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

After using the new battery for two cycles, I'm glad to report that the new battery seems to have fixed the battery problems that I was having.

At least for me, it looks like it was a bad battery. I did not change anything software wise.

I have the same problem..... My battery only have 108 cycles and since I install snow Leopard it only charge to 2 hours of use... with leopard two days before the upgrade my laptop work for almost 4 hours..... please help... I can't buy a new battery... in Venezuela the batteries are very expensive, help please... I tried all I can imagine, and sorry for my bad english...

Check this out. Here was my battery info when it was not showing the "service battery" message:

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): 1675
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4613
Health Information:
Cycle count: 142
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1891
Voltage (mV): 10785

And here it is now that it is appearing, and I have about run it out:

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): 515
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 3807
Health Information:
Cycle count: 144
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1526
Voltage (mV): 11037

Notice the difference in 'full charge capacity'? I will post the info again once I charge it fully again. I guarantee it will look more similar to the first bit than the second.

I have the same problem, my battery used to last two movies, more than 3 hrs, and now it's only one hour, i thought it was a personal problem but it's very strange that it's been damaged just after my snow upgrade. Now i a¡have the repair message and as i can see i'm not the only one. It's a fact that snow damaged batteries, so please let me know if you find a solution or if i have to sign some guarantee request.
Thanks.

I have some evidence that the problem is not with the battery, at least not for me. I have a 1.5-yr old MacBook Pro, Model 3.1, running 10.6.1. About a week after installing SL, I started getting random shut-downs, and there was the error message regarding my original battery. I suspected that there was another culprit at work, but to be safe, yesterday I went and bought a brand new battery from the local Apple store. It worked fine for about a day, but today I started getting the random shutdowns.

By "random shutdown" I mean a shutdown without any warning from the OS.

I have replicated things with this new battery a few times to make sure I wasn't crazy. I went from 98% to 78% charge in 23 minutes before a random shutdown. The battery still showed 3 out of 5 lights of charge, which roughly matches the 78% charge I saw upon booting up again. Upon boot-up, the LED on the power cord did not light up, and the menu bar indicator read "not charging" as has been reported earlier, and this situation lasted for 2 minutes before returning to normal.

I then shutdown manually, reset the SMC, and tried to restart under 64-bit mode, by holding down "6" & "4" during startup. Incidentally, my model should be able to do this. I have confirmation via the oft-quoted Terminal command. However, my System Software Overview still reads "64-bit Kernel and Extensions: No". I tried this a couple of times, with no success. Go figure.

So, with the possible 64-bit solution out of the picture, in the hopes that the SMC reset helped, I tested the battery again as before. I went from 92% charge to 85% charge in 9 minutes before another random shutdown.

To test the culpability of my software, I then started up from the Leopard DVD, and just stayed on the installation screen. I tested the battery in this way, and went from 92% charge to 49% charge in 109 minutes. There was +no random shutdown+, I just got bored of waiting and waking the computer from sleep.

I have now restarted under SL, and will take both old and new batteries with my MBP to the Apple store for my appointment on Monday, after which I will report further. I don't want to roll back to Leopard unless I really have to, so I'm really hoping both batteries are just defective.

Since all of the above tests were on a +brand-new battery+ straight from the Apple store, I think we can be fairly certain that simply replacing the battery will not solve everyone's problems on this forum.

I shudder to think what I would do about this if I were actually employed. Between this and the iPhoto Faces fiasco (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2123582) the Mac Box Set is looking like a worse and worse purchase.

After a bit more research, I think I fixed the random shutdown problem per Papas's post on this similarly popular thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1686200&start=255&tstart=0 . I've now been able to work my computer down to ~10% power on the new battery and finally got the warning signal. Let's see if the problem recurs.

Since this issue seems to predate SL, and since the problem can be solved via permissions, I suspect that SL just mucked with some people's permissions.

That said, this is still a software problem and the solution here is likely not a battery replacement. I'm still going to my appointment on Monday, to check on the batteries and the 64-bit issue.

Good luck, folks.

Kohl

Message was edited by: Kohl Gill

It's strange how the repairing disk permissions and repairing disk seems to help a few people, when it didn't work at all for others (including me). Yet the 64-bit mode fixed it for me, by downloading this app:

http://timesoftware.free.fr/k64enabler/

Haha! After posting the above (saying 64-bit mode fixed it for me) it just prematurely shut down again at around 50%. Hopeless.

Same problem with teh battery here on a Macbook Air rev.A.. :S

Yeah, frustrating, booting in 64 bits definitively did something as it was the first time I could see the low battery alert, but after a few times, it shuts down again with no warning, only improvement is, it seems to allow me to use until 20% or 30% battery, but seems it starts increasing anyway...

I am running from Leopard 10.5 on a USB disk for now, will check for a few hours or couple of days to see, if all is ok I will try to go to Apple store and see someone.

Jose.

What is the warranty period on a new battery? 12 months? Less? I can't seem to find that info anywhere. I purchased a new battery last December so I am hoping that it is still under warranty.

This battery problem has rendered my MBP utterly useless. The random shutdowns are killing me.

Just to add a little to the party, I've got a rather-newish MBP5,1 - battery was at 95% health, just started flying the "service battery" flag-

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Serial Number: 6N91504HJ2VLA
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): 277
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 1103
Health Information:
Cycle count: 159
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 858
Voltage (mV): 12329

Full charge capacity 1103 indicates a very sick battery after only 159 cycles. Have you calibrated the battery recently?

If you are under warranty, bring it to a Genius bar. They can test it. I had a far better battery but had the same "check battery" in SL. They tested it, the battery was bad, and even though it had 288 cycles on it they gave me a free replacement under my Applecare.

Ok. I fully discharged my battery over night, and then charged it up fully this morning. After allowing it to charge completely to 100% and then unplugging it, the service battery message remained and here is the battery info from System Profiler.

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): 3891
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 3891
Health Information:
Cycle count: 145
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 1
Voltage (mV): 12569

Now, after using it for some time, the message has Service Battery message has disappeared, and my battery condition looks a ton better. Again, note the full charge capacity difference.

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): 4109
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4696
Health Information:
Cycle count: 145
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1656
Voltage (mV): 11828

I firmly believe this is a software issue, and I hope Apple fixes this soon.

I have now isolated at least two failure modes and sources of random-shutdown-without-warning (RSWW) fever. One was software, which I reported on and which was solved (for my case) by permissions, see my posts http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10296301#10296301 and Papas's posts http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1686200&tstart=0&messageID=102 97249#10297249 . The second, and +possibly the cause of the bad permissions in the first place+, is a physical defect: when pressure is applied to the battery near the area of the latch, it is possible to shift the battery slightly in it's enclosure, which causes an immediate RSWW. Thing is, for me, this happens *while in battery mode or while plugged in*. I don't know whether this physical defect arises because of wear and tear, warpage, etc. on my MBP alone, but I definitely can replicate this particular mode of RSWW with both my old battery (which still says "service battery") and my new one (which has no "service battery" warning).

I suspect that the battery-pressure RSWW corrupted my permissions. The permissions issue then caused me to have battery-mode RSWW even when my MBP was left immobile.

So, until I can take my MBP in on Monday, I'm testing further by running on battery mode when possible, and trying not to apply any pressure to the battery area.

Two sources might explain a lot of the variability in folks' experiences. The general failure mode goes like this: for some reason, either a poor battery, SL craziness, the physical defect I mentioned or something else, the user has a RSWW. This RSWW +causes a corruption of the permissions+, which becomes a second and more pernicious source of RSWW. Since my home forum http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2139186&tstart=0 has been heavy on data and user experiences and light on testable hypotheses, here's another for the mix. I'm going to cross-post this in these threads: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1686200 and http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2139186&tstart=0 for good measure.

Cheers,

Kohl

Message was edited by: Kohl Gill

Message was edited by: Kohl Gill

Message was edited by: Kohl Gill