On Sep 20, 2010, at 4:17 PM, Ron wrote:
> Can someone educate the uneducated. Have had my MacBook for about 17 months. First Mac. Re: my battery, have a widget which shows me data. Says battery health 82%, cycles 182, recharging now (at 58%). Am am I looking at a new battery soon, anything I should be looking out for, etc.? I periodically run it down to a sleep mode, leave it there for anywhere from nothing to a maybe 5 hours and then recharge.
Ron,
It sounds normal to me. Battery health may be a little low. That 82% reflects the amount of original charge capacity still left. But it's not out of line for a battery that's been charged and discharged a little less than 3 times a week, on average. Expect about 400 charge cycles from a typical NIMH battery like yours, though I've seen them die before 400 cycles, and I've got a three-year-old MacBook battery that still shows 103% of original capacity, which is 5020 mAh. The battery shows 5157 mAh, even though it's had 459 charge cycles (115 % of expected cycles), and still charges to 12.5 volts or higher. But don't get excited. Battery life is very dependent on how the battery is treated, how long it sat on a shelf before being used, how closely the user pays attention to Apple's recommendations for monthly reconditioning, etc.
Batteries are consumables, like food for people and gasoline for cars.
HTH,
Jim
