Getting Battery back to tip-top shape?

So i have a 13 inch white macbook that i got aug. of 2007
istat says
health: 33%
cycles: 459

and my battery only lasts about an hour , about an hour and half with backlight turned down, but if i play any games without plugging it in it lasts for about 15 mins. I was wondering how to get it back in tip-top shape. I know basically you have to use all the battery then charge it back up full( could i get some more details on that) or is it just too late for my macbook and that i should shell out $130 for a new battery, I would not like to do the latter.

I do believe you need to buy a new battery. I don't think there is a way to 'Bring it back to life'. If there is, let me know! My battery could use it too!

I will say however, with GREAT CAUTION. In the RC world, there is a know method of bringing back Li-Ion & Li-Poly batteries, but its very dangerous and your mileage may very.

You need to have a very high end programmable charger, and what you do is set the battery type to Ni-MH and set the charge rate a 0.1 amps, and let it slow charge that battery, this will normally take a few days.

have you one this?

I haven't done it with Laptop batteries, but I have done it with Li-Ion / Li-Poly batteries in my RC Cars, in fact, I've done it 3 times, and 2 out of 3 have been sucessful. I will tell you though the reason I did it, is because these batteries cost over $200 each.

I would try it with my macbook pro battery, but I don't know which of the connections on the battery are the + & - sides.

With a health of 33%, I don't think Calibrating it will bring it back to 100% health, or even close to it.

JGruber said:

With a health of 33%, I don't think Calibrating it will bring it back to 100% health, or even close to it.

Click to expand...

Let's take a look at just where this reading came from:

istat says
health: 33%
cycles: 459

Click to expand...

I seriously doubt the validity of the 33% "Health" reading from iStat.
Honestly, I wouldn't put much stock into anything that iStat reports.

If you want to find out the most accurate information on your battery, follow these steps:

Go to "About this Mac" from the Apple Menu
Click on the "More Info" button
Twirl down on the "Hardware" section
Then click the 'Power' section and look there.

When you do that you will see the following information (which will obviously vary according to what your computer reads)

System Profiler said:

Battery Information:

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 4122
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 4042
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12465
Cycle Count: 80

Click to expand...

D3v1L80Y said:

Let's take a look at just where this reading came from:I seriously doubt the validity of the 33% "Health" reading from iStat.
Honestly, I wouldn't put much stock into anything that iStat reports.

If you want to find out the most accurate information on your battery, follow these steps:

Go to "About this Mac" from the Apple Menu
Click on the "More Info" button
Twirl down on the "Hardware" section
Then click the 'Power' section and look there.

When you do that you will see the following information (which will obviously vary according to what your computer reads)

Click to expand...

While I don't doubt what you are saying, as I have looked at my Battery Info:

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2380
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 2380
Health Information:
Cycle count: 452
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12397

Click to expand...

iStat is reporting about a 45% battery health, Coconut Battery is reporting my Health is the same percentage, and original battery capacity of 4500mah.