Mavericks - power use / service battery

ZDNET has one since October. MacBook users seeing 'Service Battery' message after Mavericks ...

I just upgraded to Mavericks and I get the same "Service Battery" message. My Mac Air is 1.5 years old(Mid 2012) and has a little over 300 battery cycles. The battery life is very bad after the upgrade and the service battery message - around 2.5 hours on a fully charged battery compared to 5+ hours with my old operating system

I called apple care today and the representative wasn't familiar with this issue. He told me I needed to replace my battery and it would cost me 129 dollars. He added that Apple was out of stock for batteries until the end of January.. Why is Apple out of stock?? Maybe because too many people have the same exact problem and need to replace their batteries ?!?!

Although out of warranty, my opinion is that there should be some quality program that takes care of this issue because it is pathethic to have a $1500 computer with a little over 300 cycles and 42% battery health(Apple claims that 1000 battery cycles will reduce the health of the battery to 80%, which is not even close to 42).

Merry Christmas

Hi

I am a Mac user from Israel and since there is no Apple store in here , what should i do in that case? I can't really replace my battery here. more then that, I have tried to revert to Mountain lion and there I had the "service battery" message again - did the Mavericks upgrade killed my battery ? 😠

Have you tried the suggested fixes on this thread (as I have)? Resetting the SMC works for a while, but calibrating the battery did work for me. Check my previous comments.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5478677?answerId=24177113022#24177113022

Again, people make the mistake of assuming the meaning of "up to seven hours of operation" is a strict one. Most MBPs can run from 7 hours or more unplugged under "normal" loads. If you have power hungry apps running, your laptop will definitely consume more power and the battery will drain faster, even if it's new.

I also believe that Mavericks didn't cause the "service battery" issue alone, as it has also occurred in previous OS X versions and the problem has been selective. It may simply be a case of misuse: keeping it plugged all the time instead of regularly draining and charging the battery. As it is, all of the complaints here have been that; seeing the "service battery" issue with only a few charge cycles, even on a newer unit.

Shaike@me, go to iDigital.

I have tried to reset SMC / PRAM and calibrate the battery (charge full then use it till it 0% then keep it empty for 5 hours and then charge full again - it didn't help)

i even tried to reinstall Mountain lion but there I can see the Service battery prompt again... :-(

how iDigital would help ? they will tell me to buy a new battery (eventough my was charged ~230 cycles)

Here is my situation, which might be another case for there being a power management problem with the OS. My issue is concerning Mountain Lion though as I have not yet upgraded to Mavericks yet.

I own two late 2011 17" Macbook Pros. As soon as Mountain Lion was installed on one of my machines, I received a "Service Battery" warning. I then decided to switch hard drives between the two machines, leaving the operating systems in tact on both hard drives. When I switched the hard drives, the "Service Battery" warning moved to the other computer with that hard drive. I restarted the machines, reset the SMC, repaired permissions and am still experiencing the issue. The machine that originally flashed the warning had a lot of battery cycles on it, however, the second machine that adopted the warning through the hard drive transfer has only 13 cycles on its battery.

Apple's operating system, starting with Mountain Lion and then moving on to Mavericks, has something weird going on with its power management. I really hope it's not some ploy to get people to prematurely purchase new batteries. First Apple makes their batteries impossible to be replaced by their users and then turns around and flashes warnings that require them to be replaced.

do you still notice a decrease of your full charge capacity or did changing the battery fix the problem?

thinking about getting a replacement (even though there is no chance of warrenty...) so it would be interesting of the problem/bug is fixed with just replacing the battery

cheers

Shaike@me wrote:

I have tried to reset SMC / PRAM and calibrate the battery (charge full then use it till it 0% then keep it empty for 5 hours and then charge full again - it didn't help)

i even tried to reinstall Mountain lion but there I can see the Service battery prompt again... :-(

how iDigital would help ? they will tell me to buy a new battery (eventough my was charged ~230 cycles)

After draining it, did you charge completely it without turning it on?

Hey erickpere2, I was wondering if you followed the battery calibration procedure literally? It says you should let the battery rest for 5 hours after it goes to sleep before you start charging it again. Did you do this or do you immediately plug the charger in after it goes to sleep? Also, do you use your macbook while it is charging or do you have to let it charge before you can use it? And finally, are you doing this on a daily or weekly basis?

Sorry for all the questions, but reading through this thread and seeing apple is not releasing any fix, you seem to be the only one posting something that actually seems to give some results.

Thanks in advance.

Hello from Portugal.

I have a Macbook Pro 13" and have the same trouble: after Mavericks, have a drainage in battery really fast, 2 hours with 348 cycles.

Tried to calibrate even If they said the Macbook pro 13" Unibody did not need that. Even like that, no improved seen. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Hi cdaniel_me,

What I do is plug it in right after it turns off but there have been a few occasions when I let it sit before I charge it again...I do this whenever I turn on my MacBook and use it till it dies. I haven't had the service battery warning return since I started doing this and by now I've totally forgotten about it. Here is an update on my battery, started with 74% and now at 98% check my earlier posts.

I tried everything that I saw on most posts related to battery life, index, etc... And still the problem remains. I'm sure my new mba june 2013 will not last long. I'm glad I purchased the three-year protection plan. I predict my machine will die within a few months. Mavericks is the Apple Vista.

so despite all efforts i'm now down to 1923mAh, from the initial (already decreased 5258mAh with a cycle count of 60. no warranty since replacement parts only has a warranty of 6 months, so i have to pay for a new battery…

I’m concerned that a new battery is just the beginning of the old problem…

and there is no solution in sight…

Hi,

Just called Apple service centre. Anything that is connected to your computer (SD Card or other) and that is NOT on your spotlight exclusion list will generate spotlight to re-index constantly and cause power usage to be very high most of the times. Just my advice to ensure all external cards, drives, etc... that are attached to your computer must be put on your spotlight confidentiality exclusion list. Maybe you knew that, but I didn't. My indexing problem is solved.