Snow Leopard on MacBooks and Pros, Power issues

[Anonymous]

If you are using SL on a MacBook or a MacBook Pro you may want to start keeping track of your battery and do not do anything important while running on the battery.

1. The computer shuts down immediately at various levels of charge.

2. There are no low battery warnings. (Usually shuts down before battery is low enough)

3. The cycle count grows exponentially.

4. The problem persists even when booting back onto 10.4 or 10.5.

This appears to effect all models of MacBooks and Pros with no rhyme or reason from the first to the latest.

[Eduardo Rolon]

1. Has not happened to me yet
2. Has always given warning.
3. has not happened yet.
4. No problems therefore no reason to downgrade.

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There were some Macbooks that had problems with their batteries, if I remember they were the first version of the Unibody Macbook Pro and the last regular version. The problem with SL is that it tracks more aggressively the battery status and gives better warning when the battery needs replacing. If you option click the battery icon in SL it will give you the status of your battery.

The symptoms you describe are typical of a battery that needs replacing.

[Anonymous]

There weren't/aren't too many portables that haven't had problems with batteries. Aside from that there is a problem with this feature. If the battery required replacement it should indicate replace soon or replace now.

This prevents you from properly maintaining the battery because it does not go into hibernation and shuts down prematurely.

Glad you don't have any problems but there are many who do including owners of brand new machines. As I said there doesn't seem to be any specific models that are unaffected. I use my batteries and keep them properly maintained.

[Erich]

No problems here either and it sounds as though you aren't experiencing any issues either. So why are you sounding the alarm?

[Eduardo Rolon]

Option + Click on the Battery will tell you if the Battery needs replacing and it will tell you how many charges it has gone thru. You can also find this information in "About this Mac" and you can also install the iStat Pro widget (Free) which will tell you also the health and how many charges the battery has.

When batteries start to give problems they degrade almost exponentially.

[Anonymous]

I am experiencing issues with two batteries. Both are less than a year old. A look around indicated it is another wide spread issue. I am very familiar with the Mac and how they operate and how they are supposed to. Shutting down with no warnings and more than 50% of a charge is not normal. Nor is cycle counts increasing by 10 in a single day.

So please pardon me. I guess I'm not really sure why I bothered to post. Ill be certain to refrain next time.