Macbook pro battery life

How many cycles?

I've been having the same problem. I got my mac 4 months ago and now my battery isn't the greatest. I charge it during the night but not every night. I also will charge it for a few hours. And when i do so the battery drains more than it should.

Andresv0202 wrote:

29

What are you doing? Draining the battery every day? The more you use it, the faster it deteriorates.

What are you doing? Draining the battery every day? The more you use it, the faster it deteriorates.

From…

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

"The built-in battery of your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air is designed to deliver up to 1000 full charge and discharge cycles before it reaches 80 percent of its original capacity."

… means it should take around 3 years of a daily full battery dicharge to get to 80%, or using the median, approximately a year and a half of that to get to 90%.

Thats the thing, I don't use my computer everyday. Every once in a while i watch netflix, leave my computer for maybe an hour or so, put it in sleep mode. I turn it off when I'm not home or when not using it it will be off.

And your point is what? Those figures that Apple posts are under ideal conditions. Getting 29 charge cycles in a month is not ideal use. Many people are under the incorrect assumption that the battery needs to be fully discharged and then fully recharged each time. A charge cycle is a complete drain and recharge.

It is best if you start your own thread instead of piggy-backing on some one else's question. The original poster was quite vague at first, with a battery that doesn't last "that long" and then revealed very heavy draining and recharging behaviour.

Your reply adds that your battery "isn't the greatest" and drains "more than it should". Please take this opportunity to start your own thread and include specific values that people can use for comparison and diagnostics.

And your point is what? Those figures that Apple posts are under ideal conditions.

My point is that's what one should "expect" from their battery. Normal variances aside, getting to less than 90% battery condition should take over a year with a daily full discharge rate.

Many people are under the incorrect assumption that the battery needs to be fully discharged and then fully recharged each time.

That might be true although I hardly think that matters.

A charge cycle is a complete drain and recharge.

That's stating only half the information. The charge cycle count is cumulative so that a full discharge and then full charge (as you have correctly stated being a single charge cycle) is actually the same as discharging it 10% then charging it that 10%, 10 times. You assume a full discharge which may well be far from the truth. The cycle count will advance irrespective of the system's battery having never gone below 50%.

Having a charge cycle count of 29 in a month is far from atypical. All that says is that someone with a current system uses it on battery between 4 and 7 hours in a day. It is a laptop isn't it and is supposed to be used on battery right? FWIW my 3.5 month old rMBP has a charge cycle count of 88. Some of us do use out MBPs/MBAs in places other than at a desk.

A battery condition of 89% in a month I would consider outside of a typical variance. Whether AppleCare service will do something about it is another matter for the OP to take up with them.

If someone actually needs to run off battery that much, then it is fine. But doing that is going to wear out the battery more quickly. I immediately get suspicious when someone with a new machine starts installing those monitoring tools and proclaims a problem without any specifics other than what the 3rd party freebie tool reports.

Apple products are designed to work without having to worry about the details. People who obsess about the details start to see problems that aren't there. Keep the machine plugged in unless you don't have a plugin. Get rid of the monitoring tools.

If someone actually needs to run off battery that much, then it is fine. But doing that is going to wear out the battery more quickly.

With an "up to 5 year" battery lifespan I don't believe that a full charge cycle per day is going to wear it out any faster than leaving it plugged in all day. I usually find that those that consistently use their laptops on battery tend to have better batteries at 3+ years than those that leave it plugged most of the time.

I immediately get suspicious when someone with a new machine starts installing those monitoring tools and proclaims a problem without any specifics other than what the 3rd party freebie tool reports.

I'm sure that even the most poorly written 3rd party tool can do long division.

Apple products are designed to work without having to worry about the details. People who obsess about the details start to see problems that aren't there. Keep the machine plugged in unless you don't have a plugin. Get rid of the monitoring tools.

I agree with you to a point although I'm a big believer that those that know how their system should behave is the first step in knowing that their system not behaving correctly. There's a balance between doing none and being obessive to help in either knowing when something is wrong, being better able to find where it is wrong or simply how to get more from your system (like attaining a higher average battery runtime).