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

Believe it or not I actually have read probably 300 of these.

1) Do you have BT on and running, wireless etc? Also SL will consume more power, have you looked at what is running on SL vs L? Some of you have upgraded HD and memory. This uses more power.

2)Again 300 seems to be where the battery becomes useless. I have had a battery with I think 8 cycles and it was dead. I don't doubt these Sony batteries suck, but its not an OS issue, its the technology in the battery.

3) Hot issue depends on the version of the MBP you have. The 1st and 2second, revision, that is were horrible. That documented all over on here. The 3 revision which was the C2D was cooler, but I think that was Intel technology vs just the CD (Core Duo). And see Number 1

Did you read up on the LI-ION battery and how it works?

I think the general scenario is people having macbook pro working fine, getting about 3 hours work in battery, never had a random shutdown with no warning, then upgrading to SL and start having the issues.

I understand that it looks more like a battery problem, but it's been too many reports, and is just difficult to think is just coincidence, think as well how many people may have had the issue but just not reported and just got a new battery, from my experience only a low percent of people will report, I would dare to say less that 5% or 10%?

And yeah, I'm well aware of how LI-ION batteries work, most of us took well care of the battery until the issues, but again seems to not made any difference.

I had my battery replaced by free even if I was out of warranty, not sure why few of us were lucky to get it replaced for free, I think Apple will replace on the year and a half if the cycle count is not too high (mine was 76)

I don't want to risk as this issue has stopped me a few hours work, so I just downgraded to Leopard and have had no issues at all since then.

I do believe even new batteries may rise the same issue in a short period, so that's why I don't want to risk until we get to the bottom of this problem.

Just wanted to add my story to that. I have a late 2008 MacBook (UniBody). Battery was all happy until SL upgrade. I'm running iStat nano and used to check on Battery health every now and then. Suddenly health is down to 51%. I do have 309 cycles on the battery, because I tend to run it through full cycles quite often, rather than keeping it plugged in for long periods. It was still giving me ~4 hours of work until now, suddenly, I get rapid depletion. I have AppleCare, but haven't had a chance to see them about it yet. Will try to do that next week. Something changed with the SL update, whatever it might be...

Well for one, which I know most do not follow
"Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time."

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

I doubt anyone follows this 100% of the time. Again LI-ION is used for the power it can provide not the long term use. Nickel Metal Hydride batteries I feel were the best but not very environmentally healthy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-metalhydridebattery

That is what we are all used too...

rkovelman, from that link you posted:

"Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month"

Most of us taking care of the battery and definitively do that.

And if that means we cannot use a laptop every single day, plugged or unplugged, then it's saying too much and laptops would be useless.

Thanks.

But that proves the point that if you read about LI-ION as you do a full cycle the battery life dies off fairly quickly. Again the more you research how the IONs work you will see how good the battery is but then again where its bad, its bad, especially in a laptop. Apple had to move to this battery to full fill its wish on going green. Look at how Dell also has a return on batteries as well as Apple has. I think Dell sums it up pretty well:

"How long does a Dell laptop battery last? When should I consider replacing mine?
A All rechargeable batteries wear out with time and usage. As time and cumulative use increase, the performance will degrade. For the typical user, noticeable reduction in run time generally will be observed after 18 to 24 months. For a power user, reduction in run time generally may be experienced prior to 18 months. We recommend buying a new Dell laptop battery when the run time does not meet your needs. "

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/batteriessitelet/en/batteriesfaq?c=us&l=en&cs=04#faq1

again until you or this group can provide FACTS that it is the OS Apple really can not do a thing about it. Sony the provider could but who knows if that would occur.

rkovelman, by provide FACTS what you mean? we lot of people here on the forum had a stable system working, and reliable batteries, we then did upgrade to SL and started having issues, some of us just downgraded to Leopard and all worked fine, so I would say that is a fact.

Anyway, we already know Apple is probably not going to do anything, so this forum is to see if between us can help each other or find a solution or something, and of course we are not just lazy people sitting and waiting to someone else to do the things, we do manage to carry on (some of us working) with or without batteries, with or without SL (that sounds like a song?)

Thanks.

rkovelman, do you work for Apple or something? Why are you so intent on convincing everyone that their batteries just magically go bad after installing SL? Oh, and not only do the batteries need replacing, SL uses twice the power (so half the battery life) and runs the system dangerously hot. Yeah, that's all completely normal, nothing to see here, just buy new batteries and deal with 1/2 the regular charge...

Not to mention the remaining time is erratic and some people are reporting random system shutdowns...

Sorry, I refuse to believe that an OS can somehow use twice as much power to do the same thing. I haven't noticed any major change in usability or performance since installing SL, my system doesn't run twice as fast, so where is all that energy going?

This issue is only going to get worse as more people upgrade to SL and find their battery life all of a sudden cut in half. On the surface it seems like a ploy to sell more batteries, but I'm hoping Apple is just trying to come up with a fix behind the scenes and that's why they're mum on the issue.

Batteries go bad. Period.

With a new battery I'm not having the same problems I had before running SL. My computer is not running "dangerously hot".

300posts, a lot of which have replies etc. is an incredibly small number of complaints compared to the number of people with macbook pros running snow leopard. Believe what you want, reality isn't on your side.

Nope. I just have been doing this (IT) for a long time and I know where an issue lies. I have provided much detail on links on where to read about the new technology of batteries and how it works. I can only lead the horse to water its up to you to drink it. I think SL and it being able to tell if a battery is dead/bad is greater then L. SL in general is 10x better from stability to security. IMO it would be dumb to downgrade. Regardless $150 for a battery after 2 years is not that bad considering most Mac users I know keep there computers 4 years or so.

I have had the erratic battery issue so I do know 1st hand. Yes it ***** but a new battery or replacement solved it for me, for now.

Apparently you do not take in to account drive spin up, spin down etc. IF you upgraded your drive from a 5K rpm to a 7K rpm drive you will use more power. Same with adding memory. Everything uses power. I assume not many have every had to configure a server rack and UPS load times with peak and off peak times. You opening photoshop will use more power then once it is open. Saving might use more power then opening the program. This all depends on the drive speed and what is being used. There is a lot involved.

They are not mum. Battery issues and extended warranty replacements have been going on since powerbooks and iBooks. This is nothing new. Please do some research.

Message was edited by: rkovelman

I don't believe in coincidences. If a significant number of people upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard, with NO other changes, and see their battery life cut in half with other power-related misbehavior, the obvious answer is that Snow Leopard has an issue that needs to be resolved.

No amount of hand-waving will change this reality. I have been involved in IT longer than most of you have been alive; There's an OS problem, pure and simple. It is Apple's purgative to ignore the customer-base, but bad news travels faster than good. This problem could stop the next wave of users from upgrading their OS as $29 upgrade isn't inexpensive if it costs another $125 to make it usable.

It's just basic math...

Update from my post last night...

Went to Apple today and they gave me a new battery today even though I had 280 cycles and my AppleCare has been expired for about a year.

My problem was solved, good guys at the Apple store by me.

Apparently all the years in IT failed you in not doing a Google search on battery issues and those surrounding Sony. Or battery issues and laptops. This is nothing new and will not change until new battery technology is released that is green friendly and/or they can have the ION's work more efficiently

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09035.html
https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2333692,00.asp
http://compreviews.about.com/b/2009/05/14/hp-laptop-battery-recall-may-14-2009.h tm
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/why-cant-we-get-an-accurate-battery-lif e-test-for-laptops/

Only a sect few links from Google (204,000,000 hits for laptops and battery issues.)

This is not limited to Apple but ALL BRANDS. You base your opinion on this single forum, which does not even account for the other 3/4 Apple ones. In the nicest way possible, everyone go to the links I have posted and review them. After your done and still feel its an OS issue gather some data about the laptops. I have done this for years and IMO its Sony and the technology that is used.

I've also worked in IT for a few years, probably not for as long as most of you have been alive as I am sure that this would be quite a lot of years. However I can spell "prerogative" and to be honest see this issue with Sony batteries everyday.

Our chosen laptop model at work is a Lenovo T60 and I can guarantee that without fail that the batteries are replaced on these models at between 18 to 24 months. The sales reps go from being able to work nearly all day on the laptops one week to not being able to present a 30 minute sales pitch to a customer without the laptop shutting down. We have around 2,500 examples of this laptop on our asset register.

These too are Sony branded Li-Ion batteries and are failing without any apparent warning.

However, that doesn't change the fact the a lot of people are seeing the same issues following upgrade to Snow Leopard. We saw this issue begin when we rolled out Windows XP Service Pack 3, but this must have been a coincidence.

Personally I thought that I didn't see this issue in Leopard, so I downgraded my OS but unfortunately the issue persisted. I too have around 300 cycles and I posted my battery stats many, many pages back.

This issue is becoming blurred on this forum and I'm not surprised that Apple isn't responding with a fix given the many conflicting posts.

I bought a replacement battery because I work in IT and see this issue regularly. Coincidentally my wife's power brick on her MacBook died at the same time that I upgraded to Snow Leopard as well, but I don't think that had anything to do with the OS. Conversely, her battery has well over 300 cycles and is still going strong even under Snow Leopard.

Good Luck!

hey how did you get all that info about your battery?