"Service Battery" warning - what can be done?

thanks for your help , I'll take your advice into consideration

I bought a new battery for a MacBook at a Genius bar two weeks ago and was told it carried a 90-day warranty.

Hi Guys,

I have the same issue as everyone on here it seems, here are my stats and it has only just started after mountain lion install?

is this ok??

Battery Information:

Model Information:

Manufacturer: ML

Device Name: ASMB013

Pack Lot Code: 1

PCB Lot Code: 12

Firmware Version: 11

Hardware Revision: 002f

Cell Revision: bb18

Charge Information:

Charge Remaining (mAh): 3578

Fully Charged: Yes

Charging: No

Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 3588

Health Information:

Cycle Count: 54

Condition: Service Battery

Battery Installed: Yes

Amperage (mA): -3

Voltage (mV): 12571

System Power Settings:

AC Power:

System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0

Automatic Restart on Power Loss: No

Wake on AC Change: No

Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes

Wake on LAN: No

Current Power Source: Yes

Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes

PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep: 0

Battery Power:

System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0

Wake on AC Change: No

Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes

Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes

Reduce Brightness: Yes

Hardware Configuration:

UPS Installed: No

AC Charger Information:

Connected: Yes

ID: 0x0100

Wattage (W): 85

Revision: 0x0000

Family: 0x00ba

Serial Number: 0x00a0caf9

Charging: No

I have the same problem... upgraded recently to mountain lion. Service battery message as well as the overheated buttons broke and poped off just before the message appeared. I had almost 4 hours battery life just weeks ago now I am at 1.55 hour for a full charge

Battery Information:

Model Information:

Serial Number: W0023PBU1BWZA

Manufacturer: SMP

Device Name: bq20z451

Pack Lot Code: 0

PCB Lot Code: 0

Firmware Version: 201

Hardware Revision: 000a

Cell Revision: 158

Charge Information:

Charge Remaining (mAh): 3688

Fully Charged: Yes

Charging: No

Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 3765

Health Information:

Cycle Count: 431

Condition: Service Battery

Battery Installed: Yes

Amperage (mA): -2785

Voltage (mV): 11761

System Power Settings:

AC Power:

System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Wake on AC Change: No

Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes

Wake on LAN: Yes

Current Power Source: Yes

Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes

GPUSwitch: 2

PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep: 0

RestartAfterKernelPanic: 157680000

Battery Power:

System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 2

Wake on AC Change: No

Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes

Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes

GPUSwitch: 2

Reduce Brightness: Yes

RestartAfterKernelPanic: 157680000

Hardware Configuration:

UPS Installed: No

AC Charger Information:

Connected: Yes

ID: 0x0100

Wattage (W): 60

Revision: 0x0000

Family: 0x00ba

Serial Number: 0x00551c77

Charging: No

also wondering if the foreign current in Indonesia has anything to do with it?

A few days ago I had the same issue with the same battery on a Macbook Air 13" (Mid 2012) with Mountain Lion.

One cause of this message is because the battery can't retain the 80% of the design capacity charge.

I installed coconutBattery to check the "maximum charge" battery and "design capacity charge" I noticed that I the "maximum charge" was of 75% of the "design capacity".

After calibrating the battery 3 o 4 times and use the notebook as normal I notice that the message "Service Battery" was gone. I check again on coconutBattery and I can see that I have the 81% of "design capacity" (before has 75%) so I guess that my "Service Message" was because my battery couldn't retain the 80% of the design capacity.

I hope this is useful.

calibrating your battery:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

coconutBattery:

http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/

I found this link usefull

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/10/27/applecare-adventures-how-to-get-a-faulty-macbook- battery-replac/

PD1: sorry for my poor English

Hi, I have a similar question. My 3 year old 13 inch Macbook recently showed the "Service Battery" sign as well...how urgent is it to take my battery in right away? Is it just a matter of shortened battery life (I mostly use my computer plugged into a power source) or are there other complications I should consider? I would appreciate any help on this because I am a college student with a lot of important material on my computer and I use my computer frequently. I have it backed up on an external hard drive, but I would like to know how much longer this battery will last me.

Thanks!

If you have a macbook (not pro) then you can quite easily buy a new battery at Fry's (for example) for around $60. I bought one for my old macbook so that I had 2 for long flights. It isn't the original Apple battery but who cares. If your computer is Macbook Pro then no, I would not worry too much about it.. although you say you use it plugged in most of the time, I would be unplugging it while you use it to help cycle the battery. It should give you better life of what is left of it. I would say if you are getting absolutely no life (under 15 minutes) then yes, it is time to replace.

As JoeyR said on the first page of this thread, with LiIon batteries you generally don't want to cycle them. Each cycle the battery goes through reduces its useful lifetime. So, it would be a bad idea to unplug your laptop as a matter of course, in normal use. (Some people need to run off battery power, of course. But if you can have your laptop plugged in when using it, then for the most part, you should.)

Anyone who wants to calibrate their laptop's battery, so that the battery meter is in sync with the actual battery capacity, should do so by following the exact procedure outlined by apple in their Knowledge Base article HT1490. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490 But that's an occasional procedure, and if all the steps are carried out properly it should be effective the first time it's done. At least as I understand things, it's not something that needs to be repeated multiple times to be effective, nor does it need to be performed frequently/regularly.

So I just checked my battery and it seems its maximum capacity is now 30% of its original capacity. 937 cycles too. Time for a replacement then huh? :) How much do Apple charge to replace them in the UK? it's a mid-2009 MacBook Pro 17".

I have an Early 2011 13" MacBook Pro and just got this message for the first time. Here is the information from my System Information and I have also attached the snapshot of Coconut Battery:

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Serial Number: 9G05205VAD3NB
Manufacturer: DP
Device Name: bq20z451
Pack Lot Code: 0
PCB Lot Code: 0
Firmware Version: 201
Hardware Revision: 2
Cell Revision: 164
Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 825
Fully Charged: No
Charging: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 4505
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 273
Condition: Service Battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1247
Voltage (mV): 10912

Any insight?

I got the same problem and this is an alternative for fixing it. I bought a MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2012 in Colombia and after 230 cycles (approximately) the battery performance began to drop (from 95 to 85%). After the 250 cycles, the battery performance dropped under 77% and the warning of "Service battery" appeared. I was very frustrated and I was about to take my Macbook to the technical service. The battery charge decreased from 7-8 hours to 5-6 hours before a complete year of use (!!). So, I tried different ways to increase the battery performance. These tips seemed to be useful:

- Emptying the battery charge completely.

- Charging the battery with the macbook turned off.

- If you aren't going to use the macbook for more than one hour, don't simply close the laptop. It's better to shutdown it. I realized that the battery performance dropped 2-3% after a prolonged hibernation.

- Don't interrupt the charge process. I prefer to do it overnight for avoiding incomplete charging cycles. After completing the charge, let the laptop connected two or more hours.

A week ago, my battery only charged up to the 75% of the maximum design capacity. Now, it's over 87% and I still expect to recover a little more of charge.

I hope that this information can be useful.

This will help

if you fully charge your battery and then let it run down every time it saves battery life i use coconut battery and had 65 % life left. i charged and fully uncharged with useage to 1 % battery life left then fully charged etc a few times and i now have 75% battery life using coconut battery.

this is a cause and effect as if you leave the battery on charge too long or always leave plugged in like a desktop this problem will occur quicker regardless of charge cycles.

DO NOT ALWAYS LEAVE YOUR LAPTOP ON CHARGE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (plugged in)

ITS NOT A DESKTOP COMPUTER!!!!!!!

fred121 wrote:

if you fully charge your battery and then let it run down every time it saves battery life

(Emphasis mine.)

Well, that's incredibly poor advice. What you're advocating is to put the battery through a full charge cycle between each recharge, which will in no way "save battery life", in fact it's incredibly taxing on the battery.

It's true that occasionally doing this can help preserve a lithium-ion battery's capacity (and, thus, the device's on-battery runtime) by "resetting" the charge circuitry's idea of "full" and "empty"; the Battery Health app calls this "calibrating" the battery and recommends doing it once every 1-3 months for best results, but certainly not "every time"!

The best advice for anyone who wants to keep their battery in good shape, though, is to read and understand the information provided on Apple's pages about Lithium-ion Batteries, and Notebook Batteries specifically, rather than some random, shouty all-caps internet forum post. The latter page does offer the following advice:

Standard Maintenance

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time. An ideal use would be a commuter who uses her notebook on the train, then plugs it in at the office to charge. This keeps the battery juices flowing.

ferdnyc-

I concur with your basic premises. BUT I would back away from Deep Discharge, whenever possible:

It's true that occasionally doing this can help preserve a lithium-ion battery's capacity (and, thus, the device's on-battery runtime) by "resetting" the charge circuitry's idea of "full" and "empty"

That is not necessary and is also destructive to currently-shipping Lithium batteries. The article you cited says that batteries that are not removeable "do not need to be calibrated".

There is nothing more destructive to Lithium batterys than deep discharge. But keeping them completely charged for months on end will also shorten their lives somewhat.