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Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

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Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#251

Post by philwelch »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #242
philwelch wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This probably goes hand in hand with the unremovable batteries. Back when they had removable batteries you could run it on AC with no battery installed and it would work fine.

No, thats purely to prevent repair. Its perfectly possible to have a removable battery and to just not boot when one is not inserted. Thats how phones used to work ~2013

I’m not saying one is a requirement for the other, just that you don’t have to worry about the battery-removed state when it doesn’t exist.

From the tear downs I’ve seen, it seems like the primary motivation for the non-removable battery is so they can cram it into every spare piece of space.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#252

Post by closeparen »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #242
philwelch wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This probably goes hand in hand with the unremovable batteries. Back when they had removable batteries you could run it on AC with no battery installed and it would work fine.

No, thats purely to prevent repair. Its perfectly possible to have a removable battery and to just not boot when one is not inserted. Thats how phones used to work ~2013

A removable battery requires its own protective shell, which costs weight and thickness. When it's not user serviceable, it can just be a bag of acid resting on the main board, piggybacking on the device's own case for the required protection.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#253

Post by freeqaz »

mjayhn wrote: post #90
rubber_duck wrote: post #53

I got a top spec 15 MBP a year ago and I have to say the experience is appalling - 4000$ device that goes full airplane takeoff levels of noise at any serious workload, no ability to control performance (I would gladly throttle the CPU sooner to avoid everyone in the office turning my way when I start an emulator or keep the fans at lower RPM but constantly instead of letting the CPU idle at 60-70 degrees with no fan…

If it makes you feel any better I branched off to a XPS 13 2in1 4 months ago in between jobs (where I use the latest mbp) and used the thing for 2-3 months with no MBP as backup. I absolutely hate it. It throttles constantly even after undervolting it. I had to do a bunch of black magic to get it to sleep properly (which is evidently happening to every Dell) and eventually gave up on that and just set it to hibernate…

Might be worth trying Linux on that. At least you'd have more control over the sleep issues.

I have a Dell Precision 7540 that I was having issues getting sleep to work. It would panic on resuming I think because of WiFi but I couldn't fix it. So I enabled "hybrid-sleep" which is like hibernate and sleep together. Before it sleeps, it flushes the RAM to disk. When it wakes up, it tries to boot from RAM and, if successful, it deletes the hibernation data. But if it crashes before it deletes the files, you just reboot and it resumes from disk. So I never "lose" my status but 95% of the time my computer resumes normally.

There are certainly other frustrating bits with Linux, but at least the flexibility to fix the issues is within your grasp. That was my biggest gripe with OSX and Windows. You just aren't always able the fix the issue and it's very mentally painful (for me). :P

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#254

Post by mettamage »

haxxorfreak wrote: post #89
rubber_duck wrote: post #53

I got a top spec 15 MBP a year ago and I have to say the experience is appalling - 4000$ device that goes full airplane takeoff levels of noise at any serious workload, no ability to control performance (I would gladly throttle the CPU sooner to avoid everyone in the office turning my way when I start an emulator or keep the fans at lower RPM but constantly instead of letting the CPU idle at 60-70 degrees with no fan…

I use a 15" 2018 MacBook Pro with the six-core i9 at work and Turbo Boost Switcher[1] has been my favourite discovery. It lets you disable the turbo boost function of the processor which means the fans never spin up and the battery lasts longer. I pretty much always leave it disabled unless I am going to be transcoding video or compiling something and can't notice a performance hit even with a couple of VMs running.…

Thank you for mentioning this. I've been wondering for years how to get my fans down. I'm almost considering to submit this to HN.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#255

Post by robocat »

I hit a similar issue with an iPad today - there is no easy way to tell if it is charging slowly.

It was showing the charging icon, although only charging at 1W. Horrific UI. I changed cables, it was charging at 5W. Shit, the charger was a 5W charger for an iPod (charger looks the same, need to read tiny low contrast writing to tell difference). Changed to a 10W charger, now charging at 7.5W. Change to another cable, finally 10W.

Fortunately I had an in-line USB diagnosis tool (about $10, google for USB power meter) otherwise you are screwed trying to diagnose why your iPad seems to be charging slow...

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#256

Post by cmckn »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #129
cmckn wrote: post #80

Why doesn't the UI report 80% as 100%? It seems like exposing this to the user is more confusing than anything, when the cells could be over provisioned and treated politely by a system controller, without the user being part of the decision. Aren't SSD's over provisioned in this manner? You sell a drive with a terabyte of storage, but actually ship more than a terabyte of chips in the case to accommodate degradation…

> Why doesn't the UI report 80% as 100%? Because the last time they tried "silently manage the battery without the user being part of the decision" it didn't go over real well?

Touché!

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#257

Post by jeddf »

rubber_duck wrote: post #83
eecc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just search for it https://www.eidac.de/

This is fan control - but I want CPU/GPU power control - I wouldn't mind lowering my boost clocks to limit peak temperatures on heavy workloads.

I've been using turbo boost switcher for a couple of months now with a base MPB16 and it's worked well. I pretty much keep turbo boost off all the time, barely ever notice any slowdown and it seems to help with noise & heat.

http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/

Happily sprang for the pro version, it's needed to not have to keep authorising it in on every switch.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#258

Post by sschueller »

philwelch wrote: post #241
ratww wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been explained that this is because those computers might need more power than the AC Charger is able to provide, so the battery is also used as a "backup" for burst loads. This [1] seems to confirm it. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20081225111200/http://support.ap...

This probably goes hand in hand with the unremovable batteries. Back when they had removable batteries you could run it on AC with no battery installed and it would work fine.

Someone remind me why the batteries are no longer removable? Macbooks aren't water tight.

Oh right, the laptop looks pretty and the battery can't be fitted in one area without adding some thickness.

Im so sick over this form over function crap that everyone copies.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#259

Post by stinos »

philwelch wrote: post #241
ratww wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been explained that this is because those computers might need more power than the AC Charger is able to provide, so the battery is also used as a "backup" for burst loads. This [1] seems to confirm it. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20081225111200/http://support.ap...

This probably goes hand in hand with the unremovable batteries. Back when they had removable batteries you could run it on AC with no battery installed and it would work fine.

and it would work fine.

Though in practice, the magsafe connector wasn't cat- or human proof meaning when one of those gets as much as near the cable it's byebye unsaved work and in worst case byebye boot because of a messed up system. I ended up taping the connector to the laptop to avoid that. As to why I'd run without a battery: it was swollen.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#260

Post by cmckn »

symmitchry wrote: post #190
cmckn wrote: post #80

Why doesn't the UI report 80% as 100%? It seems like exposing this to the user is more confusing than anything, when the cells could be over provisioned and treated politely by a system controller, without the user being part of the decision. Aren't SSD's over provisioned in this manner? You sell a drive with a terabyte of storage, but actually ship more than a terabyte of chips in the case to accommodate degradation…

Well, as a user, wouldn't it be nice if I could access 100 % of my battery for situations where I need as much life as possible? 20 % is fairly significant. It also cuts down on battery longevity, but plenty of people might not care at all.

For sure, a "extra battery" mode could make sense as the opposite of "low power" mode. Still, that smells like the sort of feature the average user would be superstitious of, like the obsessive app force-quitting I see folks do on the bus all the time.
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