20-30% battery life then random shutdown

hello all,
MBP age: 32 months
Cycles: 764
Original Capacity: 6300 mAh
Current Capacity: 2652 mAh
I've been having random shutdowns on my computer over the past 1 month. It started to happen at 10% gradually increasing.
Is it time to bite the bullet and get a new battery. Looking around the internet it seems 700 cycles is a lot. The common advice seems to be saying huge degradation after 300.
Does anyone know the average life span of the MBP battery?

Hi gain, Paul,
For a long time, it was hard to even find a third-party MBP battery. I see few reports here of people using them. One factor that made me shy of third-party offerings was that one of my most trusted parts vendors did not offer a battery for the MBP although they did so for most older Mac notebooks.
Now that vendor is listing MBP batteries:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/BAP17MBP66RS/
(you did say 17", right?)
How well they work, I can't say. I can say that, with other products, this firm has provided me with excellent support and service.
Usually their "hi-cap" batteries cost more than an Apple replacement; this one is less.
OWC does business internationally but I have no idea how the exchange rate, shipping, duties and VAT would affect your cost. Also, should it not work, returns would be harder from the Emerald Isle than from my part of the world.
If the problems of using an overseas vendor are too daunting, I'd go with buying one from Apple.
If you have a link to the battery you saw, post it and I'll take a look at its specs.
Regards,
Allan

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Power adapter light goes out & battery kicks in + random shutdowns

Hi,
there's a few weird things going on the last couple of weeks.....i'm wondering if any of them could have to do with the 10.4.9 update that i installed and really screwed up my mac.....it took an hour+ on apple tech support to do the re install because it would not load after i did that update.
so here's the screwy things that have been happening:
sometimes the light on the power adapter just goes off and the battery kicks in - i'm wondering why it does that........and sometimes the power light goes off the computer just shuts down at the same time really fast.......like in less than a second.....i'll wait a little bit and start up again and it'll happen again........but sometimes it'll fine for quite a while and then boom.......it shuts down again.
also, sometimes it's sleeping and when i pop the top the light on the adapter cord goes out.
also, the sleep light is not on when i am using it but goes on when i put it to sleep
i contacted apple (no apple care and past the 90 phone support) and they are sending a new power adapter cord.....the guy at tech didn't know if this was a hard drive issue (which means i could send it back and get it fixed for free cuz of warranty) so we're trying a new cord first and see what happens.
has this happened to anyone? my mac pro is about 5 months old....
thanks,
itsmesunny

Hi,
actually the cord came today........and the other part - the square white thing with the cord connection to the mac with the magnet...... is coming separately - i found out after calling them and asking them where the rest of it was (he said maybe it was from a different warehouse was why they weren't together).......is that the "magsafe" that you're referring to?
when that comes i hope that when i hook it up it fixes the problem......i'm using my oldie but goodie ibook now until it's working ok....
the guy did not ask me to reset the smc.........i guess cuz i don't have apple care or tech support now that's all he was willing to do - send me a free power adapter and see if that works first - he said it was $49 to do anything else but if it was determined to be a hard drive issue then it would be free and refunded to me and i could send it back.
you know i think it depends on who you talk to......sometimes they help me even if i don't have the tech support.
so anyway when i get the adapter i'll hook it up and see if it's a go...
thanks,
itsmesunny
PS apple is quick - both times i've sent stuff to them i have gotten it back almost immediately. i talked to the guy yesterday and it was here today....can't beat that!

What I can I do when my iPod (4th gen) will only charge when it's completely dead? It will charge up untill it turns on, then it stops charging, and the battery life then will only last for about 5 minutes. It won't connect to the computer either. Help?

HELP ME PLEASE !

Have you tried the standard fixes:
- Reset. Nothing will be lost
- Restore from backup
- Restore to factory defaults/new iPod.
However, ou may have a hardware problem like a dead battery and an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store may be in order.

How to increase the battery life of your N series ...

What I am about to post here is valid for any 3G phone or device regardless of model but it is particularly focused towards the N series devices and their power hogging features.
Your battery life is dependant on many many things. How often you take calls on the device, the condition of your battery, the features you use on the device and so on and on. Therefore it is impossible to say that by following the information in this post you will get x amount of days battery life, but it will get you more time out of the battery than you otherwise would have got.
So with that out the way, if your looking to increase your battery life then follow these tips and your battery should start looking a lot healthier.
First of all lets start with THE big one. The one that is going to save you the most juice. Switching 3G off.
Yep, you heard me right. Just by switching the 3G capability of your phone off you will add hours and hours to your battery life. How is this so? Allow me to explain...
Due to the rather poor delivery of 3G in the UK by the network operators, it is rare for any 3G phone to maintain a constant 3G signal. Instead you will find that the phone constantly flips between 3G and GSM mode (Keep an eye on your signal one day). Even those of you on Vodafone who probably have the best 3G network coverage will find this is the case.
Unfortunately, this constant flipping between the two modes sucks power from the battery like a vampire as it alters its reception state for the different modes and the constant flipping is..well...causing it do this constantly! It can sometimes even make your phone unavailable for calls for very brief periods as it trips from GSM to 3G and vice versa.
If you need to use 3G for video calls or whatever then I'm afraid your just going to have to live with this but if you don't (And lets face it few of us do) then you can switch 3G off and increase your battery life considerably.
To do this, go into the "Settings" application (Found in the menu somewhere, by default Nokia normally stick it in "Tools"), and then to the "Phone" tab. In there you will see an option that says "Network mode" and you have a choice of "GSM" or "Dual Mode" (I.e. UMTS and GSM). Set it to GSM and your phone will restart. Once it restarts it will be working in GSM with GPRS speeds only but really for most purposes this is fine.
You have now just extended your battery capability considerably. You can further extend it by going to the "Connection" tab, going into "Packet data" and changing it to "When needed" so it is not constantly checking for a data connection.
The second big change you can make is to turn your phones wifi scanning capability off. The last time I looked not all Nokia's phones that have wifi capability can have their wifi cards switched off entirely but if you can, turn it off except for when you need to use it. Wifi is a power hog.
The next big change you can make is to lower the screen brightness settings on your phone. The less bright your screen is the less power is being used to light it up. Nokia by default leave the screen brightness at something like 50%. Lowering this a bit more will conserve more juice. Before you do this though please consider the fact that lowering the brightness setting will have a big impact on your ability to see the screen clearly in sunny conditions although you will be fine in the dark as you can't lower the brightness that far.
To lower the brightness, go to the settings tool in your phone and into the display option (Hidden in a subcategory called "Personalisation" on the N95). It won't hurt to set the power saving time out to 1 minute and the backlight time out to 10 seconds while your here (Although these are the Nokia default so they should already be set to this).
Finally in regards to the screen, although they may look pretty, animated screensavers use more battery power than the standard blank screen with time and date so avoid them if you can.
It also helps to keep Bluetooth switched off until you need it although the power savings are minimal in comparison to the other changes but every little milliamp counts!
Using the above methods I generally get about 3 to 4 days with about 3 hours talktime on my N95 without using Bluetooth, GPS or anything like that (I might be able to get more but so far I have not paid attention to the battery state before I put it on charge). If I am on a long train journey I can get about 4 hours worth of full screen video and about 2 hours talktime over the period of about 24 hours before it needs a recharge. As I said at the start of the post your mileage will vary greatly depending on how you use your device.
Hope this helps.
Useful links: Phone firmware update | Nokia support site

02-May-200701:14 PM
bixby wrote:
no keffa it is a cop out from nokia
its not unfai as its a premium device with a premium price
the n95 battery is atrocious
dont change the post content as the title is 'How to increase the battery life of your N series device'
your talking about nokia phones specifically
the networks are not to blame
they do not make the handsets : Nokia do !!!!!!!!!!
I'm going to choose my words carefully here...
I would never deny the battery on the N95 is not really up to the job of powering the N95 with its power hungry features. To put the same battery into a phone that has WiFi, GPS and a large 320x240 screen, the same one that goes into the E65 which has comparatively nothing compared to it is a bit pants.
However at no point was I criticising them for the band hopping problem. I labelled the post as how to increase the battery life of your N series device because this is a board for the N series devices. It was a simple choice of wording and not intended to be cutting in any way and I did make a remark that the details would be true of any 3G device at the top of the post.
What I was trying to point out in my second post is that the constant band hopping the phone is being forced to do that is draining its battery so much more quicker than it would if it had a constant signal of one kind or another isn't quite Nokia's fault.
They build it to conform to a laid out specification for 3G. However if the network operators cannot be bothered to roll out their 3G infrastructure adequately enough that the phone can find and remain locked onto a 3G signal that is usable then what are Nokia to do other than offer you the capability to turn 3G off until you need it (Although note to Nokia: That **bleep** reboot the phone does when you do this is entirely unneeded and you know it).
Blaming Nokia for this would be like blaming the manufacturer of your radio for failing to pick up radio because the radio station does not have any transmitters within range of your radio's receiver.
Finally...this band hopping is exhibited by all 3G phones built by Samsung, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, etc, from their most budget 3G model to their priciest piece and is the reason that all phones with 3G capabilities have batteries that do not last for any respectable length of time because these phones are also having to band hop between 3G and GSM.
Finally the proof is in the pudding. Turn 3G off for a few days. See your battery improve. Then (Although admittedly this will be harder to do...mcuh harder) find an area where you get a fairly decent 3G signal constantly. Again, see your battery improve. Try it with a different 3G phone...different manufacturer even. The same will be true.
So I stand by my comment, the network operators and their woeful 3G rollout are the villains costing you a fair chunk of your battery and Nokia cannot be expected to mitigate this....but a better battery would be nice all the same...
Useful links: Phone firmware update | Nokia support site

Iphone 5 shuts down when battery life still shows 10% left

Install iOS7 on iphone 5 and the device will power down sometimes when it still shows 10-20% battery life then not power back on, while displaying that it should be plugged in. Also the phone will sometimes jump from 20% life down to something like 1-3% on the indicator in mere seconds and powers off shortly thereafter.
Basically the phone gets down to what shows as 20% battery life and may shut down at any point after that....

This could be because the battery has not been properly calaberated try the link below. http://www.apple.com/nz/batteries/iphone.html

My ipod mini shows full battery life...but it keeps saying that its dead.

hey I just took my ipod off its charger, I have an ihome...and it was on it all night and most of the day charging. I went to turn it on and it showed that it had full battery and then I started playing a playlist and on the first song it played it stopped the song and said that it didnt have any battery life left. then just now I turned it back on it looked like it had almost no battery life. then after a song had played a lil bit it goes back to full battery. Then later after its been played for about maybe a half an hour if that it dies again for good. untill I charge it back up and start the whole thing over again. now I know these things last longer then a half an hour, am I right? its also like 2 years old.
please! some one help me or tell me what I should do because Im about ready to trash the thing and buy a new ipod! and its past warrenty.

you can replace your battery for like 30 bucks. There are instructions on the web and quite a few websites that sell replacement batteries. Check the web for an hour or two. Don't spend another 250 when you can have it back ready to rock for a lot less. Apple just wants your 250, don't give it to them. It's highway robbery, look at cell phones, they need replacement batteries every 2 years or so. And $30 for a replacement li-ion battery is a total steal these days...

Random shutdown issues, battery, and overheating.

Hi,
About two weeks ago, I've experienced random shutdowns on my MacBook Pro (Bought it on October).
I am not sure if all this problem was about battery issues. First I've charged it for the first time and only lasted 1 hour. then I recalibrated it and now it last 2 hours and a bit more.
Now, apart from having battery issue, I've experienced random shutdowns from my laptop. I had installed all the available updates for my laptop.
Reading all the posted topics about heat, shutdowns and batteries, maybe my problem is just overheating.
So I've installed the fan control, adjusted the speed to 3500 rpm and worked fine.
But one thing came to my mind:
Is it safe for the fans to actually force the speed all time? if so, their cycle life could be shorter?.
On either case, what if the MBP actually has a defective factory error and if I still be using it, it could completely "melt from the inside"?
Does the battery itself has something to do with the overheating itself?
Maybe I should call for a laptop replacement as well.
Any suggestions?

Your Mac will very likely last as long as you own it or otherwise choose to upgrade. The heat issues posted here are not entirely valid. With that said, you might want to verify that your battery isn’t on the recall list by viewing the link provided below.
Excerpt:
"The affected batteries have model number A1175 and a 12-digit serial number that ends with U7SA, U7SB or U7SC. To view the model and serial numbers located on the bottom of the battery, you must remove the battery from the computer. The battery serial number is located above the barcode. See photos below. Only batteries within the noted serial number ranges need to be exchanged."
https://support.apple.com/macbookpro15/batteryexchange/
Regards,
 MBP-15"/2.16/2GB RAM/7200/W8612... Mac OS X (10.4.8) G4 Tower (OS 9/10), Dell 620 WorkStation (XP Pro), Gateway P4 (XP Home)

My iPhone with 40 or so percent randomly shuts down with iOS 7 and 6. Often with the camera app stating the phone is out of battery. Moments later I turn it back on and the same battery life still appears.

My iPhone with 40 or so percent randomly shuts down with iOS 7 and 6. Often with the camera app stating the phone is out of battery. Moments later I turn it back on and the same battery life still appears. It sometimes happens over and over until I leave it alone for a while (still not charging), and then it works.

I think you might get a new phone instead of repairing it as it takes time and you said the repairing center is far from your living place

My iPhone 5 randomly turned off and it now won't turn back on. It had around 80% battery life left. What can I do?

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press and hold the top power button and home button on the front for 6-8 seconds until you see an apple appear, then let go.
phone will start up now.
**Do not do this while plugged in to computer.

Random Shutdown While Running On Battery

I've been experiencing random shutdowns when running on the battery of my iBook G4 12" (2004). The iBook has been working fine when the power adapter plugged in and I don't know the route of the problem! If anyone could enlighten me it would be much apppreciated! I have run the Hardware Test and everything has come back thumbs up. I'm thinking this maybe a Logic Board problem, im hoping that it isn't because that is costly!
Any help is greatly appreciated, Cheers.

Hi,
Welcome to the Discussions.
I would suspect a bad battery. It's ~2 years old (the average life of a lithium ion battery) and it doesn't happen when plugged into the mains. Older batteries often report false information about the percent of charge in them. It can read 60% when in fact it's 1%.
Go to Apple Menu>About this Mac>More Info and see what the capacity of the battery is and the number of charge cycles.
John

Random Shutdowns when on Battery Power

Hello!
My Macbook Pro is about 2 years old and it seems to be randomly shutting down when the battery is at about 40%. This has happened twice in the past 3 days. Both times, when the battery was at about 35-45% and was not plugged in with an adapter the computer would shut down without any warning and wouldn't turn on again unless it was plugged in. Once it restated (the full boot up) no applications acted as if they had "crashed" (though, thankfully I was never in the process of working on something, just browsing the internet), and Firefox, when reopened, opened up all my tabs as before the system crashed. Also, once it restarted the battery wasn't depleted and still showed about a 45% charge.
To complicate matters, the computer doesn't die every time the battery reaches 35-45% (one of those days it decharged fully and gave me the reserve battery warning as usual), so it doesn't seem to be a dead cell in the battery, if I understand correctly. The first time it randomly shut down was 3 days ago. Earlier today my computer decharged fully and gave me a reserve battery warning, at which point I plugged it in. However this evening it again died on my at 45% battery life, I restarted it by plugging it in, and then as an experiment unplugged it once it had started up. In the next 10 minutes it shut down once more.
I've removed the battery and there isn't any dust or grime, so that's not the problem as far as I know.
My battery information in the System Profiler comes out like this:
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 1731
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 2547
Health Information:
Cycle count: 125
Condition: Check Battery
So, is my battery dead or in the process of dying and I should consider replacing it? I'm still a little fuzzy on how cycle counts work, but 2 years seems like not a lot of time before replacing a battery.
Maybe my computer is overheating (I do have a case on it, but it should ventilate correctly)?
Or perhaps it has a virus? Though I have Norton Antivirus and it runs scans about 3 times a week and has not found anything ever.
I'd like to get this sorted out so I don't have to be paranoid about loosing my data in case I ever am working on something. And I'd really like to not have to plug it in all the time (I'm a college student...plugging it in everywhere on campus can be a pain in the ***).
Thanks!!

mybluehighways,
looking at your battery figures, your description of the computer's behaviour, and the age of the battery it is pretty clear that it has simply deteriorated to the point where it can no longer sustain normal operation.
The short answer is that you need a new battery.
The long answer is that when computers running on batteries shut down unexpectedly it is simply because the battery is not able to provide the transient power needed for a particular task or tasks. It usually occurs because the internal resistance in the battery has built up to the point where, though the battery can still store electricity, it can't deliver it sufficiently quickly to meet the demand.
It is like a car with plenty of petrol in the tank but a faulty fuel pump. It will trundle along quite happily on the flat for quite a while, but if you put your foot down to overtake or climb a hill the engine will stall because it can't get enough gas to meet the increased demand. At this point you can choose the dangerous option to keep on driving on flat roads only, and to never overtake anything or "put your foot down" to get out of trouble until the fuel pump dies completely (which you can be certain it will soon do), or you can get it fixed by getting a new one. The same applies with batteries, though you are "only" risking data loss and hard drive corruption with a computer, rather than your life!
The variation in the amount of time for which it ran before cutting out will simply be due to variations in power demand when doing different sorts of tasks. You will find, too, that the battery will cut out earlier and earlier, under lower and lower power demand situations, as it continues to deteriorate. (Once these batteries start exhibiting this behaviour you can be sure that they are well on the way out)
If you take your battery to an Apple AASP or Apple Store they can quickly test it for you, but if I were you I'd be preparing to buy a new one.
This has nothing to do with viruses or the like. It is a very common experience with the batteries in these MBPs when they are around a couple of years old. My own first battery in essentially the same model became problematic after 18 months.
Cheers
Rod
Message was edited by: Rod Hagen

Problems with random shutdown after replacing a swollen battery

Hello all,
Perhaps one of you can help with this issue.
I'm using a Macbook Pro 17" mid-2007 model. A few months ago, the power disconnected from the machine when the battery had already run down and the machine did a hard shutdown. When I booted it back up there were serious problems with the display. Eventually it stopped working altogether. I took it for service and it was determined to by the NVIDIA graphics processor problem, so Apple replaced my motherboard.
When I got the machine back from servicing, there was a rattle in the right fan that gradually got worse. After a while the touchpad button stopped depressing in the center. I also experienced several random shutdowns while operating on battery power. I learned about the swelling battery issue with macbooks and ordered a replacement. By the time the replacement battery arrived my original battery was quite swollen. I'm concerned that the swelling battery may have warped the case a bit, leading to the fan noise.
I have now replaced the battery, but I'm still experiencing random shutdowns after 20+ minutes of use on battery power. I have done the RSS tests that were recommended in other forums and there doesn't seem to be any random shutdown problems when I'm plugged in -- only under battery power. My understanding is that a swelling battery can sometimes cause the battery to disengage from the electrical contacts on the MB, causing a sudden shutdown. I'm wondering why the problem is persisting now with a new battery? After one random shutdown, I tried to power up again using the battery, while pushing the battery into place at various angles, but I couldn't find any angle that would give power to the machine. The fan noise is also still present.
Can anyone offer an explanation or advise on any methods to overcome these random shutdowns? I have checked the console and the machine isn't registering any error when it shuts down, although when it restarts it says "DirectoryService[35] Improper shutdown detected"

Yep, it is video (or: or audio for video) so unless you're sure you need it (because you work or will work with the DVC Pro HD video/audio codec), you can remove the plug from its' folder and put it in your documents folder (don't trash it, I have no idea if it is necessary for non-DVC Pro HD users to have it installed too).
The WWW is littered with posts from people encountering bugs and crashreports with DVCPROHDAudio.plugin as the main suspect. Most of those posts seem to be from video people rather than audio folks.
http://www.google.nl/search?q=DVCPROHDAudio.plugin&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=or g.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
But, if you get crashes and you see this one mentioned in the report, disable it, restart, and see if the problem's gone.

''Well When i plug in my ipod touch the battery life is low..i let it sit a wyhle.And it starts up to the apple logo and it stay there some time then it restartsback over to the very low battery and repeat(Over&Over)?

''Well When i plug in my ipod touch the battery life is low..i let it sit a wyhle.And it starts up to the apple logo and it stay there some time then it restartsback over to the very low battery and repeat(Over&Over)

Can you reset the device by holding the sleep and home button until the Apple logo comes back again?
If this does not work, try to connect in recovery mode, explained here: iOS: Unable to restore

For battery life is it better to run my newly acquired 2010 Macbook Pro on battery most of the time down fully then charge or plug it in most of the time?

Just wondering about my 2010 Macbook Pro 13'
For the best overall battery life is it better to run battery down each time then plug in til fully charged or just plug in and use most of the time?
Thanks
Calpatrick111

Hi C,
Run it about 30 minutes a day on batt, the rest on the power adapter. Every month or two, run the batt all the way down until it goes into forced sleep, wait five hours, then charge it all the way up.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

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20-30% battery life then random shutdown

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