst our own Macs batteries that are used a little, but regularly, last the longest. Batteries that notch up a couple of cycles a week, but are very rarely run through a full charge to flat cycle (except when deliberately calibrating) last much longer than those which spend most of their time on the charger but occasionally get run right down. If you can run your Mac off the battery for an hour or two each day, you will do much better than with your current strategy.

Cheers

Rod

Hi Rod,
I did try discharging and recharging my battery several times before, using Snow Leopard, but it didn't solve the problem. The thing I did differently last time is that I booted from the Leopard DVD and then re-calibrated. I believe this was the key to solving my problem. It's like Snow Leopard had somehow corrupted the charge information in the battery, most probably due to a software bug, so that the battery was reporting it was low when in fact it wasn't.
The first time I booted from the Leopard DVD it was reading the same corrupted data and the laptop ran for 15 minutes on battery power. It was curious that four out five LED indicators on the battery were on when I pressed the test button and yet the computer would not start again. When I charged the battery while running Leopard, the charge information was corrected and now Snow Leopard is reading it right. I guess that nothing is stopping Snow Leopard from messing it up again, so now I'm waiting for an official acknowledge from Apple that a problem exists and fix for it, of course.
Best Regards,
Petar

Did you also remove the battery during your earlier attempts, Petar?

Cheers

Rod

Yes, Rod, I removed the battery and left it disconnected for a few hours every time, but as I said, it actually worked only the last time, when I was running Leopard.

Best Regards
Petar

Message was edited by: Petar Slavov

Petar,

It sounds similar to something I did. I reverted to Leopard as part of an experiment, at first I was getting the sudden shut downs I got when I installed Snow Leopard, but then I attempted to calibrate battery and the sudden shut downs went away and I saw marked improvement from my battery.

I wasn't getting the almost 2 hours of life that I did pre Snow Leopard, but I was able to get to 20% without a sudden shut down (prior to that the shut downs were at 94% I think).

If I have time this weekend I'll give what you suggest a try, see if I have similar results.

Thanks

-John

Hi Rod,

I will try your suggestions. Although I already recallibrated the battery 2 days ago.

Yes, 23 cycles ain't much, but that's beacuse the MBP has hardly been used. And if it was, it was on power.

Although I appreciate your (and anybody elses) help and tips on this subject, and I'm not saying my battery hasn't really gone bad (yet), there's one thing that I find a bit provoking in all your comments: the fact that you seem to deny that it can't be a software issue with SL that's causing so many batteries going bad at about the exact same time (that's too much coincidence in my book). And not just those that haven't been cycled much like mine, but also those that have a lot of cycles, or just an average number. Old batteries, new batteries, there's just about everything. But all issues have one thing in common: the battery issues all started popping up after the installation of Snow Leopard. That's not me being suspicious, that's a Fact!

Also, there's numerous accounts in this thread of people who have bought a new battery ($$$) without any positive result. What about that?

So yes, I'm willing to accept that my battery has gone bad beyond repair over a period of a year (although reluctantly), but I'm not willing to spend another $170 on a new battery for a $2800 laptop if I can't be 100% sure that it will fix the issue for good.