[theyoda3]

I'm having some issues with a battery that is NOT in the recall. Normally I can get between 3 and 4 hours of battery life. Just last night I noticed my battery died really fast. Today it's last about 2hours on 2 occasions when it should have lasted 3-3.5 based on previous recent experience. At 5:27 PM it said 1:37 left and at 5:54PM the battery died and the computer shut off. I got a warning, but it did not sleep. I had been using it since around maybe 4:00 or so. I was only using Word, iTunes, and AIM, but had Safari and Mail open in the dock doing nothing. I called Apple and they had me reset PMU and PRAM and recharge my battery. At this time Coconut Battery said I had 3488 of the 4400 mAh of my original capacity with 94 load cycles. As it was charging it was going fine until it got to 59% charge. At this point the battery estimate shot up to 7 hours and at 60% it estimated 8 hours and 40 minutes. This was at 8:12 PM. At 8:15PM the battery was magically charged and I tried drainging the battery again. It estimated 3:30 battery life at 8:15 PM and things looked good. At 9:07 PM it estimated 2:21 battery left, still looking good. Then, BAM, all of a sudden at 10:07 PM the battery died. I got the warning and then it shut off again instead of sleeping. This time I was using the same apps, but Word was used half the time then I quit it and the other half of the time was mostly Adium. My battery capcity dropped from 3488 to 3232 mAh in one discharge cycle. The battery timer for both periods of usage was off by around 50-60%. AppleCare is closed right now, so any suggestions you have for me? Do you think I'm ina position to ask for a replacement? I've had this computer 1.5 years and this battery problem happened suddenly.

Thanks
-Chris

[theyoda3]

Things are getting worse, each time I charge and discharge fully I lose 256mAh of my battery capcity.

[Ichiban_jay]

Have you ever done complete discharges on a semi-regular basis (once a month)? Or have you always just done partial discharges where you plug your powerbook in before it ever reaches 0%.

Chances are you have done the latter. Batteries lose capacity over time, Apple recommends that you do a full discharge once a month (where you run the battery to 0%). This allows the battery gauge to be calibrated with the new battery capacity (which goes down very slightly with each use). Since you probably did not do so for a long time, your battery THINKS it has a certain capacity when it really does not, so your computer will suddenly go to sleep even though the computer might be reporting it has a much higher % of battery left.

I find that I have to replace my powerbook's battery every year or so (I use my battery nearly everyday, of course not all the way but partial discharges).



Also, Applecare does not cover batteries, they are counted as "Consumables." Trust me, I've tried with really no success. They say they will only do replacements on batteries if it is less than a year old and does not hold a proper charge anymore.

[theyoda3]

I know batteries lose their capacity over time, but I do discharge my battery fully every month or two. I normally can get 3 hours doing these tasks and I recently calibrated my battery in the last 2 weeks doing similar tasks. It's just that yesterday it died undexpectedly, not only by the estimated time, but by watching the clock as well. Losing an hour of battery life in one day isn't right. Plus it doesn't sleep either when the capacity gets low. I've run through 3 calibrations today and it just warns me and then shuts off. Each time it loses 256 mAh of capacity, which is certainly out of the ordinary. After dishcharging once I had 3488 out of the orginal 4400 mAh today, now I'm down to 2976 mAh in 2 cycles after that. For having this a year and a half, the rate of decay has significantly increased in the last day or two.

Also, in the last day or two it has been estimating the time to full charge at 4,6,7 and 8 hours when at 60%, when in the past it never went higher than between 2 and 3 hours.

Maybe, with the battery recall they will do something for me. I'm one letter off lol. I have an X instead of a K.

[theyoda3]

Also, did I mention I've only had 94 charge cycles according to system profile and coconut battery. This thing is dying, are you sure this isn't unusual for it to die this quickly with that few charge cycles? At this rate I can only charge and discharge this 11 or 12 more times before I hit 0mAh.