Macbook pro - Main power vs battery

Hey guys,

My MBP is mostly connected to the main power supply and I use the battery on very rare occassions.

I know that once the main power cord is connected to the comp, the battery begins to get charged. Is there a way I can only use the main power and not the battery (once its fully charged)? Dont want to overcharge it

 

You cant overcharge it. Once the battery is fully charged it stops charging any further, and you just use the system from the mains power. Once you cut the mains power, the system switches over to the battery.

 

Thanks for the reply ifti. Does it notify the user when the system switches on to the main power instead of the battery? or at least when the battery gets cut off?

 

No.
When you connect the mains power, the system itself runs from the mains, and the battery is charged in the meantime. Once the battery reaches 100%, charging stops.
The only time the battery in your system is discharged, or used, is when the mains power cable is not attached.
In other words, when you connect the mains cable, the system is running from the mains, but charging the battery on the side.

 

Thanks a lot ifti. I know it can really annoying to answer this insane question. Guess curiosity got the best of me

 

No probs

 

I wanted to ask a similar question.
I have a IBM running windows and IBM power manager.
One of the features of power manager is that I can set it to when it starts charging. I am in India and we experience frequent power failures for a few minutes.
With the IBM, I can wait until battery charge to drops to a preset level before it starts re-charging again.

Is there a power management setting in Mac OS or a third party one that only allows charging after battery level drops to a preset level. This stops using charging cycles when the computer is off the mains for just a few minutes?

 

In a few minutes of power outage, a Macbooks battery would drop to maybe 99%. It doesn't start charing until like 95%.

 

No, and the battery cycle is a full discharge/charge, not partial one.

Apple designs the system to charge the battery only when below 95%; if you plug it in when 95-100, you'll be running off AC power. This saves people from adding power cycles onto batteries that are primarily used with AC.

 

Another thing of note, the battery will be used as a backup current source if you are doing intense tasks that would require more power then the power supply can give.

I am not sure if the current gen of macbooks still do this (they probably still do), but they use to throttle back the speeds a bit when the battery was removed to reduce the potential of needing more power then the power supply can give.

And as mentioned, it will only resume charging when the battery drops beneath ~94%.

Also, two ways to know if the battery is charging, the battery icon in the menu bar, and the dual color LED on the power connector, orange when charging, green when full and not charging.

 

They still do, well my 2009 uMBP 17 did. I was gaming with a 60 watt power adapter, and I needed a 90 watt, so it drained my battery.