My MBP keeps dying at 40-50% battery

Hi.

My MBP keeps dying at 40-50% battery life. This happens in both OS X and Windows XP, and both shows between 40 to 50% remaining on the battery when it dies. I doubt it's a display error, because I only get like 30 to 40 minutes of battery life before it blacks out. I bought the MBP about a year ago, so the battery shouldn't be that bad already.

What can I do to solve this problem?

Thanks for any helpful replies.

 

Depending on how low the battery is, sometimes, my macbook pro used to do it, it goes into "sleep" "hibernate" mode. And to turn it on again, you have to power it up. It's like a safety mode, saves all the works and shuts off.

 

It really sounds like your battery is dead. Even though it has been a year, some times faulty components make it through QA, believe me.
Would it make you feel any better, that one time I bought a brand new car battery, and it completely died a week later? It just wouldn't hold a charge.
Some times it happens. I'd just contact Apple and see if they can get you a new battery.

 

Try calibrating it to see?

 

Yeah I know, it did that earlier when it hit like 10-5% remaining battery. But now it dies without no warning, and all unsaved data is lost when I try to boot it up again (well it doesnt really boot up, it dies like 10 secs after I try to power it up again, so I have to connect the power to boot it).

Guess I have to conntact apple support then, argh.

 

Hm yeah I could do that, but I believe I have a faulty battery because my MBP never goes to sleep, or warns me about low battery. It just dies without any warning at about half battery remaining

So not sure if there's any point.

 

Not sure, I don't know a lot about calibrating but I know it's purpose is to sync up how much battery life the system recognizes that the battery actually has. Gives accurate readings... Although I might be totally off.

Anyone else?

 

This exact same thing that happened to me with my Thinkpad just about a year ago. That means the battery is dead. I doubt it was a faulty battery or anything, I bet when you used it you would drain it completely before charging it up again. Draining it to below 10% frequently, ruins Li-Ion batteries and will definitely kill it. Li-Ion Batteries don''t like to be drained completely.

If you are still within the warranty period for the battery(1 year) I recommend you contact apple to get a replacement, if not, you are going to have to bite the bullet and dish out the cash for a new one.

But be sure to check out the Battery Guide.

 

We've had two MBP's come in to the Help Desk at work, both with the same problem, so we just provided new batteries to them. I went to call Apple today about them, and both had started to "expand", I guess is the word. Basically, whatever is inside, was expanding, causing the battery to warp and break open. I'll take some pics of them on Monday

 

My Mac did this yesterday at about 25% and again today at 32%. Are we sure the battery is actually no good? It's a summer '07 MBP so it's out of warranty.

 

If you calibrated it, then yeah... probably a bad battery.

I've learned this about apple... the batteries they use in the MBP are terrible. Mine was at less than 50% after the first year (with 300 cycles) and the battery I bought last December is already down to 40% capacity with just over 100 cycles.

 

Yeah I think Apple has been having a lot of problems with batteries recently. You can probably get it replaced even though it's out of warranty. Refer to this link: http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/

 

Same problem I had last month. I made a post about it. At 53%, the battery would just die on my 2007 model MBP. Apple gave me a new one.