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Julian Koh
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Joined: 09 Oct 2006
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 Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 12:53 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting - System Profiler in Snow Leopard doesn't show battery serial number anymore.
Anyway, here's my Excel graph showing my 2 batteries. I pretty much grab stats whenever I swap them every few weeks or if I feel like it in between. It is kind of interesting to see the big drop in capacity in Battery #1 all of a sudden. I might try calibrating that one again.
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Julian Koh
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 11:01 am Post subject: |
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Hmmm....now my Battery #2 is showing "Service Battery" in System Profiler and the battery status menu bar icon, and available capacity has taken a severe drop. Based just on capacity, Battery #1 is probably not far behind.
Time to hit the Apple Store again.
I must be doing something wrong - I got these batteries just over a year ago. Perhaps I leave the laptop plugged in too often?
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Rachel Robbins
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Joined: 07 Sep 2006
Posts: 917
Location: Fort Collins, CO
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 1:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Julian Koh wrote: | | I must be doing something wrong - I got these batteries just over a year ago. Perhaps I leave the laptop plugged in too often? |
My understanding is that that's a real factor. You can kill a battery by not cycling it often enough. I did that once.
But there are also faulty batteries that die early, hard deaths for no apparent reason. Occasionally Apple has official free exchange programs for problematic batches of batteries. Other times they aren't as helpful. I had to argue persistently to get a battery replaced for free that died too early for no obvious reason. I had learned my lesson from the previos experience and made sure to cycle the battery regularly, but it hadn't had nearly enough use to die so soon. In the end they DID send me a free replacement.
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Julian Koh
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Joined: 09 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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| I do try to cycle things every now and then, as well as one of those calibration cycles every few months. Perhaps I should rotate the batteries more often? I shoot for every 3 weeks, but the past couple months haven't been so good for that.
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Richard Etner
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Joined: 31 Oct 2006
Posts: 325
Location: Valley of the Sun, soon to be a minor motion picture
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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Apple's knowledge base has a bit of ambiguity on this topic. As far as I can tell, the non-user-removable batteries don't require calibration, but the KB has a document or two that says batteries should be calibrated, period.
At least they made it official that you can use a higher power MagSafe adapter with a lower power portable. I never saw any reason not to do this, but always chickened out until Apple said it was OK.
Apologies to any chickens I've offended.
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Julian Koh
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| Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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Grrr....and now System Profiler doesn't have the warning to check the battery anymore. I have an appt tomorrow at the Genius Bar - we'll see what they say....
Should have taken a screenshot.
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Julian Koh
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| Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 9:37 am Post subject: |
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| Yeah, no joy at Apple Store. They ran their battery tester thing, and the dot was in the green, so no replacement. Will just have to bring it right in next time.
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Julian Koh
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| Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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Yay, got an appointment tonight when the error message showed up again. No problems getting a quick replacement. Now I have a brand-new battery with 1 cycle and a capacity of 5456mAh.
Now to see how long it takes for Battery #1 to go south on me. I think I've got about 5 months or so left on AppleCare....
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Julian Koh
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| Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Julian Koh wrote: |
Now to see how long it takes for Battery #1 to go south on me. I think I've got about 5 months or so left on AppleCare.... |
And here comes the Service Battery warning on #1....Apple Store appointment set for Friday evening! 
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Julian Koh
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| Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Woo, new battery. I've got this routine down pat now. Applecare runs out in December, so made it in with some time to spare.
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