intermittent charging/not charging

[maanico1]

ive had this problem for quite some time, but it actually just got worse.

my charger will pretty much flash green/orange and the status bar will show a charging/not charging. it used to be a couple of times an hour, but within the past 10 minutes, it flashes every 10 seconds. even more strange is that for the 10 seconds that it is "charging," it shows a time remaining of 4 hrs, 29 minutes.

has anyone else had this problem? is this something that i can fix manually as i cant afford to lose my computer during the upcoming finals.

p.s.- my battery life has been quite crappy lately, is there a possibility that this on/off situation has been detrimental to my battery's conditioning?

 

[skye]

your battery is probably older and is not holding a charge very well.

does your computer still work when it is plugged in?

how many cycles does your battery have? (under your istat widget if you have one or in the "about this mac" menu)

 

[maanico1]

thanks for the reply-

as far as the istat info goes-
health 67%
cycles 471

is that considered old?

 

[opie]

I'm having the same problems with a 13" Macbook I picked up used.. when the battery is under 80% or so the charge indicator stays orange and the battery charges but when the battery gets closer to being full I start getting the intermittent charging

the cycle count on the battery is 103

 

[maanico1]

based on skye's post, i went ahead and bought a new battery. it solved the problem for sure. but with a cycle count of 103, i cant imagine that it would already be on the downhill. i started experiencing my problem at around the 400 cycle mark.

im aware that that doesnt help you particularly much, but i thought i would share my experience

 

[opie]

The Computer is 2+ years old so it may be that the computer was left on the charger all the time.