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

After I had my battery replaced, the problem seemed to go away and I have not seen the service battery warning since. I don't know if it is related, but another issue started with the service battery warning. After talking to applecare and resetting the smc X2 and the pram, the service warning did not go away. A replacement battery fixed that problem. However, my computer started restarting if the ac adapter was plugged in, when I went to shut it down. If I put it to sleep, the computer would wake itself. It is not random. The restart occurs only if I shut it down properly from the apple menu. If I just hold the power button, computer works fine. with no ac adapter, everything works... I sent it in twice; the first time they wiped it and installed leopard. After 4 days and an upgrade to SL, the problem returned. I sent it in again and they replaced the logic board, i/o board and the flex cable. did not fix the problem. I was offered a replacement computer, which should hopefully fix the problem (if is not software).

Here it goes the bad news, now it doesn't matter if I boot in 64 bits, even if I boot from an USB disk with Leopard 10.5.8, battery behaves the same way, runs down very fast, I could see a fall from 68% to 40%, in a second, and after a few minutes, shut down with no warning.

Just great, how can we now demonstrate the Snow Leopard issue??? ****, just great... because assuming that Snow Leopard can damaged our batteries is not going to convince Apple... :'(

Will see a "genius" next week on Regent Street in London, will see what they say...

Jose.

Here something Intresting.. i let my Laptop Battery Drain while in Standby. Here are the Result After Re-Charging.

Model Information:
Manufacturer: Sony
Device name: ASMB012
Pack Lot Code: 0003
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 102a
Hardware Revision: 0400
Cell Revision: 0303
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4760
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 5149
Health Information:
Cycle count: 82
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -2278
Voltage (mV): 11688

I Have no More Service Battery Icon. Here is what it was before The Drain..
Model Information:
Manufacturer: Sony
Device name: ASMB012
Pack Lot Code: 0003
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 102a
Hardware Revision: 0400
Cell Revision: 0303
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 3737
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 3901
Health Information:
Cycle count: 77
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 405
Voltage (mV): 1261

Note the Full Charge Capacity.. It keeps changing. But it now seems to be holding steady.. Will see how long it last.

Another pattern to the list.

I have a black macbook bought in late 2007, always had good battery time and the battery lost about 5% across one night in sleep mode. After upgrading to SL, a full 100 percent charge drains to cero in one night in sleep mode, not warning battery messages or sudden switch of what so ever but I think that battery life during daily use has decrease in 30 percent time or so. Battery information looks like this:

Model Information:
Manufacturer: DP
Device name: ASMB016
Pack Lot Code: 0002
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 102a
Hardware Revision: 0500
Cell Revision: 0102
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 3715
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 5011
Health Information:
Cycle count: 281
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1143
Voltage (mV): 11739


Greetings

Gabriel

Battery completely drained over a single night in sleep mode. Now reporting 39% health, which is ridiculous. Just this month before I installed Snow Leopard I took this computer on a couple of 2-hour long train rides and it worked fine. Now the battery won't last over 1 hour.

Battery information follows:

Model Information:
Manufacturer: DP
Device name: ASMB013
Pack Lot Code: 0001
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0102
Hardware Revision: 0300
Cell Revision: 0200
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 662
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 2578
Health Information:
Cycle count: 277
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1440
Voltage (mV): 11286

That's my experience as well, the same week that Snow Leopard was released I was sat in Manchester Airport quite happily working away for over an hour without issue. When I got to my destination I was able to use my MacBook Pro for an hour or so before I decided to plug the AC adaptor in. Within a couple of weeks after installing Snow Leopard it shuts down without warning after half an hour or so.

If it is a coincidence it's a good one. I wish I'd put £10 on it happening.

My MBPro battery (not a Sony) was manufactured in Apr 06 and is the original that I bought in Aug 06. Shortly thereafter, I also installed iBatt2 and then MiniBaterry Logger on my machine. I have ‘deep’ discharged my battery every month since and tracked the ‘degradation’. It has been very gradual (as you would expect). After 150 cycles I still had ~80% ‘life’ left. Both of the SW products reported the same (as did Coconut Battery). The results were consistent through OSX 10.5.8 . My battery behaved ‘normally’ and in fact was rated at ‘B+’ or above average with a ‘lifetime’ at the present rate of degradation until 2017+

Then I installed SL. Initially, I saw no marked degradation after the first ‘calibration’ but the SW now said to ‘Service Battery” I did not do this as my performance had not apparently changed. I turn my machine off (automatically) at night and leave the AC adaptor attached. In the morning I will turn it on and get my email. I will leave the machine running on AC for most of the day.

Over the last month I would run it down below 90% (to get it to recharge) After about one week the SW stopped reporting that I needed to ‘Service Battery’ All of the other programmes reported the same level, The battery would appear normal.

Last night, I ran a ‘deep’ discharge and upon startup this AM, the SL SW reported ‘Service Battery’ and a ‘Max’ charge capacity of ~50%. I was somewhat suspicious of this value as it had taken the normal amount of time for the battery to recharge back to 100% I ran the machine for about one hour and noted that the charge capacity had ‘reverted to ~80% again. All of the technical data was at the level I would have expected and related extremely well to that of last week and before SL.

The ‘Service Battery’ flag is still tripped for the time being. I have never seen any suggestion that the battery might be over-heating.

Perhaps what we are observing is a ‘glitch’ or ‘bug’ in the way SL interrogates the ‘power management’ system and reports it back that is different from the way this was done in the previous SW version. The batteries have not mysteriously degraded overnight.

Of course, based upon what has been posted here, this would not fit with the observed and reported loss of operating time or the unexpected ‘shut downs’

There is is a similar conclusion posted on the duplicate thread for older machines at #30

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2132535&start=30&tstart=0

My battery health has been excellent 90+% with only 113 cycles. Since installing Snow Leopard, it's dropped significantly - sometimes as low as 59% - and just like many have stated, I now see only 2 hours of life as opposed to the 3.5-4 hours I previously got with Leopard. I also see the Service Battery message.

Apple, what's the deal? I'm noticing a trend: quality assurance of your products is decreasing.

'Service Battery' flag now gone with only action on my part was to turn off the machine and reboot. As nothing seems to be truly cause and effect I will just observe for the time being.

I've been running SL for a couple weeks now too and just noticed this "Service Battery" warning.

Battery Information:

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): 2358
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4073
Health Information:
Cycle count: 128
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 1508
Voltage (mV): 12339

ok, I think I have some more info, my MBP 1.5 years old was having the battery lost performance and the random shut downs, before Snow Leopard was having a good couple of hours work with no problems.

I went today to the Apple store, and got a new replacement battery with no problems, and didn't have to pay a penny, even if out of the warranty year, it depends of the battery I think, but if battery is less than two years, and has not reach a maximum number of cycles (not sure the number but mine was about 80 cycles) you are likely to get a new replacement for free.

But there is more, I think, as someone else already posted on the forum, I think I know the reason of the shut downs and lost of performance, I only realised today, went I brought the laptop to the store, I realised my battery wasn't completely flat on the back of the laptop, like if it were swollen, and like it could move slightly when inserted, never realised before, and I can't double check because they kept my old battery.

So what I think is, Snow Leopard may use extensively the battery, or may manage it differently, even it may be a compatibility problem with that model of battery and Snow Leopard, but somehow, my theory is, battery was used extensively more or wrongly with Snow Leopard, hence the lack of performance, and getting hot, hence the swollen and because this the bad contact between the battery and computer and the random shut downs.

But that's just theory, now I have a new battery and I am worried it could happen again, so not sure if just remove it and keep it safe and run plugged until there is a resolution for this issue.

Jose.

PD: sorry, still reluctant to think is just a physical problem or defective battery, it must be SL, too much coincidence, too many people having same issue at same time...

By the way, the battery replaced by Apple is exactly the same model I had, device name ASMB012, same hardware revision, same firmware version...

Jose.

You got lucky. I took my computer in and they did NOT replace it for free even though it was 1 month out of the 1 year warranty.

My battery is NOT bulging (I still have it), but it had failed.

My new battery works PERFECTLY under snow leopard and I'm getting around 4 hours of battery life.

Heres what happened with my battery. I had "service battery" written on my battery icon couple of days ago and i took it to an authorized apple service station, and they kept it for a couple of days to see if they can replace the battery from apple.

So till that time i used my charger as the main power source and then after apple declined my battery replacement because it was out of warranty("duh"), i plugged it back in the macbook and now there is no such notice of "service battery" on it.

THIS IS REALLY STRANGE. And before it used to hold 61% of total charge and somehow that changed to 81%.

These computers are strange.

But i am happy.

its all very well 19 pages of "oh my battery is the same blah blah blah" but DOES ANYONE HAVE A WORKING RESOLUTION ?

Yes i have the same problem and also looking for a fix but trolling through 19 whiney pages of macbooks battery info just doesn't help the cause.

*hoping someone has something better to say*

C