Help with my macbook battery

Hello
so i just recently bought a mid 2009 white macbook(mc240ll/a) from a family member who originally bought this macbook from apple store in Oct. 2009 and has never ever even opened it. So i just like a week ago opened it for the first time(it was factory sealed) and i'm wondering if there is anything weird with the battery.....

its currernly at only 1 cycle count and i dont recall the exact number but its original capacity was over 5000 and its already gone down to 4976 as we speak. i just feel like thats odd for the capacity of the battery of a brand new macbook to have gone down like that at only 1 cycle load count.

Is this normal??

Under Health Information for the battery it says the condition is normal, but my friend who has the same macbook and has used it for over a year has over 200 cycle count and battery capacity that is still over 4000 and battery condition says good rather than normal...........

so ya, i would really love some insight. Should i get a new battery or what?
thank you

If the Macbook has been sitting for so long untouched, then the juices haven't been flowing in the battery, and you need to calibrate your battery.
I'm surprised the battery health is as new (which it is!).
See Apple Portables: Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance

its original capacity was over 5000 and its already gone down to 4976 as we speak

Click to expand...

This decrease is insignificant!

my friend who has the same macbook and has used it for over a year has over 200 cycle count and battery capacity that is still over 4000 and battery condition says good rather than normal

Click to expand...

I've never seen good in the condition description, but have only ever seen normal, so I can't comment on this other then asking you if you saw that his system profiler in health information>condition says good, or is that what he told you?

End of the day, I believe that your battery is fine, follow the link that I gave you and enjoy your Mac

oh ok thank you. and ya it was under the system profiler health information of her battery where it said the condidtion was good.

and ya i thought about the fact that maybe it was the juices of the battery not flowing cos its been untouched for so long but i felt like that wouldnt make sense with a brand new macbook thats never yet been used. I mean, what about current macbook models that lets say take much longer to sell and they sit there for longer and then by the time its bought and turned on the battery has been sitting there unsed all this time.....

maybe i'm thinking into it too far now but another weird thing that happened with my macbook is that the first time i charged the battery on it(which was before even turning the macbook on cos the first time i tried to turn it on it wouldnt) it took hours and hours to charge. It seemed odd and when the charge indicator light went from orange to green then underneath the macbook only 4 out of the 5 indicator lights lit up and i decided to plug it back into another outlet and it started charging again and finally all five were lit up after like another 2 hours!

but ok i will try this calibration thing u say
thanks again

As I said, the battery has been idle for around 18months. The new machines come with a 50% charge (which is how they are meant to be stored when not in use).
The new Macs are sold usually within 2-3 months max from the time of production.
18 months is an extremely long time for any battery to be stored, and the fact that the battery has any charge left, yet alone a good percentage left is nothing but great.

If this were a car, the battery would be dead as a doornail.
Mobile phone would have close to no talk time.

You are lucky in my eyes

Now, I'm off to Apple as my battery in my 2 1/2 month old Macbook Pro with only 32 cycles has dropped from 6900 mAh to 6354 mAh (down to 92% of its original capacity).
It also says normal under battery condition!

So, you can see that battery issues do happen, but yours is by no means an issue

oh ok, well i guess i'm good then. thanks again. sorry about your battery.