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Studying the Slow Decay of a Laptop Battery For an Entire Year

Posted by timothy on from the ashes-to-ashes-dust-to-dust dept.

First time accepted submitter jradavenport writes "I've been keeping a log of the health of my MacBook Air battery for the past year, taking samples every minute I use the computer (152,411 readings so far!). This has allowed me to study both my own computing/work habits, but also the fascinating rapid decay of battery capacity. Comparing it to my previous 2009 MacBook Pro, the battery in this 2012 Air is degrading much faster."

9 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Love my MacBook Air, hate the battery by geek · · Score: 5, Informative

    I got 10 hours of battery life on my 2011 macbook air when I first got it. I don't just mean 10 hours of it sitting idle either. I could get 7 hours of continuous play of movies. Then Mountain Lion came out and I was lucky to get 3 hours tops. That lasted 6 months until they "fixed" it and I was able to get 5 again. Now in I can consistently get 4 hours with it sitting mostly idle.

    I love the machine but I hate that I cant change the battery myself. I'll have to pay the Apple tax to get this fixed. I am holding out hope for Mavericks though, hopefully the power saving features can breathe some new life into this thing.

    1. Re:Love my MacBook Air, hate the battery by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Informative

      What do you mean you can't change the battery?
      Do you not own a screw driver? And you call yourself a geek.

      http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+MacBook+Air+Models+A1237+and+A1304+Battery/848/1

  2. Re:Survey says... by BoRegardless · · Score: 5, Informative

    We live with what we got now. That is life. But ...

    Within a few years that will change with lithium-sulfur batteries if the lab geeks have anything to say about it.

    http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/157525-new-sulfur-based-battery-is-safer-cheaper-more-powerful-than-lithium-ion

  3. Re:Ah, I see the problem. by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Informative

    You have to do that every once in awhile if you want the battery status indicator to be correct. This is because the voltage curve is so flat there really is no other way to determine level of charge other than to count power out and calibrate what the battery should hold periodically.

  4. Re:Power storage that doesn't degrade... by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Informative

    Because of the whole host of other problems with that suggestion.
    Here is a small set of them, there are many more
    1. expensive fuel cell
    2. low density storage unless you go with expensive metal hydrides
    3. H2 embrittles everything
    4. far cheaper to make H2 via steam reformation of natural gas than electrolysis

  5. Perfectly valid by Russ1642 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I love studies with a sample size of one. No statistics, no variability. Definitive.

  6. Re:Survey says... by aclarke · · Score: 4, Informative

    PROTIP: MacBook Air batteries aren't removable (in that sense).

    --

    www.clarke.ca
  7. Re:Survey says... by gnasher719 · · Score: 5, Informative

    PROTIP: Remove your laptop battery if you are running from the mains most of the time and keep it in a cool drawer somewhere.

    MacTip: DON'T. Your Mac automatically scales back its clock speed to 1 GHz tops. Brownouts can crash your computer immediately because there is no battery to supply power. Magsafe connectors and no battery are an obvious bad combination. And you'll get dust into your computer.

  8. Re:Ah, I see the problem. by PhotoJim · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you don't care if the battery gauge is inaccurate, you should never cycle the battery completely. Lithiums thrive with frequent top-ups.

    Unfortunately, having a useful gauge is handy so it's useful to cycle the battery occasionally.

    I rarely use battery power deep into a battery's cycle so I don't worry too much about it.