Filed under: Hardware, Portables, Tips and tricks, Mac 101
Mac 101: Keep your battery happy and healthy
There's a good tip at CreativeBits today on prolonging your battery's life. Specifically, it's about letting it run through "cycles."When your battery is fully charged, be it in your laptop, iPhone or iPod, and you let it run until the device dies, you've used up one cycle. Over time, it will lose its ability to retain a full charge. However, there are simple steps you can take to prolong its life (or draw out its death. However you choose to look at it). The folks at CreativeBits recommend at least one cycle every two weeks.
You can also use tools like CoconutBattery and iStatPro to see how many cycles your laptop battery has completed and to monitor its health.
For a more thorough look at your laptop's battery check out our article on battery calibration.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Darren said 5:31PM on 10-20-2008
To be more clear, you need *the equivalent* of one charge cycle every two weeks (e.g., 2 half-charge cycles, 4 quarter-charge cycles, etc.), which isn't hard to do for most people unless your laptop never leaves your desk and is always plugged in.
If your iPod/Laptop will go unused for an extended period of time, Apple recommends storing the battery at a 40% charge.
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Norman said 5:50PM on 10-20-2008
Customers ask this SO often, i read tons of threads about it, and then finally some professor who studied that kind of stuff said that you don't have to take your battery out of your laptop, with the new licium-polymer batteries it doesn't matter ... so many ppl are concerned that if the battery is in the laptop, it gets warm, and it always gets recharged at 97 %, up to 100 again .... could we get some sheet of "true" and "urban legend" facts about what you SHOULD and what you SHOULDNT do with your battery?
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al said 6:41PM on 10-20-2008
It is just as effective to store your computer on a pyramid. You may need two if you want to sharpen razor blades at the same time.
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Dave said 6:33PM on 10-20-2008
"You can also use tools like CoconutBattery and iStatPro to see how many cycles your laptop battery has completed..."
You can also use System Profiler (/Applications/Utilities). It has a cycle count as well as other details about the battery. No doubt, not as thorough as these applications (which I haven't used) but for the curious out there who don't want to install a third-party app, System Profiler is a wealth of information.
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Allan L. said 6:39PM on 10-20-2008
These articles always leave me scratching my head. My battery is 2 years old; it shows 21 cycles and 97% of original capacity. Except when I travel, the MacBook Pro is plugged in. At this rate, the battery will last longer than the rest of the computer. But what if it doesn't? The replacement cost is trivial and the inconvenience of "cycling" the battery is significant.
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John said 6:55PM on 10-20-2008
System Profiler/Power will also give you a cycle count. I found this out 'cause Apple asked me what it was before they replaced my MB batt.
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Caitlin said 7:44PM on 10-20-2008
99% at 19 cycles?
I'm still at 100% at 181 cycles.
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dumbomorton said 9:01PM on 10-20-2008
100% at 452 cycles
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Mike Puchol said 9:44PM on 10-20-2008
A LiPo battery like those found in almost every battery-powered device Apple sells today measures its life in full charge-discharge cycles. These batteries do NOT suffer from "memory" effects, meaning that by letting the battery run down fully and recharging it, you are using up more cycles, and thus -shortening- your battery life.
LiPo batteries like being discharged a bit, say down to 70% or 80%, and then recharged. If they get too discharged, crystallization begins and can cause premature battery failure. Below a certain voltage, the battery can get internally shorted and thus fail-safe circuitry will not allow the battery to be recharged again, rendering it unusable.
Excellent resource on battery do and don't from Battery University:
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-21.htm
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Andrew B said 2:31AM on 10-21-2008
Great story about this. My girlfriend's 3 year old 12" Powerbook's battery died, and since it was only about 70 charge cycles, they replaced it, no question. Keep in mind that the Laptop was out of warranty for almost 2 years, and they didn't even charge a dime to look at the laptop.
Other companies would love to see you buy a new battery, or better yet, another laptop as she's purchased 1 apple device in 3 years and they basically brought it back from the dead for maybe years to come.
That's the apple tax right there, and we love it.
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aaike said 2:50AM on 10-21-2008
I am wondering what the bar next to the cycle number in iStat means...
I got 160 cycles on a 10 months old MBP with the bar completely to the right (does this mean I completed a cycle recently?) and a health of 79%. I have no idea if this battery performance is rather good or bad...
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John-Erling said 3:13AM on 10-21-2008
I've been regularly letting my battery run down a bit, as I use it a lot with the power adapter at my office. Once a month (or so), I've also let it run completely dry. The battery health was fine from the day I got it in January and up until recently when it suddenly dropped to around 50%. I'm very disappointed with this, and wondering if there is anyway to bring the health back up once it's down, or if this is more of a permanent thing. How long should I expect my battery to have good health?
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John-Erling said 3:13AM on 10-21-2008
BTW, my battery has been through 44 cycles so far.
MikeP said 7:34AM on 10-21-2008
@ John-Erling
I would contact Apple and let them know about the problem. I had this happen with 2 MBP batteries in 2 years. They both got to about 80 cycles and suddenly lost health. I was hardly getting an hours battery life. Worse still, the machine would shut down abruptly well before the battery hit 0%. I contacted Apple on both occasions and had the battery replaced for free. You may be without your computer for a day or two, "they need to test the machine to see if it is a motherboard problem." You should also check the Apple support pages for the battery exchange programs.
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro
http://www.apple.com/support/macbook
Your battery should last a minimum of 300 cycles before you notice any major deterioration.
Hope this helps
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John-Erling said 9:16AM on 10-21-2008
Thanks mate, I will
Tyler said 11:51AM on 10-21-2008
A lot of this seems to differ from battery to battery. I have a two year old Macbook and my battery has gone through 400 cycles and is at 97%. I don't know why some batteries will last forever, and some quit after 80 cycles or so. I wonder if it has to do with the batch of chemicals they mix up. At any rate, all the tips and tricks to get the most out of your battery seems to be a bunch of voodoo to me.
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casey said 2:09PM on 10-21-2008
100% at 631 ... battery will be 2 years old next month. I am on the go a lot, so most of these are full discharges.
I have never seen a laptop battery like this behave so well and last so long... but i wont complain ;)
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Tom said 8:02PM on 10-21-2008
just FYI, I was told by apple that after 300 cycles they no longer will replace your battery. AppleCare dogs also refer to the battery as a consumable item.
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Olligarski said 3:09PM on 10-22-2008
How do I reverse mouse movements?
I'd like to mount a trackball upside down and perhaps you can help me out.
Also, where do webclips (user created widgets) reside?
Regards/J
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