More battery issues

meecesmeeces
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Wondering if I may have a bad battery. I asked about my battery not charging to 100% in Mac OSX forum. Only goes to 99% no matter how I charge it, or discharge it before charging it. I leave the battery in when working on ac power and it is consistently discharging to 96-95 % over a week or so. I use the pb for a few hours at least every day on avg. Thoughts on this? Wondering if I should have this further checked out. Thanks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    Did you reset the PMU?

    Does it hold a charge, or does it drop too fast?

    What kind of life do you get on the battery?

    How old is it?
  • Reply 2 of 4
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    not sure it's supposed to charge to 100%. in order to keep the battery from constantly charging 1%-5%, i believe the new versions only start to charge when they drop below 95%.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    meecesmeeces Posts: 160member
    The exact problem is that, it trickle discharges with ac plugged in. I don't mind that it doesn't get up to 100%. It's just that it ends up dropping to 95-94% and recharging. It usually takes a week or so to discharge, but it's consistent about it. I usually get about 2 to 2 1/2 hours on a charge by itself while using computer. I have seen 5-6 hours using it as a giant iPod in the car with screen turned all the way down. So I'm worried about the semi-constant charging cycle shortening battery life. So, not sure if I'm paranoid or not. Reset PMU? That is? I will check into my missing manual book for that. Been with macs for years, but damn this OSX makes me feel like a newbie. Thanks for the advice. Other thing, the konfabulator battery icons I have tell me it is 100% charged, even at 96% on the window menu.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Meeces

    Wondering if I may have a bad battery. I asked about my battery not charging to 100% in Mac OSX forum. Only goes to 99% no matter how I charge it, or discharge it before charging it. I leave the battery in when working on ac power and it is consistently discharging to 96-95 % over a week or so. I use the pb for a few hours at least every day on avg. Thoughts on this? Wondering if I should have this further checked out. Thanks.



    Do you *always* leave it plugged in? 24 hours a day? Closed and asleep, but unplugged, mine will trickle down to 95% after about 2 days.



    On the other hand, while theoretically the battery shouldn't be draining at all while the iBook is plugged in, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a little teeny bit of current drain, by leakage and monitoring, that could slowly knock it back to 95% over a week or two. I've never had my iBook plugged in, uninterrupted, for that long, so I can't say from experience.
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