How To Calibrate Your Apple Laptop Battery – Is It Time To Unplug Your PowerBook And iBook?

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One of the great luxuries that I enjoy while working at home, is how many stations that I can charge my Apple PowerBook. The kitchen banquette has an adapter waiting in it. The egg chair in the living room has an adapter. Swirled beside my beloved Saarinen cocktail table is… you guessed it, an Apple laptop battery charger. These power adapters have become part of the decor, really. Even my bedroom has an adapter for my PowerBook right on my nightstand. My friends with an iBook or PowerBook love it. My physician blames my insomnia on it.

Does Your Apple Laptop Need Regular Unplugging?

It’s a logical assessment. All things need to rest, including, they say, the battery in your laptop. Tech guru J.D. BIERSDORFER points out that Apple Computer does not recommend leaving your PowerBook plugged in all the time. Why? The internal chemistry of a lithium-ion battery can stagnate if left always connected. This in return may shorten the battery life of your Apple laptop.

Apple advises unplugging the laptop and working from the battery once a month to discharge the stored energy and gets those precious electrons moving… before it’s too late.

Apple Computer does not recommend leaving your PowerBook plugged in all the time.

How To Calibrate Your Apple Laptop Battery

Apple also recommends that you calibrate your laptop’s battery every few months. Laptop batteries contain microprocessors that tell the computer how much of a charge is left, but they can get out of sync. This causes the computer to give incorrect information about the charge status. We all have either seen or experienced the laptop that insists it is only 97% charged after days of being plugged in. Well, Apple suggests that calibration helps the battery and computer communicate more accurately.

Calibrating an Apple laptop is easier than falling out of bed.

• To calibrate the battery, simply start by making sure it is fully charged and showing the green indicator light on the power adapter.
• Then unplug the power adapter and use the laptop on battery power until the machine goes into Sleep mode.
• Once it goes to sleep, the battery has been drained.
• Connect the power cord and charge it back up.

Regular Apple Laptop Battery Maintenance

If you occasionally run the PowerBook from the battery but typically keep it plugged into a power outlet as I do, Apple recommends fully discharging and charging the battery at least once a month. In fact, Apple has a lot of advice on the matter of PowerBook battery care including an iCal reminder that alerts you once a month to calibrate, but sadly, practically nothing on repairing my sleep disorder.