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

I reported here some months ago about my "Service Battery" message after Snow Leopard Upgrade. I noticed a low decrease on performance (it suddenly felt from 89% to 71%....) but no shutdown.
My battery is 230 cycles old. I took care of it, calibrating it, alternating form AC to DC and so no
One month ago, situation got worst. Charge felt to 56% without reason, and trying to calibrate my battery is impossible due to random shutdown.
I'm sorry, but I really think that this is something that will never be fixed.
All you Apple blind fan, keep ALWAYS in mind that Apple often makes mistakes and prefers to move on and not fix them (on my machine I have also the Vertical Stripes problems, never fixed)

I agree, i think it won't ever been fixed...i gave up, and it's not a battery itsefl for sure...i tried a third part one, and i got the same behaviour...so..no point in buying any further battery...actually i'm stucked with 1:30 h of autonomy, and it has been like that for the past few months, with 38-39%, even if at the beginning i experienced the the floating healt battery percentage 90-62%.

Normally i use the MBP plugged to the outlet, but still..i randomly use it on the couch, or on the bed, and i've to be sure to have the power adapter with me

After almost 3 years, this is the only main issue i had with it and besides that, i'm very satisfied with its performance and stuffs.
I never get the Apple Care extension because unless it's the logic board, whic is quite expensive, i can repair almost everything by myslef and on ebay u can find almost every part needed. I replaced a loud fan for 9$..no point spending 350€ for something like that...
i'm stil disappointed for this that is mainly a OS issue; if your battery has less than 300 cycles u could reclaim a replacement since the battery didn't accomplish Apple quality requirements, which is 80% of heal up to 300 cycles.

Merak wrote:
I agree, i think it won't ever been fixed...

Apple fixed it on i5/i7 computers:

http://donmontalvo.com/apple/i5i7_energy_saveroption.jpg

Agreed, not likely this will ever get fixed on other computers.

Don

Thx Merak,
the only site where the "300 cycles/80%" policy is applied seems to be Apple Store (and there is no Apple Store here in Torino, Italy).
I call both the OFFICIAL Apple assistance site here and both told me that this is not an official policy but just a estimated battery performance.

I have a macbook pro 5,3 (15 inch, mid 2009)

Over the past week my battery has basically died. istat pro says battery health is at 11%, and the battery is only holding 700 mAh. The computer has only done 180 cycles and has just ran out of warranty.

Will apple fix this?

Adding my macbook pro to the count… checked with Apple Canada and there is no battery replacement plan and I don't have AppleCare… guess I have to buy a new battery… and here I thought macs were trouble free..

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Serial Number: 6N904042N2VLA
Manufacturer: SMP
Device name: bq20z951
Pack Lot Code: 0000
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 002a
Hardware Revision: 000a
Cell Revision: 0100
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 3332
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 3332
Health Information:
Cycle count: 86
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12504

System Power Settings:

AC Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Automatic Restart On Power Loss: No
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Wake On LAN: Yes
Current Power Source: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
GPUSwitch: 2
Battery Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 2
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
GPUSwitch: 2
Reduce Brightness: Yes

Hardware Configuration:

UPS Installed: No

AC Charger Information:

Connected: Yes
ID: 0x0100
Wattage (W): 85
Revision: 0x0000
Family: 0x00ba
Serial Number: 0x006f9e69
Charging: No

I've also had battery problems since moving up to Snow Leopard. Replaced my battery once under AppleCare. Now I'm 8 months past the expiration of AppleCare, the "Service Battery" message has resumed and my battery keeps draining even while my computer is sleeping.

Here are the details of my system:


*Hardware Overview:*

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro2,2
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.33 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP22.00A5.B07
SMC Version (system): 1.12f5
Serial Number (system): W865227SW0H
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-0017F2CCDFD0
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

*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): 3705
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4159
Health Information:
Cycle count: 124
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 678
Voltage (mV): 12603

Hi

I found out this problem in my Macbook yesterday.
But there is the thing i have the Snow Leopard for a while, but this only come up , when did the ram upgrade. I had tried the reset to the SMC, but without success. i still have the Tiger in another partition, and in Tiger there is no absolute problem with the battery.

I am too getting the "Service Battery" message. I'm currently going through a calibration cycle (recharging after the battery drain at the moment) so will see what happens these - I'm not holding my breath though!

Just a quick thought. I noticed earlier in the thread that someone seemed to think that Apple had offered a fix for machines with i5 / i7 processors (allowing power-save mode in power management to be turned off) - now, I did this recently when playing Steam (Half Life 2) when on power mode. This may have initially manifested before this, but I am going to have a "test" and reboot after resetting the option to the factory setting.

It's a real pain in the backside; I like my kit "just so" - so when there are error or warning messages, it bugs the **** out of me.

Finally, has anyone tried this? (I don't want to trawl through 100+ pages...)

Has anyone with a reportedly "bad" battery removed it from their mac, and put it into a similar mac that is reporting no problems?

Just a quick update to my last post....

Got home yesterday after charging the MBP all day whilst at work. Light was green on the adapter, so booted up the machine.

Still showed the "service battery" icon.

Tried a reboot, changing the graphics power options, permissions repair - no help at all.

Ran on battery for a while - with some network activity (copying files to/from an SMB network share) - Kernel panic! - I wonder if this is linked, as I've been having more than I'm comfortable with lately.

Anyway, whilst running the thing on battery, the "time left" display was very erratic, bouncing from as low as 30 minutes, up to 2 hours, down to 45 minutes, depending on what was happening.

I let the discharge continue until the Reserve Power notification popped up, at which I plugged the power back in. I was informed that the charging time would be over 4 hours!! It's never been so high.

I think I'll just let the battery die, then go either buy another or preferably at least speak to Apple at the Genius Bar (worth a go, I suppose) - I tend to use the machine on power more than battery. It's had over 300 cycles, so maybe I'm due a new one?

Here are my stats:

Model Information:
Manufacturer: Sony
Device name: ASMB012
Pack Lot Code: 0003
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 102a
Hardware Revision: 0500
Cell Revision: 0303
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 1032
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 1032
Health Information:
Cycle count: 221
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12646


Is this absolutely terrible? I never use my computer without it being plugged in nowadays - would a newer battery affect performance? What about for gaming?

Thanks.

I hope the following will be useful in trying to come up with a solution to the battery problem:

Following my last post, I partitioned an external hard drive into four sectors and installed the following: Leopard 10.5.8, Snow Leopard 10.6.5, and 2 copies of Snow Leopard 10.6. The "Service Battery" problem exists whenever my MacBook Pro is booted from Snow Leopard regardless of version or location (internal or external HD). Booting into Leopard, however, results in longer battery life and no "Service Battery" message.

I wonder if there's a file or app in Snow Leopard that I could replace with one from Leopard that would resolve the problem without downgrading to Leopard. Any suggestions?

Ugh! Though my battery life remains better under Leopard compared to Snow Leopard, the battery condition in "About this Mac" is "check battery." Percentage of charge is the same whether booted from Leopard or Snow Leopard, but the time remaining is twice as long with Leopard.

Maybe I need a new battery despite having only 126 cycles on this one.

*Battery Information*:

Model Information:
Serial Number: Sony-ASMB012-3a33-9d05
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): 2546
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 3645
Health Information:
Cycle count: 126
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1459
Voltage (mV): 11538

Joining the complaints:

September 2009 my first battery died, well at least that's what I assumed at that time. Bought a new one (€140), now more than a year later, with only 37 cycles -> service battery..

(In dutch:)
+Informatie batterij:+

Modelinformatie:
+Fabrikant: Sony+
+Apparaatnaam: ASMB012+
+Pack Lot Code: 0001+
+PCB Lot Code: 0000+
+Firmwareversie: 0110+
+Hardwarerevisie: 0500+
+Celrevisie: 0303+
Ladingsinformatie:
+Resterende lading (mAh): 1199+
+Volledig opgeladen: Nee+
+Bezig met opladen: Ja+
+Volledige laadcapaciteit (mAh): 3603+
Statusinformatie:
+Aantal cycli: 37+
+Conditie: Controleer batterij+
+Batterij geïnstalleerd: Ja+
+Ampèrage (mA): 2422+
+Voltage (mV): 12227+

Went to the "official apple retailer" (Belgium doesn't have an Apple store with genius bar): out of warrenty..

Apple, you've got to be kidding me (and 1000's of other users). For years I've tried to promote and support Mac computers at my university college (ICT engineering - most anti-Apple environment you can imagine). But now, I'm really starting to doubt if it's worth it.

Greets,
Seppe

Adding yet another to the list. Nothing to add really.

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): 3708
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 3768
Health Information:
Cycle count: 257
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -30
Voltage (mV): 12377