Filed under: Hardware, Tips and tricks, Snow Leopard
10.6 falsely reports 'service battery?' ... I think not
Over the last couple weeks, I've been going back and forth with readers who truly believe that Snow Leopard is reporting battery errors when they have a perfectly good battery. There's even a substantially large thread in Apple's Discussions forums about this topic. I've been notified of that thread many times, accused of not covering real issues, hiding the truth and just plain refusing to believe that it's an issue with the Operating System.After trudging through all of that, I've determined that it's a whole bunch of hoopla. I'm not saying that some of these people aren't experiencing real issues with the software -- just the sheer amount of complaints in the discussion forums would say there are problems -- but the "Service Battery" complaint doesn't appear to be related to software issues at all.
One of the big differences between Leopard and Snow Leopard is how they report issues with the battery. Leopard didn't report issues in a place where most users would know to check: System Profiler - Power - Health Information. Snow Leopard reports issues directly from your Menu Bar as shown in the picture. This difference caused a real stir in our tips box because many users never knew that their batteries were bad before Snow Leopard. "My battery isn't bad, it worked fine until I installed Snow Leopard" -- Yes, it may have worked fine but that doesn't mean it didn't have issues before the upgrade. Apple just made the problems more noticeable in the OS. In fact, they're helping their users catch them sooner.
Most of the time, people don't realize their battery has issues until it REALLY has issues like 20 minute run-times, random shut downs, the black "x" in the battery icon, etc. All of these are issues we (technicians) use to identify a bad battery. These new battery checks could actually help you find out your battery is bad before the warranty runs out; before it gets to the point of no return.
Genius Bars and Apple Authorized Service Providers now have a special utility that actually reads the health information directly from the battery and can determine why the Operating System says the battery needs serviced. Most of the time the problem will fall into two categories: battery failure or depletion. This diagnostic tool is actually a game-changer in the world of Apple's battery warranty: batteries are no longer automatically covered through the first year. If the battery legitimately fails, they'll replace it free of charge. If you happen to deplete the battery within the first year, you'll pay for a new battery.
Take all of this information with a grain of salt. Apple IS helping us by having the OS show us when the battery fails, but they've also made warranty battery replacements a little more fair on their end. Having blanket warranties for a year probably cost them a lot of money considering it's pretty easy to deplete a battery within that time if you don't take care to keep it healthy.
I've had the battery in my MacBook Pro for 9 months now. I have 245 cycles on the battery, 3-4 hours of pretty heavy usage (without the killer graphics enabled), and 99% health rating according to iStat Pro. I'll leave you with a few tips to help maintain the health of your battery:
- Never leave the machine plugged in all the time. Laptops are meant to be portable. Using it as a desktop that never runs on the battery will destroy your battery life.
- Cycles are your friend. Never letting the battery complete a cycle will greatly diminish your run-time. Try to avoid charging the battery unless it's drained past 30%. Any time the battery drains past 50% and charges more than 50% counts as a cycle. The farther you let it drain before the charge - the better its overall health will remain.
- 30 cycles in a year is not a good thing. ;)
- Let the battery drain completely a few times a week.
- Never let it sit for long periods of time without use. Batteries need to be loved or else they won't love you.
UPDATE -- There have been a lot of opinions expressed in the comments about the proper care and feeding of Apple laptop batteries, especially the newer lithium ion units. I'm happy to see that this article sparked such a healthy debate. To be clear, my tips here are not directly based on Apple's recommendations. They are driven by my personal experience servicing Apple laptops and Apple batteries for customers, and my own battery health history. For a different take on proper battery care for modern gear, we were pointed to feedback from Marco Ament that's worth a look. If we have electrical engineers or battery designers in the audience that wish to weigh in, we'd be happy to hear from you.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Bullet said 7:14AM on 9-24-2009
Nice that you're impartial about this issue. I regularly cycle my battery and experience this issue. Also, I put the in the leopard disk (or boot it from USB) and my battery life improves dramatically. There IS an issue. It's good that your legwork on this issue was 'mine doesn't have this problem.' If you're not going to put in any legwork, don't write the article.
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peej said 1:13PM on 9-24-2009
That's funny, I had the same problem with SL too. Guess what? Replacing the battery fixed it.
Sorry, batteries die and they go bad really quickly. Causality has not been established between SL and battery failure, not even in that apple forum thread. Just a bunch of people understandably venting about a battery dying before we feel like it should have.
Complain about the poor batteries and leave SL out of it.
beenyweenies said 6:37PM on 9-24-2009
Peej, try reading the posts next time before spouting off. No one is complaining about dying batteries, they are complaining about SL incorrectly reporting otherwise perfectly good batteries as bad. I have a BRAND NEW BATTERY and SL is warning me to replace it. The user above showed that the exact same "bad" battery in SL is shown as perfectly healthy in Leopard. The Apple forum full of people with similar problems aren't just griping because their battery might be dying, there is a definite issue with SL's battery reporting, perhaps not everyone is affected but it's an issue nonetheless.
You waste everyone's time and look like an idiot when you don't read before posting.
Mat said 7:22AM on 9-24-2009
Actually, for the types of battery and charge circuit used here, those tips at the bottom of the article are incorrect. Batteries are very complex devices, old ideas such as memory effect and deplete-recharge cycles are misleading for modern devices.
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Tony said 7:27AM on 9-24-2009
Apples own battery page is much better here, coverting the issues in more detail - http://www.apple.com/batteries/
Old ideas like 'let the battery run down' still prevail, but I'm surprised TUAW are perpetuating them.
Joanna D said 7:26AM on 9-24-2009
Well that wasn't patronising... at all...
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Vito said 10:06AM on 9-24-2009
Again, I agree with Joanna D.
The latest round of bloggers here definitely has a bit of an attitude (unjustifiably IMO) - it seems they're trying to live up to the smug Apple 'holier than thou' stereotype. You'd think this site was run by Jobs himself...
This site has definitely gotten less fun over the past year.
Johnny said 11:38AM on 9-24-2009
While I usually avoid jumping on the 'TUAW has gotten bad' wagon, I am really starting to agree. Most of the articles are just a re-hash of another blog's article or have no real technical insight at all. I used to spend the most time reading this blog, but now I usually just skim it and find very little useful information. There is probably about 2-3 really good articles per week and they are usually posted by the 'senior' staff. On that note, what happened to Robert Palmer? I really enjoyed a lot of his articles, but he seems to have disappeared even though he is still profiled as a blogger on this site.
jared said 7:27AM on 9-24-2009
I've had my macbook pro for 18 months with only 43 cycles, and after installing snow leopard it showed as Service Battery. I tried to condition it, and the health went from 84% to 61% after trying that. I took it to the Apple store, and no questions asked, they just swapped it out with a new one. The guy at the genius bar said that most likely one of the 13 cells had ruptured to cause that dramatic of a decrease that fast. Even though I thought it wouldn't be covered by applecare, they were very nice, and I was in and out with a new battery in less than 10 minutes all for free.
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bward74 said 7:30AM on 9-24-2009
What about the seemingly dozens of users in that forum thread, who claim they did cycle their battery regularly under Leopard, and even have reverted back to Leopard to find their laptop not randomly shutting down anymore???
What about the posts on that forum thread who have said it's a NEW battery, which has all-of-a-sudden started to suffer with random shut-downs after SL installation?
I myself used to regularly use my Macbook Pro without AC power, and used to get a good 3-4 hours life out of it. Now, I am lucky to get half an hour before it shuts down in a flash without warning. Also, since my SL upgrade, I have the issue where it will stop charging the battery even if it hasn't reached 100% yet. At the moment, my battery is showing 96% yet I have a green light on my power lead! That NEVER happened before SL.
To say there is not an issue with the software here is appalling!! As far as I am concerned, this sites reputation has just dramatically dropped.
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corpirate said 8:04AM on 9-24-2009
This is normal.
To fix.. let the battery run down below 93%.. then charge you'll go up to 100%.
This has been the case for Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard. All Apple portable machines for the last 4-5 years do this.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1909
bward74 said 8:08AM on 9-24-2009
Thank you for the info and link Corpirate. This is the first I have heard of the issue though since I have only started having it since SL.
It doesn't explain the random shut-downs of course, which apparently stop when booting Leopard from an external drive etc etc. That's my main issue.
beenyweenies said 6:29PM on 9-24-2009
Yes, I have a brand new battery and after proper cycling etc. it's still giving me a critical warning to replace the battery. I've even charged/run down the battery several times since the initial cycle and the message hasn't gone away.
I love it when people publicly poo-poo the claims of others based solely on their own limited experience. The author may not have had issues, but is that limited experience really worth an entire writeup to say the rest of us just don't know how to manage our macs? TUAW must have really needed some content to throw up, and in the world of blogging it never hurts for said content to stir up controversy and anger just for the sake of it.
Bah.
DiabloDan2001 said 6:55PM on 9-24-2009
The battery wont charge if its with in 5% or so of max capacity.
It would be bad for the health of the battery if it did.
If you let it run down a little farther and then charge it, it will go back to 100% charged.
It worked this way even BEFORE Snow Leopard.
-Dan
Bobby said 7:58AM on 9-24-2009
My Macbook from late 2006 has had 476 cycles and its still running fine. Istat says it health is 99%
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jmgomezg said 7:36AM on 9-24-2009
Erm, sorry but if you properly read the thread discussion, you will realise the problem is not only the "Service Battery", but the sudden shut down when battery is over 50% or 60%, that is the real issue, I agree most of the batteries are not in good health previous to Snow Leopard, but mine for example was still giving me a good couple of hours work, now, I can't even make 30 minutes, and it shuts down with no warning of low battery, so I would say it is an OS issue.
I and all the community having this issue will really appreciate if you rectify this post.
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XB said 7:55AM on 9-24-2009
What? You mean actually reading things before writing? I know your kind of people... Then you'll ask for impartiality. This will be the end of blogging...
;)
Dave Wood said 10:43AM on 9-24-2009
Well my battery was doing the shutdown without warning before Snow Leopard. When I installed Snow Leopard it told me to service the battery. Said it was safe to continue using it though. I kept using it for another week, until it exploded (technically expanded).
Took it to Apple, and they just replaced it, no issue. For the record, I'm one of the people who have their MacBook Pro plugged in almost all the time. It's about 2 years old, and the battery had a cycle count of 77.
Skorfulose said 7:44AM on 9-24-2009
WTF? Have you ever read the Apple recommendations you linked to?
You got "cycle" totally wrong. One cycle is meant to be using 100% of the battery's capacity. Not necessarily in one row. You can also drain say 30% today, recharge in the evening, and then drain 70% tomorrow. That'd be one cycle.
Look at the illustration at the Apple page!
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ItGuy said 7:55AM on 9-24-2009
Lots of bad advice there. LiIon and LiPolymer batteries need a different method of caring for them. Basically, you want to keep them topped off. Use it every once and a while, maybe drain it once a month or 2 and you will be set.
Here's some much better information:
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
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