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

That certainly sounds like very disappointing treatment, Shigglboo, and very different from that experienced by a number of others posting in this thread from other locations. I see that there are various AASPs as well as at least one other "Apple Store" in Atlanta. At the very least I'd be inclined to pursue the matter with one of them. Alternatively contacting Customer Relations and discussing your situation and your concern about the store , is worth considering.

Cheers

Rod

Shigglyboo,

sounds like you went to the same store I went to on the Island. If it helps, I pretty much had the same response, but you had the benefit of talking to a human. I needed my monitor and SuperDrive replaced so I was denied via a form letter. Less then a year old, less the 100 cycles, deemed normal wear. Which is why I haven't bothered taking my new battery in.

I agree with you about the "genius" remark, I'm pretty sure I knew more about Macs then he did.

Hi All

I previously posted concerning this issue in another thread. I was suffering the "black-out without warning" syndrome. Rod Hagen replied that my battery required replacement - and he is correct. The figures at the time were:
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): 0
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 1234
Health Information:
Cycle count: 29
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 1496
Voltage (mV): 12322

This battery was a replacement fitted in November 2008 after the original died after thirteen or fourteen months use with a cycle count of 13 and a full charge capacity of 1336. At no point did I suffer from a black-out, just a fast run down of the battery. Note it was replaced out of warranty.

Since my last post I have been in touch with Apple. I had a very pleasant chat with a very reasonable gentleman (as you would expect in the UK!). His explanation sounded very logical. The following is from memory so forgive any points I might have got slightly wrong.

The battery presently fitted is apparently a Lithium-ion. The new ones are Lithium-polymer. (Did I mishear that because I have not seen any reference to Lithium-ion in any posts?). The old batteries have a chip in them that gave out the battery status information that is seen in the System Profiler and on the battery information at the top of the screen. This worked fine under Leopard but does not under Snow Leopard. The readings being shown by Snow Leopard are not correct and is due either to the way Snow Leopard reads the information or due to a fault in the battery chip. This will not occur with a new Lithium-polymer battery as they do not have the chip. (I am not sure this correlates with some of the reports in this thread regarding people who have bought new batteries and still have a problem).

He recommended that I re-calibrate the battery, which I had not done. After re-calibration, the figures were much worse than previously seen, which gives some credence to his explanation that the chip/SL were giving an inaccurate reading. Why they should give a correct reading after re-calibration is unknown and was not explained but does not particularly, or logically, point to a faulty chip.

The full charge capacity over the next day or two gave: 1483, 1320, 1145 and it now sits at a very low 658. The cycle count now stands at 30. This is in the course of one week or so.

I am off to Florida and work next week so I can pick up a new battery there for $129 as opposed to £99 here. I am not sure anyone has really come up with a cause or solution for all this. The only facts appear to be that the MBP batteries last on the average around fourteen months, plugged in or not, and the laptops shut down without warning after SL instead of giving a warning and turning the battery icon red. Anything else appears to be speculation and guesswork.

Cheers

TY

Sorry to hear about those experiencing poor sales service from Apple.

Took my Macbook Pro to an Apple Genius bar today at Bluewater, Kent, UK today with little hope of a replacement (no Applecare/Mac over 3 years old). Explained the problem. Referred him to this thread. Showed him a catalogue of screen grabs of my power stats in the system profile (ranging from 4750-2100mAh) over the last 2 months.

He went and discussed it with his manager.

They agreed it was most likely a software issue and that the battery would probably restore to normal once apple do an update, but, nevertheless, gave me a new battery (not a refurb) without me even asking!

Good job, Apple! One satisfied customer at least.

That sounds like a real deal. Interested to see how long your new battery behave fore though.

I am now unable to use my MBP top for more than about 15-20 mins unplugged, the battery level drops like a stone. I am certain that it is something to do with SL. I have other SL problems, one being that I am unable to quit Aperture (neither via the menu or CMD+Q). Bugs!

I am getting the same problem with my Macbook Pro Unibody early 2009. The problem didn't start until upgrading to Snow Leopard. Now my battery life is terrible and there's a "Service Battery" alert on my toolbar.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Well, I have no more trouble with quitting Aperture than I have with my batteries under SL, ajophoto. (None, in other words). I see you have been having problems with "Motion", too.

Sounds to me like it might be time you went back to basics. The usual cause of multiple problems with OS updates is that the system on which they were installed was already corrupted in some way, even if you didn't notice it at the time. This may well have occurred if the boot disk had ever become overfull (something you hint at in your "Motion" post), and, perhaps, badly fragmented. In your case, given that you apparently use the drive for both video and photographic work, I'd suggest that you try to keep at least 20% of the boot drive capacity as free space at all times, preferably significantly more.

I've posted some suggestions in your Aperture thread.

As I pointed out in response to your earlier post providing details of your batteries maximum capacity, you also very clearly have a defective battery.

Cheers

Rod

That clerk fed you a line. The battery has always been Lithium Polymer which is a form of Lithium ion battery. ALL lithium ion batteries have a charge controller chip inside of them because if you overcharge a lithium ion battery it will self destruct. Think heat, smoke, fire and physical destruction of the battery and the MBP it is in.
The original battery problems were with Sony batteries. My fourth battery is an SMP battery. So far it has not given me any problems.

ajophoto,

I feel your pain, the app I have problems with is Mail, every once in a while it won't let me quit, I initiate a quit, but then it doesn't quit, and the quit option becomes unavailable in the menu. Using quit by right clicking on the icon doesn't work either, and sometime even force quitting doesn't work. Very annoying, but this is a hold over I've had since Leopard.

My favorite Snow Leopard bug, was an app unwilling to give up focus, forcing me to manually shut down. Fun times.

Regardless, Snow Leopard is still extremely buggy, but I've noticed that non-SL compatible apps make it even buggier. Recently I went through and manually checked for updates on apps that should have been auto checking. Apps like Growl, perian, MacFuse, DivX and Flip4Mac. I mention the latter few specifically because they are video related.

Manually updating these apps has improved performance, Snow Leopard still has issues, but I'm not staring at the spinning pinwheel of death as much. I also found that I had some library additions that I didn't know about, that were installed by apps without my knowledge. After rooting around my Login Items within the Accounts Systems Prefs helped me to identify outdated software.

That said, this is all on my unibody MBP, which doesn't get along with SL all that well. My older MBP, runs Snow Leopard great, with the exception of the SL Battery bug.

Hope that helps

Same problem here.... Very annoying!
With Leopard I had a very very good battery life, 3 hours. Since I installed Snow Leopard, September 09, my battery became a "Service battery"......
I had only 29 cycles! Now I have 37 and I can't solve this problem...
I absolutely don't want to buy a new one 'cause I'm sure this is a SW problem. I think Apple focused its attention on monitoring the new integrated batteries and forgot to write something more specifically for older ones.
Apple please listen to us, it's impossible that suddenly ALL of this batteries became bad only after installing SL!

something is very wrong. I powered up today and the warning is back. Last I checked my full charge was 4450 or thereabouts, 86% health, 3 hours of life.

Now look at this, it's very interesting:

Battery Information:

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): 0
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 2793
Health Information:
Cycle count: 70
Condition: Check Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1991
Voltage (mV): 10937

Charge remaining is ZERO, and my total charge has been reduced by at least 1500 (mAh) since yesterday, and I fully expect it to keep flip flopping.

Again, if this is a bad battery, why would it keep being "good" for at random. And how can a battery run with ZERO charge? If this battery is indeed defective, then how to I prove that to Apple or Sony? I shouldn't be responsible for a defective battery, with only 70 cycles.

This is crazy, I'm breaking the laws of physics, my battery is empty, yet my computer is on right now and I'm typing this message. Coconut verifies my current charge is ZERO and my health is down to 49%, from 85% yesterday.

I think I might print out this entire thread, the CNET article, a log of all my battery reports (which are always up and down on any given day) and go to the Apple store in the highest income region of my city (Lenox I think). Maybe I'll wear a suit.

Same for me yesterday!
For a while I had my battery back with 5400 mAh and then it drops down again to 1000.....
Yesterday night my MBP shut down without alerting and with charge left in the battery; also pushing the little button on the battery showed that I had charge left!
What did I do? I turned the computer on again and it lasts other 30 minutes before shutting down again (without alerting... of course...).

This couldn't be a battery issue... If battery itself says that is charged and computer shuts down!!!

Message was edited by: Fedux

Hi Shigglyboo et al

Thanks to all of you for the many replies I have received since posting. Looking at your battery info. Shigglyboo (I am not going to ask), it appears yours and mine are just about out of the same batch.

Since my posting, I have managed to get the reading up a touch - all of 690 or so. The MBP is now packed ready for my flight in the morning so I'll be quiet for a day or three.

With regard to your charge remaining at zero. The System Profiler does not update when open. In other words, if you are unplugged and let the battery drain and then plug in, you will (or could) get a zero reading. The top bar should show the battery to be charging. As an aside, I plugged mine back in two days ago with the Profiler showing zero and saw 57% for around one or two seconds at the top before it changed to 80% and continued to charge. This was after a "black out" and being left unplugged for several hours. You need to quit Profiler and then open it again to get a new reading.

There is definitely something not right here. As has been pointed out before, how are all these batteries appearing to fail at the same time? Yes, Mr. Hagen, you are undoubtedly correct in one respect but the common behaviour was not common before SL. The odd case might be put forward to counteract this but the overall scenario is showing a SW fault originating from SL.

I believe I shall keep my "duff" battery for a while and see what happens with 10.6.3. There is the off-chance that it will "un-duff" itself.....

Best regards

TY

even more strange behavior. I ran for about 40 minutes with no charge at all. Then my computer crashed in Spanish.

When I plugged it in and rebooted Coconut battery is gone, no desktop icon, dock icon and it's not in the applications folder. Everything else appears normal.

Hello again, Andy,

I've just had a look at your follow up post in the Aperture forum and posted a reply there.

I think I can see why you are having so many problems. Your HD is way, way, too full for the sort of use you are making of the computer. With only 10 Gig free you are going to be well below the minimum 10% free space needed for safe operation of your boot drive in light operation. Working regularly with things like large images, RD graphics etc you need much more again.

Installing Snow Leopard will, in your case, have undoubtedly increased your problems. This is because installing an OS (any version of MacOS - not just Snow Leopard) very substantially increases drive fragmentation levels on a very, very full drive like yours. I've explained more extensively in the Aperture thread.

Your really need to sort this out as a matter of priority. You risk the possibility of complete drive failure through extreme directory loss if you don't. The fact that you are already experiencing a variety of issues suggests that this point may not be far away.

While this won't fix your dying battery , it probably will actually increase your run time on battery a bit. The huge fragmentation issues that you will undoubtedly be suffering from make the drive work overtime. HD's use a fair bit of battery to run.

Cheers

Rod