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    Battery calibrating.....

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by iwantamac, Oct 31, 2007.

  1. iwantamac

    iwantamac Notebook Evangelist

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    I calibrated my battery last night and I just turned on my laptop like a few minutes ago. And um battery health seems to have gone DOWN, rather than up (from 98% to 96%). Is this normal? The only thing I may have screwed up during calibration is that I cut the 5 hours where you're supposed to drain, wait 5 hours, and then plug it in, a little short (waited about 5.5 hours before plugging it in). It was not used while it was charging.
     
  2. vespoli

    vespoli 402 NBR Reviewer

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    Calibrating the battery doesn't necessarily increase battery life/health, what it does is make the battery gauge more accurate, so when it says you have xx% left, it's correct: you have xx% left rather than it showing xx% and you having yy%.

    So, if it's an older computer that sees battery use, it makes sense for capacity to go down.
     
  3. iwantamac

    iwantamac Notebook Evangelist

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    Older? It's 11 months old for god's sakes, and the battery itself is 2 months old.
     
  4. vespoli

    vespoli 402 NBR Reviewer

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    Well how much do you use it away from the outlet?
    You might want to read through the battery guide.
     
  5. Sam

    Sam Notebook Virtuoso

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    Don't worry about it. Battery health indicators are not that accurate, and very often, you will actually see the battery health go back up suddenly.

    It happened to me as well. I calibrated my battery, it went to 96% battery health from 100%, and after a week or two I noticed it went back to 100%.

    So don't worry about it. If the battery health starts to dramatically drop, like to 80-85% in the next while, then you should worry.