Mavericks - power use / service battery

same experience for me. i have a MBP early 2011 for 2 1/2 years. service battery suddenly appeared after mavericks update. tried everything from NVRAM and SMC reset and battery calibration but the service battery message still exist. my battery only had a cycle count of 128. i don't know if my battery is the problem or there is something wrong within the mavericks power management. well, i ended up going to the apple store and have a new battery replacement... LOL. it seems like mavericks wants us to replace our battery.

See my post here : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5951774

The battery capacity is down to 796 mAh (less than removable battery used in toys!) where it should be 6900 mAh (coconutBattery diagnosis).....

If the system use this value to evaluate the battery charge, it's normal that the battery life is less than one hour.

So for me it's definitelly a problem with Maverick.

And still the same even with the 10.9.2 update installed this morning.....

Take your Mac to an Apple Store, it needs a new battery. A free replacement may be possible but only the Store can tell you that.

Why would we? For many people, including myself, it is no fun having things fixed by someone else.

If only I had an AppleStore in the neighborhood.....

The closest is 2 hours from my home 😟 so a simple diagnostic cost 65 euros in a retailer shop.

Sigismundus wrote:

Why would we? For many people, including myself, it is no fun having things fixed by someone else.

So fix it yourself, it's your choice.

Good luck.

Same problem here (i thought i was the only one) 13'' MBA mid 2011 starting showing "Service battery" after Mavericks update.

Tried to reset SMC,re-calibrate the battery and it worked for 1-2 days,then "Service Battery" appeared and now is always there.

Sometimes when i open the lid,after the battery is fully depleated,everything is soooo slow (cursor,opening apps) for about 5-10 minutes and the kernel_task cpu utilization is over the roof.

Here's the log of Coconut Battery :

got my computer back from apple. they said it was cords inside the core of the computer that were causing my issues. computer has worked fine since i got it back and it is running maverick. fingers crossed nothing else happens. I would definitely take your computer into an apple store and have them check it out.

What's "cords in the core"?

How has this not been fixed!??!?!

My battery is fluctuating between 80% and 59% capacity with about 50% the battery time pre-Mavericks. What terrible "upgrade."

Same issue here on a macbook air 13" 2012. After the SSD failure this seems to be the next thing.

Where are the good old days where apple products just worked...

Alas poor Yorick, your battery has declined. 😝

How much time do you get on a full charge (no estimates please)

Well I can't give hard numbers as I don't have software installed to monitor it.

Naturally it varies by usage but it wont last longer then 2 hours doing any task.

I would be able to give you exact numbers if I'd install the monitoring software but as that is almost as much effort as replacing the batteries themselves I might refrain from doing so.

I informed at the apple store where they estimated the replacement costs around 130 euro.

So after I find myself a suitable replacement machine i'll replace the batteries myself and will attempt to resell.

I just had to air my frustration and disappointment for I am No longer a fellow of infinite jest!

You don't need monitoring software to see how long your battery lasts. A watch will suffice (a pen and paper will help if you can't remember when you turned it on)

Manual data gathering?! And what is this pen and paper you speak of?

But all kidding aside, what's the difference if its 2 hours and 10 minutes or 1 hour and 50 minutes?

I'm happy to see that people actually reply to my posts but I doubt we can fix it by analyzing the exact uptime.
I just wanted to add to the thread so they might look into this problem. On the other hand they might not. It could be caused by us users and have nothing to do with apple's hard/software but at least the simple act of making a post lowered my frustration.

So unless you know a fix for laptop batteries that only last a specific x amount of time I think I'll leave the laptop in its sleeve.

I hope that doesn't make me sound like an ***... People like you make these forums a great place for troubleshooting and information and I do appreciate your help and dedication!

I just seem to be unlucky when it comes to the durability of my apple products, I still love their vision.