Macbook Air Battery Drain (Gen 1)

Hey guys,

Decided to join the Mac-Forums community after purchasing my first Macbook Air (Gen 1).

I've ran into one big problem which I need to solve before I start Uni. The current MacBook Air that I've purchased has a very very fast battery drain. On it's arrival I installed CoconutBattery, a useful piece of software which provides information on your battery's current condition.

Coconut battery indicated my battery's max capacity at 99% and has only had 9 battery cycles from its first use.

However the first time I charged it to 100%, and started using (without the power adapter) the battery, the percentage was literally dropping the minute. Say if it was on 95% it'd be down to about 75% in about 18-20 minutes - and all I was doing was surfing the web (no videos). I've got click2flash installed and all my settings on low in terms of lighting and what not.

I've recently purchased coolbook to reduce the heat of the macbook air - which it's currently sitting on 48C - 50C and fans spinning at about 2500RPM.

Nonetheless, the battery drain is exactly the same. Now my question is, if I was to purchase a new battery (which I've seen on youtube is quite easy to replace) would this make any difference what so ever or will it not do anything?

I need to get at least 3-4 hours of usage from the battery - with just using word documentation software and possibly web usage for Uni.

Thanks in advance guys!

Oh and also if it helps, it's a Macbook Air (Gen 1) 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo with the ATA 80GB.

Have you calibrated the battery yet?
Apple Portables: Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance

Seeing that it has only 9 cycles, and is 3yrs old, I would say that the battery is not in the best of health.
In layman's terms, having only 9 cycles over 1095 days pretty much suggests that the battery's juices haven't been flowing for extended periods.
I would do as Ivan suggested and calibrate the battery.

Thanks for the quick responses.

I've actually calibrated the battery twice now, as my friends who've owned a Macbook of some sort have had the same problem - but they calibrated several times and it fixed the issue.

I am going to calibrate it one more time (third time now) and if the issue doesn't fix, I guess I will purchase a brand new battery and install it myself. I'm just hoping this is a battery problem and nothing else.