Calibrating

[For Sure]

Hey guys. Just wondering, how often do you calibrate your battery?

[coach_z]

one to three times a month, i dont do it on purpose but with general use it just dies on occasion i recharge it and the BAM! recalibrated
-chris

[kilo15]

is this really necessary?

[cazabam]

one to three times a month, i dont do it on purpose but with general use it just dies on occasion i recharge it and the BAM! recalibrated

Heh, I do this. Recalibration through the wonder of my own laziness; I can't be bothered to find the charger until it dies

[coach_z]

Heh, I do this. Recalibration through the wonder of my own laziness; I can't be bothered to find the charger until it dies

dont worry bro. i am so lazy i am talking about my powerbook and didnt even bother to notice that the poster is talking abou their ibook/macbook...i dont even own either of these
-chris

[jamesx]

is this really necessary?

it is if you want max battery life and a correct reading of battery life remaining.

[moss918]

Or try this way -

CLICK!

PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD), MacBook (all models), MacBook Pro (all models), and MacBook Pro (17-inch) (all models)
The battery calibration for the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) and any model of MacBook or MacBook Pro has been updated because of a new battery released with this computer. With these computers, follow these steps to calibrate your battery:

-Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your PowerBook's battery until the light ring or LED on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.

-Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for at least two hours. You may use your computer during this time as long as the adapter is plugged in.

-Disconnect the power adapter with the computer still on and start running the computer off battery power. You may use your computer during this time. When your battery gets low, you will see the low battery warning dialog on the screen.
Continue to keep your computer on until it goes to sleep. Save all your work and close all applications when the battery gets very low, before the computer goes to sleep.

-Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.

-Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.

Tip: When the battery reaches "empty", the computer is forced into sleep mode. The battery actually keeps back a reserve beyond "empty", to maintain the computer in sleep for a period of time. Once the battery is truly exhausted, the computer is forced to shut down. At this point, with the safe sleep function introduced in the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) computers, the computer's memory contents have been saved to the hard drive. When power is restored, the computer returns itself to its pre-sleep state using the safe sleep image on the hard drive.

[For Sure]

To add on to the questions, at what percent do you start charging your MacBook when you're not calibrating and at what percent do you unplug the power and stop charging? (As you can tell, I'm really worried about my battery life.)

[moss918]

Don't worry I was the same with my battery.

As far as I know, so long as you are calibrating every 2/3 months you can charge as much or as little in between. In fact (Verify this for yourself as I'm no 100%) I heard that the battery "likes" to have some activity so charging from (for example) 25% up to 80% shouldn't cause a problem and may even be a good thing.

As I said, I'm not totally sure but this is what I do and then just calibrate now and then (I've only had mine 2 months so I've calibrated once on 1st use and will do so again soon).

Someone please chastise me if I'm being terribly misleading here...