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

Welcome to Apple Discussions.

The built-in batteries are designed to retain satisfactory charge for at least 1000 cycles estimated to be about 3yrs' of normal usage. Presumably you use your MBP on battery quite a lot to have clocked up 601 cycles in a year. Based on Apple's advertising you must spend many hours a day with the computer running on battery - &/or doing high power usage tasks frequently.

As there is a message suggesting 'Check battery' it's possible that you have a faulty battery or power cord and it could be worth having this checked out under warranty.

Neville

Add me to the list of "service battery" people. My battery:


Model Information:
Manufacturer: SMP
Device name: ASMB012
Pack Lot Code: 0002
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0110
Hardware Revision: 0500
Cell Revision: 0200
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 3991
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4010
Health Information:
Cycle count: 253
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12536

My machine is from Feb. 2008. I power cycled it every some-odd months just to be sure. I take very good care of my machine. This "service battery" crap started happening after installing Snow Leopard. Of course, now my machine/battery is out of warranty, so I'll probably be given the finger by Apple. Notice I have under 300 cycles on the battery. Why the **** has Apple still not acknowledged this issue?

Guys,

same happened to me, pre Unibody MacBookPro, 44 cycles, less than 12 month old, Sony manufactured Apple Battery. It died on me in the middle of an important presentation after 45 minutes of use.

Filed a bug report and heard from local distributor that lots of people have this battery problems with MBP (pre unibody) even with newer batteries.

Had to buy a replacement for approx 177 US$, which is manufactured by SMP. I truly hope I get my old one exchanged and the new SMP does NOT have the same issue, IF it is a hardware issue at all.

It is easier for those with Applecare warranty but replacement is not necessarily guaranteed even then.

It's unlikely that SL upgrade had anything to do with your problem.

Regardless of these points it could be worth your time contacting your nearest service centre and discussing the issue. If there is no satisfaction there some have had better response from The Customer relations section in Apple.

Neville

FYI...

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11882834

Don

That doesn't help those of us with non-unibody MacBook Pros. Even then, that's not really fixing the problem. It's like putting a band-aid on severed limb.

Add me to the list of people with battery issues. I have a MB Pro bought in 2008. Everything was fine until about a week ago, after installing the latest software update. I installed the update, then was working on the laptop and it shut down without warning at 33% remaining. Then wouldn't restart until I plugged back in. It's done this a few times now, at 33%, 55%, and 70%.

In my Mac Info, it shows 239 cycles and "Check Battery" condition. What are my chances of getting a free replacement from Apple, I wonder?.....

You won't know until you try! My personal opinion is that you have a faulty battery therefore should be entitled to a replacement.

It is Apple who have decided the 80% remaining capacity after at least 300 cycles as meeting their requirements for satisfactory service from removable batteries, pre built-in. Any person not reaching this by a significant amount has a very strong case. In Australia the statutory warranty provisions of the Government include a clause about not meeting the claimed performance as grounds for a successful claim regardless of company warranty.

Neville

I'm having the same sort of issue though I'm not sure it's related to SL. I've been running SL for awhile without issue until the past couple of days when I've it pretty much the same issue people described above. This however is the second time for me. About 1.5 years ago I had to have my first battery replaced (a Sony) at about 150 cycles. Now the replacement (another Sony) is at 143 cycles and starting to show signs of failure as well ("service battery", rapid loss of charge etc). The first battery was replaced under Applecare but my Applecare just expired last month. these batteries are supposed to go about 300 cycles but I've yet to experience anything like that.

First of all i would like to say sorry for my bad english, i had the same problem saying "service baterry" on my battery status.
I've been trying all (SMC, PRAM, etc) and did not work for me until i got desperate and decide to downgrade to 10.5.
Before i try to do the clean install, i transfer all my file to my other mac laptop using a firewire cable, my laptop then read as an external disk on my other laptop, after finished transferring, i switch on my laptop and i check my battery status the "service battery" message is gone, so i keep running with my current OSX, hopefully this will work with others too.

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Manufacturer: Sony
Device name: ASMB012
Pack Lot Code: 0001
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0110
Hardware Revision: 0500
Cell Revision: 0303
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4368
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4374
Health Information:
Cycle count: 161
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12468

Ann Hutto wrote:
That doesn't help those of us with non-unibody MacBook Pros. Even then, that's not really fixing the problem. It's like putting a band-aid on severed limb.

Hi Ann,

Sorry for the late response. But yes, you are totally right. The upgrade to Snow Leopard brought changes that is clearly killing off MacBook Pro batteries for those who upgraded. The "fix" for MacBook Pro unibody owners is the checkbox I referred to. No fix for owners of older (non i5/i7 unibody) Macs.

I deal with many MacBook Pro computers in enterprise environments. We buy them, we image them, we deploy them, we manage and support them. Don't believe the "it's your battery - just buy a new one" mantra from folks on this forum who lack support Macintosh support credentials.

It's not the battery. It's the Snow Leopard upgrade that's causing your battery to fail prematurely.

Don

Just wanted to add my name to the list.

MacBook 1,1 1.83 GHz Core Duo
306 cycles, less than 1 year old
Battery health: 48% (2411 mAh)

This should be in the MacBook forum.

Your stats don't look good and it might be worth trying for a replacement on the grounds of faulty battery. I believe your battery is not the built-in type. However, you are over 300 cycles and should have acted before 300 was up.

Worth a try.

Neville

I just purchased a MBP 15" i7 and my battery cycle count is 6. Claims of 8-9hrs of use is completely false. I'm getting near 3-4hrs MAX. I've used to computer solely for browsing with Safari (even non-flash) sites and still poor battery. Not sure if this is caused by the new SL update, as I never had to oppty to use the computer without the SL updates. I'm very disappointed and I hope my battery is just defective and I can go into Apple for a replacement.

Using gFx Status to disable dynamic switching. Hard set it to Intel Graphic Card only for lower battery consumption.

Thanks Neville. I posted it here because it is related, but I will also wander over to the Macbook forums.

Isn't the battery rated for 1000 cycles? If so, warranty or not, 300 is a very poor life cycle.