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

Update:

Still have the same issues.
Have calibrated the battery three times, and still when I let the computer run off the battery the computer suddenly shuts down at 20-30% battery left.
Today i checked Full charge capacity when the computer still was running, and it said 4162mAh. And when the computer died and i plugged it in, the Full charge capacity was now down to 3515mAh. (30 minutes apart)

So checked the thread, still no official Apple-reply so I called Apple Support.
The guy checked with his supervisor and could only tell me that I have to wait until Apple (eventually) releases a Battery Update-patch...

In Sweden there are no Apple Stores and no Geniuses to visit.
Only autorized partners, and they won't touch a non-warranty machine without charging by the hour or without Apple giving them a go-ahead.

Same problem as everyone else. Battery has only 96 cycles. I took it to the Apple Store in Charlotte, NC. The "Genius" did a battery test and determined the battery was bad and in no way was Snow Leopard at fault. Said all of our problems must be a coincidence and that I was the first he'd seen. I was told to either downgrade to Leopard or buy a new battery. He refused to take a look at this thread.

It was disappointing but not typical. Usually people at the store are very helpful, this guy just wasn't hearing anything.

So rather than spend $130 on a new battery I await a possible software update and deal with an hour and a half of battery life rather than 4+.

I just noticed the service battery thing, never seen it before. I too recently upgraded to Snow Leopard. I googled it to see if it means anything serious and found this thread. Here's my readout:

Model Information:
Manufacturer: Sony
Device name: ASMB012
Pack Lot Code: 0000
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0110
Hardware Revision: 0500
Cell Revision: 0303
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2697
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 3194
Health Information:
Cycle count: 57
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -2218
Voltage (mV): 11737

Only 57 cycles. There should be nothing wrong with my battery. However, I've gone from having almost 4 hours to less than 2 as far as the readout goes. I just did the calibration thing a couple days ago. After that is when I saw the service battery warning. Pretty crazy to read that this isn't considered a problem for Snow Leopard... think I'll hold off on the next "upgrade".

Solution: new battery.

Let's pretend there are 1,000,000 MBP's out there. Now lets pretend that 99.9% of batteries work trouble free (a number that's waaaay too high by the way) for 300 cycles or more. That means 0.1% of batteries fail prematurely and out of a million batteries in MBPs 1,000 of them fail. That's just what happens.

In reality the failure rate is probably much higher than that. At 99% success rate, 1% fail and we have 10,000 failed batteries out of a million. That can easily account for several hundred posts on a forum even with people not reporting.

As far as timing? With thousands, or tens of thousands of batteries failing prematurely there are going to be an awful lot of them who happen to fail right after SN is released. Add to that the fact that a lot of us are just out of warranty and we suddenly care a whole lot more about it because we'll need to shell out $130 to replace a defective battery out of warranty.

The other thing is that SN also reports battery trouble. Also, battery failure can happen quite quickly, and a good battery one day can be a bad one the next.

What we've got on this forum is a lot of speculation and mostly no action because a lot of people here don't want to shell out the money. I can say that it was worth it and I don't have any battery trouble now. My case may not be exactly like yours but your case may not be what's happening in general either.

My advice? Buy the battery or don't and just use it mostly off mains. Those of us running SL with new batteries are not having trouble (yet). That seems to me like evidence that it's not SL causing the problems.

I'd think that it is the upgrade process of SL screw up the battery.

Only way to prove this probably having someone planning to upgrade to SL remember to remove the battery for the whole process.

splatnikG, we will appreciate if you just don't write those posts, if you are not having trouble then why are you posting here in the first place? And saying that it's just coincidence is saying too much, a new battery will just delay the problem, as it's "new".

We are not talking here about the "Service battery" but the sudden lack of performance and sudden shut downs, when "this was not happening before SL".

I was lucky and had my battery replaced by free when I was out of warranty, some of us have been able to do so, why is Apple changing some batteries for free? So far works fine but I don't think this will last long.

By the way, I have read on other thread (yeah, apart form this one, there are a few more threads running at the same time, so yeah, it's a coincidence...), well, I have read that some people managed to fix the problem doing a clean installation, has anyone here having the problem done just an upgrade instead of a clean installation?

If clean installation helps, may be worth trying, just for me is a pain as I usually waste a whole working day reinstalling and configuring all the software again to carry on doing my job.

But if people with clean installations is having as well the same issue, then I wont' even bother.

(Please to some people on this forums, this is what this forum is all about, to help each others, as we are alone on this cos Apple is not really doing any move, so I have seen few post here just saying go and buy a new battery, well, those kind of comments don't really help)

Okay, before I installed 10.6 I had a capacity about 92%. Now I have just 60%.
Same issue than one year before.
Girlfriend's MacBook battery serves since Jan 2007 at constant 100% capacity.

I had my battery checked and no problem. Replaced with 2 BRAND NEW APPLE ORIGINAL's and both give the same message.

Spoke to Apple support again this morning and now they finally admit they have a SL problem.

Hi all, just a couple of considerations about batteries problems (I hope it can help anyone):

1. Snow Leopard is some kind more expensive in power as Leopard (Simplifying a lot we can say : More CPU used -> More power needed).

2. old (or misused) batteries can mostly have 2 problems :
- Low capacity (mAh is lower than expected) -> this cause shorter use time but a more or less correctly behavior in time/percentage calculation.

- Low voltage -> this cause unexpected shutdown. For example in a MacBook Pro 17" - pre 2008 - a normal voltage should be between 11.5 V and 12.5 V. A misused battery could have enough mAh (like 70% ~ 3300 mAh) but giving a lower voltage (like 10 V) thus cause a complete shutdown because internals circuits can't work correctly.

3. Sometimes both problem happens together (in fact the second effect is consequently to the first...).

4. Some mac batteries have real problem, it happens ... but by now I've never had problem in having it changed by apple.

Actually there are a couple of work around to this "old batteries problem" but anyone has to do it at it's own risk and this kind of "procedure" are for sure discouraged by Apple itself... so official ways are:

- If there is a real battery problem (speak with support, they are kind and they know what to do) Apple will change it for sure and no cost (only shipment or minimal cost).

- If the battery is simply old or misused, try this:
1. sink your battery to 0%
2. reset your Power Management
3. fully charge the battery
4. (not said, but useful) do 1-2-3 more times consecutively

Unofficial way (your risk, nobody cover you legally if you do that):
1. remove your battery
2. sink it with a resistor enough quickly (do your calculation in V/A and don't sink it like an animal ;o)
3. charge the battery by a controlled DC source (or using your laptop)
4. Power up your mac, charge it normally for 1/2 cycles
5. do it again 1-2-3-4

Problem is that doing this without enough electrical knowledge can:
!!! Damage your battery in a definitive way !!!
!!! Make your battery literally explode (point 3 is the most dangerous one when done with incorrect sources) !!!
!!! Damage your laptop (you are really an unlucky one if it happens ... but it can happens) !!!

Sorry for my english ... I'm from switzerland ;o) I hope can help someone in anyway ...

+1 to the "Service Battery" issue
Mine seems to be intermittent and will correct itself on occasion. I charge it to 100% with the service battery issue, remove the plug and run simple word processing or spreadsheet work, and it resets itself 20-45 minutes later (not all the time though).

Maybe if Apple sees enough of these they will get the update out to fix this battery problem. Loaded Snow Leopard yesterday and my battery started getting really hot and the fan ran for quite sometime til I unplugged the charger. Now like all of you my battery shows: Replace Soon in the status.

I'm seriously considering removing my battery until this problem is resolved. I bought my 1st Generation Unibody 15" MBP early this year. I had saved up what is a fortune for me and still ended up having to borrow some money for the purchase. It is the first experience with a mac I have had and I have been overwhelmingly impressed with every aspect of the machine. I have not even mildly regretted investing such a large portion of my net worth for one moment...until now.

I would love to protect that $130 portion of my investment by taking it out of the picture. Unfortunately, if I do, I have to be paranoid about the very real possibility of improper shutdown. I'm pretty upset about this whole situation.

I would still suggest reporting the issue to apple in one way or another. It seems instances of this issue are running rampant with various users in the forums, but Apple is not getting as much word of the issue as they should. It certainly wouldn't hurt to give a quick call or email that doesn't ask for a solution, but reports it as a software issue that needs to be resolved in a later update.

How do you report this issue to Apple? If I go to support it just links me to articles, if I got to contact apple, it just wants me to schedule a phone conference or go into a store...

Why are such large companies like Apple & Microsoft so **** hard to get a hold of for tech support? They're two of the biggest & richest companies out there, yet they don't seem to have the time of day for their users. I've bought gear for much less than the $2k it cost for a Mac, and it was easy breezy to send an email or make a quick phone call and get a human to help you.

-wes