Computer dying when it still has battery life?

Question

I don't know what's going on, my laptop is just shutting off without any warning and there is still about half of the battery life left. I will just be searching the web or chatting on AIM and it just shuts down. Any explanation for this or something I can try to prevent it from happening? thanks so much.

Answer 1

Once you're in System profiler, click on the first item in the list called "hardware", it has an arrow next to it and when you click on this arrow, a longer list should appear. Scan down the list under the hardware title until you see the item named "power", once you've done this, all the information about your battery will show up... it should look like this:
System Power Settings:
AC Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 20
Automatic Restart On Power Loss: No
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Wake On LAN: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
Battery Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 4
Automatic Restart On Power Loss: No
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
Reduce Brightness: No
Battery Information:
Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 5546
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 5546
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12562
Cycle Count: 7
AC Charger Information:
Connected: Yes
Charging: No
Hardware Configuration:
UPS Installed: No
I placed the piece of information you're interested in, in bold. If this number is signifigantly lower than 5500, then you have a defective battery. Check your battery for bulging, or seperating, if there is serious bulging immediately stop using the battery as it could be dangerous. As said before, you will have your battery replaced free of charge by apple, as there was a silent recall for these defective batteries. I hope this helps.