Is It Time For A Replacement Battery?

My Macbook battery has done 424 cycles and has started to behave kind of strange. When It's fully charged and I run it down it shows the warning that appears to tell me I have a low battery and it gets down to 3% and then goes back up to 12%, then it goes down a little bit more and just shuts off, no warning or anything, it just shuts off. I've tried calibrating the battery several times but because its not reaching 0% and sleeping like it should its not doing any good. Does anyone have a clue as to what's going on.

How can you tell how many cycles your battery has done?

Click on the Apple in the Menu Bar and Click "About this Mac" Then click "More Info" Then choose Power in the list on the left and under Battery Information it will say Health Information and then you can see the amount of cycles its done.

If your MacBook battery has done 424 cycles, you've got your money's worth out of it. Average battery does around 300 cycles before replacing.

Time for a new one. Shop around, I've seen them advertised for much less than at your local Apple store.

Regards.

How long does a new one last? like with the brightness all the way down and just doing some web surfing and typing documents with music playing? I just need to get as much time out of it as possible

halo200 said:

How long does a new one last? like with the brightness all the way down and just doing some web surfing and typing documents with music playing? I just need to get as much time out of it as possible

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I just got my macbook not to long ago. I have around 18 cycles on it. With the brightness turned down, surfing the web and playing music, my battery probably last 3 hours or so? I haven't come close to draining the battery though.

You do know that you shouldn't let your battery drain and die right? That is considered one cycle and should only be done about once a month.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

Doing this often will shorten the battery life.

I got my MacBook in March and it still has 0 cycles.

To Ricerind:

Read the following Apple KB article:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

Regards.

Ok, my MacBook is about 6 weeks old and it says "14 cycles". Does this mean I am charging it too much???

Whoa you guys have such low counts compared to me mind you, I have had this since 2006

LIthium Ion batteries only need to be deep cycled (fully charged doen then rechargew) about every 30 cycles, and that is just to recalibrate itself

Li-Ion batteries do not have a memory effect like older batteries, but it does sound like your battery has lived out its life and it is time for a replacement

Apple can install a new battery for you at low cost. I would also suggest buying it from Apple just so it can be trusted.