Macbook (unibody) battery

fifadorfifador
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I just got a Macbook (unibody) on Wednesday and have had to charge it about 3x. Each time I went to charge it, the battery was nearly dead and each time it took me close to 6 hrs for it to fully charge (green light on MagSafe connector).



This seems excessively long to me. Does it take this long for any you? Is my battery possibly bad? Also, on a full charge, the battery only seems to last about 4 hrs, shy of the 5 hrs that Apple lists on their site.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,808member
    Taking 6hrs to fully charge is a little on the long side. 4hrs of battery isn't incredibly bad. Battery life really depends on your settings and usage. Apple's claims are with general usage with the screen dimmed all the way down, possibly with things like bluetooth disabled if its not necessary. Keep in mind if you're using your MacBook while you charge the battery it will take longer to charge.



    If you go to System Profiler and click on Power it should give the status of the battery (good, not charging, etc). That may indicate a problem.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    fifadorfifador Posts: 3member
    After checking again, I actually get about 4.5 hrs so that's not too bad. I'm still concerned with the long amount of time it takes to fully charge the battery. The first 3x that I charged it, I let it charge 4 straight hrs while being fully off. I then notice that the light on the MagSafe connector was still orange. I then booted up the system and noticed that the remaining time for a full recharge was over 60 mins, each time. I checked the Power info under System Profiler and status of the battery is good.



    This is my very first Mac so I'm still getting acclimated with OS X. Any further tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated. Out of curiosity, how long does it take you guys to fully charge your Macbooks?
  • Reply 3 of 6
    djmarkymarcdjmarkymarc Posts: 35member
    my Macbook pro seems to take as long as yours to charge... and just over 4 hours of battery life while surfing the web is all i can get.



    however that a lot longer than the 2 hours my friend gets out of his Dell laptop...
  • Reply 4 of 6
    mikesgroovemikesgroove Posts: 2member
    The Unibodies do take longer to charge. I believe it is because the power bricks are a lower wattage.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    fifadorfifador Posts: 3member
    Was hoping to get some more input on this but thanks to those that did take a few seconds to reply. Chances are my battery is fine. Maybe I'll drop by the local Apple store and mention it to one of the workers there. Thanks again.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    kswinekswine Posts: 1member
    The charge rate is higher when the battery is discharged and decreases as the battery reaches full charge. Note the current at a discharged state, note again at 80%, and again at 97%. The charge rate decreases in order to keep the battery from overheating. This also increases the overall life of the battery. The charging is fast up to 75% and slows down from there.



    The charging rate of the battery can be observed by opening

    System Profiler->Hardware->Power: Amperage

    You must refresh to see updated data.
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