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

Hey all,

Same problem here: 31 month old MBP, had the 'Service Battery' message for about a month now, and noticing increasingly less run time when not plugged into the mains.

Coconut Battery is advising the battery capacity is at 66% (3729 mAh). I upgraded to Snow Leopard about a year ago without issue.

Might try my luck at an Apple store in the New Year...

I managed to get my battery to a normal situation (no "Service battery") after a few calibrations, but I'm back again to Leopard, cos don't want to risk. Seems the full charge capacity has decreased a bit (300 mAh) but at least is working fine.

Hi guys

I've just recently noticed this Service Battery indicator also in the last week or so. Never appeared before until now although I had defniitely noticed a drop in battery life when using it compared to when I first bought the Macbook Pro about a year ago but that was on Leopard. I took it into the Apple store for a "Genius" to look at it but the "Service Battery" message had disappeared and they basically just told me that there was no problem with the battery even though the life seems to have decreased and that even their new Macbook Pro's don't hold battery life that long. I have also noticed that on Snow Leopard the bottom of the laptop gets abnormally hot, sometimes too hot to touch which can't be right. Needless to say, I was quite annoyed because it seemed like some general jargon that was being said to me as if I had no clue about computers. He told me to go home and use "Activity Monitor" to see if there were any rogue processes that could be causing any of it. Considering I paid for the extra 3 year Applecare, I'm not too impressed.

So I went home, and the second day of use, guess what, the Service Battery indicator is back again. I will try to show them again and see what they say but it seems like they are being ignorant of this issue if so many have experienced this.

I'm glad I found this thread. This just happened to me with a brand new battery with 1 cycle. And that one cycle was a fully charged battery that died at around 50%. Call me very unimpressed.

I just noticed something odd. I just installed Coconut Battery 2.7. It says my old battery has 58% life left in it (about 3267mAh). It's 99% charged.

I pulled the power and the MBP went straight into power saving mode (black screen, etc.). I plug the power back in and recheck Coconut Battery. It now says the same old battery has a maximum charge of 5295mAh out of 5600mAh. How does that work?

The same battery has max charge of 3267mAh and 5295mAh? Is OS X calculating the max charge correctly? It can't be.

If it was using the larger number it would explain why the battery dies before the OS says it should.

Third battery test... it's a really old one... never tested it before... has 50% capacity 2922mAh... pull the power for 30 seconds and reattach and it magically now has 68% capacity... Huh?

FYI, I'm using the same MBP for all the tests. Something is definitely wrong here. Is this a programming thing like the 5 bars on the iPhone not really being 5 bars?

Finally, after continuing to get the "Service Battery" message with Snow Leopard, several days ago I went to an Apple Store where one of the Geniuses ran a diagnostic test and found my battery to be bad. My choice regarding a replacement battery was to pay $99 for a refurbished one or $129 for a new one. Given that my last battery--replaced under Apple Care--was probably refurbished and may have had problems from the get-go, I bought a new one. I calibrated the battery per Apple's recommendation and have had no problem with it.

Here is the information about my battery:

Battery Information: 1/31/10

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): 5422
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 5431
Health Information:
Cycle count: 1
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12566

Battery Information: 1/2/11

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): 5442
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 5459
Health Information:
Cycle count: 2
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12560

Battery Information: 1/3/11

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): 5448
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 5448
Health Information:
Cycle count: 3
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12570

****, I just started to get this Service Battery note today on my 34 month old MacBook Pro after 120 cycles!
I've been running SL 10.6.5 for a while now so it's not just an upgrade causing this, it just seems to be a crappy (Apple OEM) replacement for my crappy original battery that only lasted 60 cycles!

These batteries are too expensive to be this weak!

Model Information:
Manufacturer: Sony
Device name: ASMB012
Pack Lot Code: 0002
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 102a
Hardware Revision: 0500
Cell Revision: 0303
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 3303
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 3303
Health Information:
Cycle count: 121
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12457

mmm, clearly a different firmware version than my almost 2 yr old battery.

Installed SL less than one month ago on my Macbook 4,1. While on vacation last week, started getting the "service battery" message. My average battery life was 5 hours on Leopard and has now dropped to 3 or less.

Apple service center on campus said battery held a 79% charge but still said "replace battery" when they ran their diagnostics. It's not a full-fledged apple store and the guy was unaware of any such issue so I didn't feel like dropping $130.

Tried 64 bit mode (not sure if it actually did anything) as well as resetting the power management, nothing seemed to change it.

Model Information:
Manufacturer: DP
Device name: ASMB016
Pack Lot Code: 0002
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0110
Hardware Revision: 0500
Cell Revision: 0102
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2991
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4220
Health Information:
Cycle count: 280
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1031
Voltage (mV): 11711

Do I need to revert to Leopard? Is there any hope of a fix soon?

This is my updated battery status:

Model Information:
Manufacturer: DP
Device name: ASMB016
Pack Lot Code: 0002
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0110
Hardware Revision: 0500
Cell Revision: 0102
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2652
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 2652
Health Information:
Cycle count: 280
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -13
Voltage (mV): 12546

Hi rod,
I don't know if you remember me, but, as you suggested, 8 months ago I bought a new battery and yesterday night, after only 33 cycles, it shows "Service battery" again!!! I'm going to make them give me a new one for free, but there's absolutely a problem.

Regards.

Still waiting for Apple to fix this so that I can upgrade back to Snow Leopard without trashing another battery. In the meantime I am frozen out of the new features like facetime and the mac app store because they are not supported in 10.5. Apple, sort it out!!

Well, I calibrated again and then used the computer on battery and the "Service Battery" indication went away...wonder for how long???