Macbook Pro Battery Health 97% after 9 cycles???

I have only had my macbook for about 2 weeks now and I have used my battery has gone through 9 cycles and my battery health is already 97% 5364mAH? Is this normal?

 

i think thats a little bit too much degradation for only 9 cycles.

try this- let the battery fully discharge and recharge it.

then from a fully charged battery, do the same thing again, maybe twice.

then when you charge it up the next time, see if you can push a full 100% charge.

 

IIRC, Lithium batteries never fully charge themselves. I really would not worry unless you see it drop a lot.

 

Well, I really doubt you will get a 100%. I checked mine a while back ago (like 1 month use) and it was 96% too. I don´t think you will get 100% from a new battery.

Anyway, my macbook is 10 month old, it has been through 179 loadcycles and is at its 89% of capacity (4640 out of 5200 mAh). I still get more than 3 hours or so.

 

Mine gets to 99 or 100 depending on whether I am using it plugged in or not. If I notice it trending to 98/99 % then I do a full discharge and recharge and it usually fixes it. I'm trying to make my battery last too.

 

I've had my MBP for almost a year. I'm at 92% after 200 cycles.

 

My MBP didn't charge up past 96% after the first time I used the battery, but after I used it some more it went back to 100%. I wouldn't worry too much either way, but as masterchef mentioned above try calibrating the battery.

 

Where do you see this information in the apple os?

 

In the System Profiler - either start it directly from the Applications/Utilities folder or go to the Apple menu (top left corner), About This Mac, More Info. Battery information is listed under "power".

 

If calibrating doesn't work, you could try Resetting MacBook and MacBook Pro System Management Controller (SMC)

 

i've resetted the SMC, and tried recalibration...my battery health is at 53% with 29 cycles...about 2 months old...should i get a replacement?

 

How did you measured Battery Health?

If the answer is iStat, then keep in mind that Battery Health is an indicator of how much power is your battery holding regarding previous charges, that means that the software calculates your batt performance based on how much does the "time left" or "% Batt left" or even "capacity in mAh" have varied. Also remember that battery charge and discharge varies after several factors as temperature, AC voltage anomalies, processor load, screen brightness etc.

As long as your MBP battery time holds into acceptable working thresholds (for me it is between 2 and 3 hours) you shouldn't be worried. As a more objective measure you can refer to Apple support:

A properly maintained Apple notebook battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity after 300 full charge and discharge cycles.
http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

It is normal to have some variations in your first cycles.

I will include my own numbers:
Cycles: 56
Battery health (from iStat): 94%
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 5172
Amperage (mA): 125
Voltage (mV): 12615
Battery time: arround 3Hours on Normal setting.

This is a 3 month old MBP 15" 2.16 GHz 2 GB RAM on its second battery (the first one applied to a recall)

Hope to be helpful

 

Hey all,

My battery health is also at 97% after only 7 cycles, however I do get a full charge of 100% no problem.

Is this rate of decline of the battery normal?


I've noticed that most people are posting what charge they have, the original poster is asking about the HEALTH..not CHARGE.

Any input about the HEALTH of the battery would be great.


Thanks

 

Hi URFLiX,

In the future, please refer to the stickies before posting .

From the Mac Switcher's Guide:

So in short, 97% battery health is not something to freak over yet. Calibrate the battery and see if it goes back to 100%. And the battery health may suddenly shoot back to 100% anyways. The battery health indicators aren't that accurate.

 

how do you check how many cycles you have gone through?

 

The easiest way is to use the iStat Pro widget. Its really useful, I highly recommend it.

 

IT'S EASY!

click here for instructions.

http://www.nvme.co.uk/main/equipment/index.html

thanks,
-s

 

iStat Pro widget tells me my battery is 100% healthy after 67 cycles.

I think the post above mine is true. live your mbp plugged for for a few hours after you turn it off every once in a while.

 

i think everyone on here is talking about batter charge percentage...which is totally different from the health. i just bought this macbook pro like a week ago, its been through only 13 charge cycles and it already is at 93% battery life. it just doesnt seem normal to have lost 7% of the battery health in a week. i also have a pretty new macbook (black) and that one has been through 100+ charges and still has 100% battery life. even if the batteries in both are composed of different material, my macbook pro should still have 100% battery life.
if it happens to you, call apple.
btw. to check the real health of your battery you need to download a program that tells you the exact health percentage like istat pro. otherwise, the system profiler will only tell you its in "good" or "bad" condition.

ibook 12 inch, macbook (black) late 2007, Macbook pro(2008), Iphone, who knows how many ipods.

 

Same thing happens to me after 5 charging cycles .My MBP is also just 1 week old

BTW I calibrate the battery like apple said their web site.

 

Completely normal FYI. My MBP was 99% out of the box, and dropped to 97% straight after. Right now it's 95% after 12 cycles, and I've had the system since end of October 2007.

 

If you want to prevent fast battery degradation DO NOT fully discharge. Only do that for calibration purposes which should be done sparingly in any case. Otherwise your battery will lie to you and say its at 100% and when you take it down about half way it will plummet to 5%. Has happened with me, so I am warning you. Don't take me seriously? Try it yourself.

Typically you want to recharge Li-Ion batteries between 10%-20% not any lower than that otherwise you risk damaging it.

 

My mom's MBP is reporting 1390 mAh as max charge after 16 cycles.

System Profiler calls this "fair."

 

My B'new MBP hit back to 100% again (Today I fully discharge the battery and recharge it)

 

These battery calculators aren't perfectly accurate. Back a while ago, I calibrated my battery, and it showed 96% battery health. About two weeks later, it miraculously jumped back to 100% battery health. So nothing to worry about too much, unless its significant.

 

All your "Battery Health" numbers are little more than some software trying to make sense out a very imperfect algorithm to track battery life. LiIon batteries begin to degrade the minute they are created. A whole host of things will accelerate their demise. Extreme heat, rapid charge, thermal or physical shock all will eventually kill your battery. If you have more than 80% of your true capacity left after a year of use, you are fortunate. If your battery lasts to 500 cycles at all, you are very fortunate.

Remember the chemistry that goes on inside your battery pack is never 100% efficient or completely reversible. Chemicals gradually break down, impurities are present in the raw materials, seals crack, contacts corrode, sometimes leading to spectacular fireworks. Just about everything inside those LiIon batteries is very, very nasty stuff. If you see one of them leak, its bad news. If you see one of them bulge, it could be very very bad news ... (see famous Dell video ...).

Use your "battery health" reading as only a rough, very rough guide to reality. If you really want to know the state of your battery, the only real way to do it is conduct a series of carefully controlled benchmark tests. Not something many have the patience or know-how to do with any accuracy.

If your battery doesn't seem to be holding a charge anymore, recalibrate it, see if it helps, if not.... buy a new one. If your "health meter" reads 97% instead of 100%, do not loose any sleep over it. If you used to be able to see a full DVD + of playback on battery, but now you can't even get through the opening credits.... then you can panic.

Batteries don't last forever (and certainly not as long as your laptop ...), think of them as a disposable part of your laptop, thats all they are ...

 

How can you have so few cycles?
I've had mine since late October too, and my cycle count is at 66.
Is yours plugged in 99% of the time?

 

Sorry to bump up and old thread but...

iStat shows my battery health as 89% after only 21 charges. I think that's a valid reason to start getting worried... Anyone can comment on what I'm doing wrong?

 

13 Cycles
4 Months Old
98% Capacity

It happens

 

In case you haven't realized, my battery health has deteriorated 5.5 times more than yours, and I've only had 8 more charges than you.

 

Try calibrating the battery, and then take a look at the stats. If its still that way, yes, take it to an Apple Store, the battery may be defective!

 

Sorry umm...could you please explain a little bit more?

I read up quite a bit on battery health and calibrating of battery, but I'm still pretty confused about everything. It's like...calibrating involves a full discharge and recharge of the battery, preferbly once a month, whereas to maintain good battery health you should just use your battery down to about 10 - 20% because a full discharge is very bad. So uhhh...doesn't that mean that calibrating is bad for your battery?

 

Calibrating your battery means re-calculating its full charge, so you can see a better statistic in terms of your battery health .

 

So I just have to follow the instructions here right? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

I'm just a little concerned cause of what I heard about full discharges being bad for battery health. Thanks a lot. =)

 

Yes, just follow those instructions . A full discharge does hurt the battery, but its nothing of a big deal. And if you'd rather not, you can bring your Mac straight to the Apple Store and have them diagnose it for you, its free .

 

hey, i dont have a MBP yet, but how much does a replacement battery cost? is it $100+ like those HP batteries we sell at work?