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

wazzay2k1 wrote:
I heard it was the other way around... when battery is out, the CPU is increased slightly

You heard wrong. Without a battery the MBP drops to half speed or 1 GHz. I'm not sure which since I have a 2 GHz MBP and would get 1 GHz in either case.

Interesting! I did the same things, however not with the intention to do them in the order and discipline you did. In starting to work the issue I tried to calibrate the battery and then reset the SMC. My problem has not appeared for a few weeks at least. I do not remember what order or how many times I did this along with fully charging etc. So it may be related. I also setup an automatic power off and startup. Keep us posted. Thanks
Dave

I'm having the same issue. Shortly after I upgraded my MacBook Pro to SL I started seeing the "Service Battery" notice. Now it says "Replace Soon". I'm considering trying a replacement battery to see if anything changes.

Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

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): 2401
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 3904
Health Information:
Cycle count: 321
Condition: Replace Soon
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -2954
Voltage (mV): 11319

I should add that my machine will go to sleep gracefully and prompt me with a low battery message around 8-10%. I currently have 49% battery left, and an estimated 40 minutes remaining.

Message was edited by: amcquay

amcquay
your battery has 321 cycles, it's quite normal that you have the "replace soon" message....

I apologize in advance for the length of my post,

I’ve tried to run various scenarios using various laptops and differing batteries to see if I can identify consistent scenario’s in generating the equipment/ OS to deliver the ‘Service Battery’ message.

The scenario’s I replicated were,

1. Maintain a full charge by keeping laptops on mains power
2. Allowing a battery to fully drain and then use as charging
3. Allow a partial drain delivering a charge time of approx 30 minutes to full
4. Allow a deeper drain delivering a charge time of approx 60 minutes to full
5. Allow a partial drain and then recharge for 10-15 minutes and then use on battery power

The tests were using two Macbook Pro’s (one Snow Leopard, one Leopard and various batteries), one MacBook and one Macbook Air. Each of the 5 scenario’s were executed approximately 5 times for each of the laptops giving a total of approximately 200 tests. The equipment used were all 18 -24 months old.

I was able to identify a number of common threads that can be identified as:

a• The Macbook Pro with Sow Leopard suffered all of the ‘Service Battery’ errors.
b• Where the laptop was left to charge for approx 60 minutes plus the ‘Service Battery’ message appeared consistently.
c• The batteries affected were Sony ASMB012’s.
d• The Macbook’s and the Air were never affected
e• The Macbook pro with Snow Leopard ran hotter on charge than the one with Leopard where the batteries were drained by approximately the same amount.

Now I appreciate that this is not really that scientific a test and it may be argued that all of my equipment was deficient in some way but I was able to draw the following conclusions,

The issue affects Macbook Pro’s running Snow Leopard where an extended charge occurs and the battery gets very warm. It was possible to reset the ‘Service Battery’ by avoiding a condition where the battery got hot. It appears that there may be a compatibility issue between the Sony batteries and Snow Leopard in relation to the power feed/ charge levels on charging which is reflected in the over-heating. That overheating is then triggering the ‘Service Battery’ message.

I appreciate that around 200 tests using the equipment I listed above is not fully representative of the whole Snow Leopard user base and that there may be inherent defects on all of the equipment used but my suggestions is that if you buy a new battery make sure that you do not get the Sony battery otherwise either wait for Apple to address the issue or run your laptop at full/ near to full as possible.

Is this a battery issue? Well, possibly in the case of Sony batteries. Is this a Snow Leopard issue? There may be a compatibility issue with certain batteries. You decide. Personally, I favour the SL/ battery compatibility answer.

I hope this helps in some way. If not, sorry for making you read such a long post. I'd appreciate any feedback for or against my limited findings.

Message was somewhat exhaustively edited by: DaveEvans

Hi DaveEvans,

I totally agree with you, I already posted here more or less the same conclusion, I just added one more thing, the random shutdowns, I believe once the battery gets too hot and you keep that for a while, battery gets bulky, yeah, as it sounds, it expands, and make the connection to the laptop to fail, mine, I swear, was a bit bulky before I got it replaced, I was lucky to get a replacement for free, but, I got the same ASMB012 type battery, so my precaution was to downgrade to Leopard 10.5 and had no issues at all since then.

Jose.

Does the random shut down mean that recalibrating the battery won't work? I really need my portable machine back. I have not tried resttingMSC yet as no one seemed to be very convinced that it worked, but I am getting desperate and if a new battery won;t fix the issue, I need to try something! School holidays here and I'm shuffling round the house with an extension cable trying to find a quiet pace to work, dragging a long extension cable behind me as I can't get to my office!

Agggh!

Well, there are few difference scenarios here, not everyone is experience exactly the same, the conclusion DaveEvans and I got is that there must be some kind of incompatibility with Snow Leopard ad that particular type of battery on Mac Books Pro's, whether it's a battery issue or a OS issue, it's open to discussion (I also believe is OS related, maybe not a bug as we understand, but there is something definitively wrong making our batteries to struggle)

But overheating a battery for a while may result in serious damage, and eventually bulky batteries as well, which may be causing the random shutdowns due to poor connection.

What I can tell you is, if your battery is not already damaged, then downgrade to 10.5 until all this is cleared up, and I can assure you will run safely (I have been running for 7 months with a ASMB012 replacement without any issues under 10.5)

Otherwise, if you want to keep using Snow Leopard, well, use it plugged or get a new battery (not the same one, be sure of that)

Jose.

I would have downgraded to Leopar, but I wifi problems with Leopard which Snow Leopard has now fixed! I have done all the necessary house keeping apart from re-setting SMC. Annoying that apple have not seen fit to release a patch for this problem yet.

Most of us are having this problem because, either we keep our macs charged for a long period of time, much longer even after the battery is fully charged; or because our battery's health has gone below 80%. This happened to me when I had OSX 10.4 and my battery's health was 20% and then I saw X on the battery sign. After doing some research, I watched a video on YouTube! on how to revive dead laptop battery and it shows that you put the dead battery in a zip lock bag and freeze it for 14-15 hours then take it out, let it get to room temperature and put the battery back in the laptop and charge discharge 3-4 cycles. Well that worked perfectly for my mac's battery and since then I have been getting almost 5 hours of battery and health back to 100%. Now 2 years later, without the SL I wouldn't have realized that my battery needed to be serviced again. Last night I got the "Service Battery" message.. I downloaded istat and it said battery health is 48%. I repeated the process, now the battery's health is at 93% not sure why not 100% but whatever, this battery was dead; now battery life has gone back to 4:xx hours and no "Service Battery" anymore. Hope this helps.

Same problem here. Battery health dropped suddenly from 98% to 37%. Tried calibrating, but no use. Resetting SMC didn't seem to help either.

hi, yesterday a "service battery" appeared in my early 2008 macbook pro. I was using it and suddenly it turned off. I plugged it, and everything was fine but the battery had that warning. I installed Snow Leopard back in october, and it was working perfect, never had a problem before with SL and my battery. So my question is "why now?". I replaced my battery in June 2009 so this battery does not even have 1 year yet.

Could it be some "early 2008" macbooks problem? i've read that a lot of people with this problem have that same model.

don't know what to do, i think i'll take it to my reseller...

Took my Macbook to the Apple shop yesterday, they tested the battery with some USB tool and immediatly got the message that it has to be replaced. this is 5 days before my warrany would be over, so I'm pretty happy that I get a new battery. But if this problem is occuring due to Snow Leopard, do I risk damaging my new battery too?

Same problem here. Battery is less than 3 months old. 48 cycles. Installed Snow Leopard. Problems began. Went to Apple Store in Vancouver, BC. Genius ran USB test. Battery dead. Because my MacBook Pro is out of warranty, they would not replace it. Unbelievable.

Now. For me, a former "evangelist" for Apple (innovated and demo-ed "cover flow" prototype back in the day), this could be a game changer. Apple you do not want to lose your die hard support base.

I'm going to run a clean install tomorrow. If I still have problems, I'm back at the Apple Store on Monday looking for satisfaction...

Come on Apple. Respond to this now....

I have been trying to warn people here from day one...

IF YOU BUY A NEW BATTERY AND YOU ARE HAVING ISSUES WITH SNOW LEOPARD, DON'T USE IT, SNOW LEOPARD WILL KILL IT IN A MATTER OF DAYS.

Just keep your new battery until this is fixed or buy a new MacBook Pro (...)