12-09-2009, 10:23 PM

Hey all,

I purchased a new Macbook Pro 13" yesterday, the first thing i did is calibrate the battery using Apple's method, Apple instructions is to give the macbook a full charge on it's first charge, i accidently unplugged the power adaptor when the battery reached 95% so technically the macbook did not receive a full charge on it's first charge.

Also in Apple's instructions is to let the macbook sleep, i did not do that i let the battery reach 1% then i shutdown the computer, waited for 5-hours and did a full charge, when the full charge completed i turned on the macbook and the battery said 98% not 100%

Did i stuff up? should i go ahead and do the calibrate/steps again?

or should i wait till the next month? as Apple's instructions is to calibrate every month.

these are the instructions i tried to follow

Apple Portables: Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance



hope someone can help, just trying to get the battery right =)

12-09-2009, 10:37 PM

Just wait till next month. Not a big deal.




I would suggest following the directions explicitly next time however. There is a reason for it to be allowed to go to sleep vs turning it off. This allows it to do a deep discharge. You can leave it in that sleep state longer than 5 hours... I let it sit through the night while I'm asleep.

12-11-2009, 03:21 AM

Originally Posted by bobtomay

Just wait till next month. Not a big deal.




I would suggest following the directions explicitly next time however. There is a reason for it to be allowed to go to sleep vs turning it off. This allows it to do a deep discharge. You can leave it in that sleep state longer than 5 hours... I let it sit through the night while I'm asleep.

Not to high jack this post or anything...but on this topic....Does it hurt the battery if you calibrate it more than once a month? Is there a limit?

P.S. We're in the same city buddy!

12-11-2009, 06:47 AM

Let me state first, I do not by any stretch of the imagination use best practices related to the batteries in our computers. I am a believer in using my computers the way I want to use them while just keeping in mind what are the recommended "best practices".

Based only on my own experience, no science behind it - the only time I am currently recommending more than once a month is when your 'Current Battery Capacity' vs. 'Original Battery Capacity' has gone down to an unacceptable level. Unacceptable for me is something less than 80%.

I've allowed my current battery to get down as low as 65%, then did the calibration once a week for 3 or 4 weeks which brought it back up to around 92%. That was about 3 months ago. It has not been calibrated since and is still at 88%. This battery is about 18 months old. My first battery was replaced after 18 months due to it lasting only a little over an hour. It was never calibrated a single time.

The battery in our MB (about 30 months old) stays plugged into power basically 100% of the time. It has been calibrated one time, period, about 3 months ago, and currently sits at 103% of original capacity. It took over 4 hours for that thing to go to sleep on it's own when I calibrated it that time.

(To check your battery - the most used app is Coconut Battery.)

12-11-2009, 02:01 PM

Batteries are not precision instruments.
Just because the OS has a digital readout of "percentage" of battery capacity doesn't really mean anything. It is a rough estimate at best. It is like a digital watch that reads 1:38:45pm when it is in fact 10am. It is very precise, and very wrong. Without some outside reference or context, the digital read out of the watch (or the OS's estimate of battery capacity) can be meaningless.

I wish everyone would take a deep breath when thinking about batteries. I think it is ridiculous when someone posts something about their batteries "losing 3% in the first two weeks" - is that 5 minutes of use? 10min? 30 seconds? How do they know?
These batteries are designed to last about 3 years in normal use cases. More than that and you are the fringe use case - same for less than 3 years. That's why they have 1 to 2 year warrantees.

The battery in my MBP lasted 4 years - and I replaced it because it was down to 45 min of run time. I never did any calibrations or charge cycles or anything special. I just used it like I wanted to use it until it wouldn't do what I wanted anymore.