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

Ok, I've bought a new battery and seems to work fine (at least for now), I don't think that so many MacBook Pro owners with these battery problems after SL installation is only a coincidence, but what I don't understand is how an OS bug can bring the battery to result bad at the diagnostic test, has anyone an explanation?

The one take away from this thread I think is most important is that the Sony battery is crap. The problem with the "buy a new battery" solution is that you're just buying another flawed product which will also fail.

I would love to hear suggestions for alternatives to the battery for sale in the apple store.

Nobody is "working against" the "end users", Shigglyboo.

I'm an "end user". I run Snow Leopard on two MBPs. Doing so has had no adverse on battery life on either of them. I replaced the battery in the older MBP when it was less than two years old, at about 140 cycles, when it developed very similar symptoms to those mentioned by many here in this thread - erratic charge capacity behaviour, shutdowns without warning, etc., etc. Clearly nothing to do with SL in that case, though. It happened about three weeks before Snow Leopard was released. If it had hung on for another month I might have been making the same assumptions based simply on the juxtaposition of battery failure and SL installation, too!

When people present full information about their batteries in this thread in many cases it becomes very obvious that bad batteries are, indeed, the source of their problems. Such people won't gain any benefit whatsoever from blaming Snow Leopard, or waiting for a "fix" in the next OS update, will they? If YOU want to help such people then YOU should point it out to them, too.

As far as bscepter's situation goes he simply hasn't presented sufficient information to know whether he needs a new battery or not. (As he says has just bought a new one it will still be under warranty so you won't be doing him any favours if it is, in fact, defective and he waits too long to get it replaced!) .

We don't know if he has performed the suggested SMC reset in such situations. We don't know whether he has calibrated the battery yet. We don't know what the actual figures the battery is returning are. We don't know if the battery had recently been exposed to very cold temperatures and was therefore suffering from temporarily depressed capacity. We don't know how old, or in what sort of condition, his wife's battery was in previously at all. In short, we know far too little about his situation to jump to any conclusions at all about the cause, one way or the other.

A basic rule of "troubleshooting" is to eliminate the common causes of a particular problem before you jump to novel conclusions. I know you (and a couple of others here) have a strong belief that Snow Leopard is the cause of your own problems, but that doesn't mean you can ignore the basic rules and assume that every battery that fails after a Snow Leopard installation is therefore somehow confirmatory of your theory. If you look back over this thread you will see that others have found that replacing their battery has, indeed, fixed the problem for them.


As I've pointed out elsewhere in this thread, literally thousands of MBP batteries fail every day (don't forget there are millions of them out there). Millions of people have installed Snow Leopard on notebooks over the last few months, too. The juxtaposition of the two things means that of course lots of people will experience a battery failure at a time close to the time of SL installation.

Accordingly to establish a connection between Snow Leopard installation and battery failure you need to show that the batteries concerned did not simply die from "natural causes". In many cases in this thread the evidence strongly points to the fact that the batteries were already in trouble when they died and that while SL may have made the problems clearer (through the revised warnings) there is no evidence that it actually caused them to fail.

I'm sorry you think it is somehow "rude" of me to keep on suggesting, to those who provide enough information to make it apparent that their battery has a problem, that they simply need to replace it. I'm sorry, too, if you find it "rude" of me to suggest some of the other potential causes of such problems, or to explain, when I can, why particular things may occur when people describe their own circumstances. But there is not much I can do about your feelings about such things, and these boards are here to try to help people resolve their own particular problems first and foremost. If that conflicts with your own desire to prove a particular theory , so be it.

Cheers

Rod

bscepter wrote:
what are the odds of two different laptops in the same household having exactly the same battery problems within a week of each other?

It all depends, bscepter. Firstly how old is the battery in your wife's MB? When was it last calibrated? What was its maximum charge capacity prior to the installation of Snow Leopard? If the battery is a couple of years old the odds of it failing in any given week are probably significantly better than one in fifty given the general life expectancy of these batteries.

Secondly, you don't say much about your own battery other than that it is "new" and shutdown with 24% capacity, 24 cycles under the belt, and a 'service battery" warning on reboot. Have you calibrated it yet? What does it say the maximum charge capacity currently is? Is it an Apple battery or third party? etc etc. Without more info it is hard to estimate the probability of failure.

Thirdly, are there perhaps any common environmental factors that might apply to both? Do you live in a very hot place? Or a very cold one? Do you use the same power adaptor for both computers? etc. There are, indeed, reasons why two computers might experience the same problem in the same week in the same house because they are exposed to a similar external set of environmental circumstances, though such things aren't really necessary to explain the "chance" of such an occurence.

We just can't know unless you provide more info, but even without such things, the probability is actually much higher than many would imagine, especially if your wife's battery is getting on a bit in age. They, like us, have all got to die some time or other. Most seem to die between two and three years of age, though some last longer and some die much sooner.

But if you post some more information about the two batteries maybe we can get a better idea of what the chances really are.

Cheers

Rod

tl:dnr,

look, if you guys are for real and you mean well, then I apologize. It's just with so many people having this exact same problem after upgrading, and you guys just keep saying it's all defective batteries or other internal components...

I have decided to visit the genius bar tomorrow, I have an appointment. If my battery is defective then hopefully they'll give me a new one. If it's not then hopefully the info they find during their super iPod scan will be pushed up to the guys that can fix the issue and stop Snow Leopard from devouring batteries.

tl:dnr,

look, if you guys are for real and you mean well, then I apologize. It's just with so many people having this exact same problem after upgrading, and you guys just keep saying it's all defective batteries or other internal components...

I have decided to visit the genius bar tomorrow, I have an appointment. If my battery is defective then hopefully they'll give me a new one. If it's not then hopefully the info they find during their super iPod scan will be pushed up to the guys that can fix the issue and stop Snow Leopard from devouring batteries.

I have to agree with Stephen, I'm using SL have replaced my battery,cycled it on purchase ($63.00) mail order, use it unpluged for a good three hours ( no Service Battery yet, I replaced it about one month ago) Pete

I continue to test my different batteries:

I returned the battery that was in my MBP 1,1 w/ SL to it. coconutBattery originally reported capacity at 85%, just as my MBP 3,1 w/ SL reported one minute earlier. However, the reported capacity continued to drop over the next hour, and now sits at 58%.

The "spare old" battery I have continues to drop in capacity, and now my 3,1 reports it at 44%. Not a surprise, and the previous drop that I saw in the 1,1 is likely due to the age of the battery.

I am going to install Leopard on a portable FireWire drive, and will report my findings here.

Hi dsf260,

can you cut and paste the actual capacities, cycles, etc shown by the System Profiler / Power tab directly into your post? It helps to avoid confusion about current capacity / total capacity / charge percentage / capacity percentage etc etc etc. when looking at something like this. Sometimes I'm not altogether clear which you have been talking about.

Cheers

Rod

Shigglyboo wrote:
It's just with so many people having this exact same problem after upgrading, and you guys just keep saying it's all defective batteries or other internal components...

The trouble is, Shigglyboo, that when you look at the posts in this thread they are not all the "exact same problem" . Many people here have your standard , erratically behaving, failing batteries that simply shut down without warning in the way that such batteries always have. Sure the "service battery" message is new under Snow Leopard , but it doesn't amount to any real change when it comes to the underlying issue. Those concerned simply need a new battery.

A much smaller number seem to have a different issue with very erratic reporting of battery capacity etc. It is not unusual to see this to some extent (batteries go up and down in capacity because of temperature effects and other such things and ageing or dying batteries particularly will often report quite different results at different points in the charge cycle and so forth), but a very few of the examples here are "out of the ordinary" - going up and down in terms of total capacity by extreme amounts. Yours is probably the prime example, in fact. Now this may just be due to a bad battery or it may be due to a different hardware issue with your computer of some kind (It could even be due to dirty battery contacts!) Or, possibly , as you believe, it could be due to some peculiarity of your own SL installation, or the monitoring software that you use, or the like.

The trouble is that there is so much "noise" in the thread , because anyone with a dud battery who has installed SL and read the thread (and there are inevitably lots of them because batteries die all the time , especially on notebooks that are a couple of years old) tends to jump to the conclusion that the OS installation must be the cause, so that it becomes almost impossible to get a clear picture of what the real story is in cases like your own, more unusual, one.

I have decided to visit the genius bar tomorrow, I have an appointment. If my battery is defective then hopefully they'll give me a new one. If it's not then hopefully the info they find during their super iPod scan will be pushed up to the guys that can fix the issue and stop Snow Leopard from devouring batteries.

I reckon that is a very wise first step for anyone in your situation. I have no idea whether they will give you a new one or want you to buy one (I can't remember how old your battery actually is), but getting it properly tested is pretty clearly the first thing anyone in a situation like yours needs to do before looking for other, more unusual, explanations for their problems,

Cheers

Rod

lapwolf wrote:

I cycled the battery once but won't operate my MBP on battery power again until after Apple has addressed the issue as I don't believe battery replacement is the answer, just a short-lived band-aid (as has been the case for several of the posters in this thread).

Bear in mind, lapwolf, that by NOT using the computer on battery at all you are probably actually shortening its expected life span substantially. These batteries last longest when they are used pretty regularly but not too heavily. Avoid leaving it hooked up to the charger all the time, but also avoid repeatedly charging it up fully and then running it right down to zero before you charge it again all the time if possible. About a 60% on the charger/ to 40% on battery split, keeping the battery charged to somewhere between 40% and fully charged as much of the time as possible, seems to give Lithium Polymer batteries, regardless of what they are fitted in, their longest lifespan.

Rod

Rod Hagen wrote:
The trouble is that there is so much "noise" in the thread , because anyone with a dud battery who has installed SL and read the thread (and there are inevitably lots of them because batteries die all the time , especially on notebooks that are a couple of years old) tends to jump to the conclusion that the OS installation must be the cause, so that it becomes almost impossible to get a clear picture of what the real story is in cases like your own, more unusual, one.

The trouble is that there is a bug in Snow Leopard. The bug may not be responsible for destroying battery life, but Snow Leopard is less forgiving of "bad" battery then Leopard is, just as a race car is less forgiving of cheap gas than a Yugo.

The trouble is, that it seems that the argument is either that Snow Leopard is destroying batteries, or that the Sony Battery Apple sells fails in large numbers and that there is no overlap.

The trouble is the absolute confidence that Snow Leopard has nothing to do with the coincidental battery failure, and that the solution is to spend more money on a battery that, according to among other things, Dell Forums, are inherently flawed.

The trouble is that the "buy a new battery" solution is extremely self-serving to Apple and not to the consumer.

If the Sony battery is as flawed as we are lead to believe, then nobody should buy one, because buying one is simply a waste of money.

So, the trouble is, we need a better option. So I ask again, are there any alternatives to the flawed Sony battery?

Why does everyone blame Sony batteries? When the first MacBook Pro computers came out, were they issued with Sony batteries? Here is my sys profiler:

Model Information:
Serial Number: SMP-A-34cd-d1
Manufacturer: SMP
Device name: A
Pack Lot Code: 0001
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0102
Hardware Revision: 0300
Cell Revision: 0200
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4169
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4189
Health Information:
Cycle count: 261
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1008
Voltage (mV): 12275

What is SMP? Is that made by Sony? By the way I believe Rod Hagen asked for my Sys info so here it is! Mine has gone through a lot of cycles but mine shouldn't die at 261... And as for battery condition. Its now dropped down to 71%. Dunno what the go is but oh well.

Well i barely use these forums but I started another post a few weeks ago about this same issue.

Long story short.

Macbook pro 3.96 128 ssd 4gb ram new in july.

Installed snow leopard about 5 weeks ago.

Usually plugged in about once a week I will run it to 20% or so then charge it back up.

Battery had 27 cycles. Laptop completely shut down when not plugged in and will not power unless plugged in.

Took it to apple genius bar, checked with the nano battery showed ok. He was going to order a new mobo and smc something but decided to try a new battery from the back.

New battery and working great now. Losing confidence in apple. Especially after seeing this thread. we need youtube videos guys. spread the word.

end of story.

Michael Daeche wrote:
Why does everyone blame Sony batteries? When the first MacBook Pro computers came out, were they issued with Sony batteries?

No clue, but according to this thread, they are bad (2 out of 5 Stars based on 739 reviews in the Apple Store).

I did some googling and only one alternative to the Sony battery came up:

http://store.fastmac.com/productinfo.php?productsid=3

Its only $99, I imagine there is shipping and taxes involved. Better then the $130 for the defective Sony battery. I have no experience with Fastmac, but I do have experience with the Sony ones. Since it looks like I'll be stuck buying a new battery regardless of wether or not Apple fixes the glitch in Snow Leopard, I'm leaning towards the Fastmac over the Sony.

I'm curious to hear any feedback on Fastmac batteries, if anyone is using them.