battery question

[spacefiesta]

On a macbook, is it bad for the battery to plug the charger in regardless if the life of the battery is low or not?

 

[eric2006]

With modern batteries, the only thing you need to do to maintain normal battery life is to use the battery at least once a month. You should charge the battery whenever you need to.

More info:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

 

[deesto]

This is something of a controversial topic; I've seen it discussed hotly in multiple forums. eric2006's advice is in agreement with that of the majority of recommendations I've seen: leave it plugged in, and "calibrate" the battery occasionally as described in the link above. However, I should mention that I've been doing this for about six months, and I've seen a small but consistent drop-off in battery capacity from week to week:

• original capacity: 5200 mAh
• current capacity: 4681 mAh

The drop-off seems to be about 10 mAh a week -- not a whole lot, to be sure, but it adds up over time. Charging also maxes out now at 97%.

 

[Captain Code]

Lithium batteries start losing capacity the moment they are manufactured, so losing capacity is to be expected.

 

[deesto]

Lithium batteries start losing capacity the moment they are manufactured, so losing capacity is to be expected.

No doubt. But the question was whether leaving the battery plugged in has any effect on the life of the battery.

Maybe someone who doesn't leave their MacBook plugged in could post their rate of lost capacity over a similar time period?

 

[fryke]

Just follow Apple's lead. Use it as you wish. Sometimes _do_ pull the cable out and let the battery work. Once a month or so _do_ recalibrate your battery by completely discharging the battery. There's a document on Apple's support pages about it. -> http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

 

[deesto]

Thanks; that was pointed out earlier by eric2006.

 

[Veljo]

Mine must really need calibration, because once I let it get to 0%, it was forced to sleep, and it remained in the sleep mode for over 3 days! And it was STILL alive!

 

[eric2006]

Intel macs will continue to power memory in sleep, but write the contents of memory to the HDD. When the power reaches critical levels, it cuts power to the memory, which is restored from the HDD on power-up.

The more you use a battery, generally, the faster it will loose capacity. However, there's no reason to adjust your habits to the battery, as all batteries will die eventually, and you can get a replacement relatively inexpensively (about $129 for my PowerBook). Even if you use your battery heavily, you probably won't need to replace it for at least a year.