Apple claims that any of its laptops can survive 1000 recharge cycles from 0% to 100% without problems. Then the performance problems start to set in. In two years of abundant use, my MacBook Pro (2018) has depleted 750 cycles. So that means another 250 and on to an expensive replacement for 20+ thousand rubles? That's not much of a prospect.
A buddy of mine once bought a 2019 MacBook Air and found that the battery life was only 22 cycles in a year of use by the previous owner. By comparison, I got that many on mine after two weeks. According to the seller, it had not been repaired, "the laptop was at home" and "wasn't used much."
Even if you charge it once a week, should have accumulated at least fifty cycles. The friend had his doubts, but took the risk, and no catch was found in the end. Everything worked fine, the device held as long as it should.
Three years later, I seem to have figured out the secret. Most likely, the previous owner had been using the MacBook constantly, but plugged into an outlet. And thereby kept the battery in near-new condition.
I tell you how I came by experience and what you need to do to stretch the health of your laptop battery for years to come.
Decided not to ruin the battery in the new macbook!
In mid-February I asked you whether to buy a MacBook or an iPad. Five days later I no longer thought it appropriate to tell you about it, but now I can on the subject: I became one of the last customers in the official Apple Online Store. On the morning of March 1, a MacBook Pro arrived for me, transactions from the site were stopped in the evening of the same day, and the next day the store was closed.
In spite of the fact that thanks to the Apple chip the novelty holds a charge for almost a day, in resource-intensive tasks like video rendering, 3D graphics, and gaming the power consumption of M1 Pro processor grows significantly, so that all 100% of the battery goes away in maximum 3 hours. Concerns about its degradation didn't go anywhere. In my farewell to the Intel-powered macbook, I wrote that in two years of use I was frustrated by 700 wasted cycles out of a healthy 1,000. The laptop had to be charged twice a day, and there was no desire to repeat history.
In mid-February I asked you whether to buy a MacBook or an iPad. Five days later I no longer thought it appropriate to tell you about it, but now I can on the subject: I became one of the last customers in the official Apple Online Store. On the morning of March 1, a MacBook Pro arrived for me, transactions from the site were stopped in the evening of the same day, and the next day the store was closed.
In spite of the fact that thanks to the Apple chip the novelty holds a charge for almost a day, in resource-intensive tasks like video rendering, 3D graphics, and gaming the power consumption of M1 Pro processor grows significantly, so that all 100% of the battery goes away in maximum 3 hours. Concerns about its degradation didn't go anywhere. In my farewell to the Intel-powered macbook, I wrote that in two years of use I was frustrated by 700 wasted cycles out of a healthy 1,000. The laptop had to be charged twice a day, and there was no desire to repeat history.
It's been three weeks, I check the cycles in the system information, and there are already 21. On a weekday laptop enough for two days, and on the weekend Civilization 6 squeezed out of it sometimes three charges in a row. If you add up the consumption according to the principle of Apple calculations, it turns out that in fact I was recharging every day. And that means over the same 2 years, assuming I'm now using a powerful GPU, I'll have the same 700-plus cycles as the MacBook Pro 15 from 2018. Not a case.
And everyone knows that when the MacBook is plugged in, the adapter still powers the battery first and then the laptop. Right? Right?
Not so.
After charging the battery to 100%, in the status of the battery, I saw the words Power Source: AC adapter. And it was like I had a power surge. What if Apple decided to keep quiet about this feature so as not to lose a major advantage over PC laptops?
Work by the socket for the battery, not the power!
As a rule, Windows laptops reach their computing potential only when powered by an adapter, not by the battery. Because otherwise the battery life would be no more than an hour. That is, even if you want to in mobile mode, you can not squeeze all the juice out of the chip.
Apple undercuts frequencies much less frequently, usually the performance remains stable under both conditions. But the runtime at high load is still much shorter.
As a result, it is better to keep Windows and MacOS devices with the adapter in the socket with one condition, which is mentioned in the end. It's just that in the case of Windows it's for processing power, and in the case of MacOS it's to avoid ruining the battery.
Apple would have a hard time explaining this and hate to lose their trump card, so you won't find this recommendation in any manual on the site, in the settings or in the tips.
Now to the proof of why the laptop is actually taking power from the adapter directly when it's running.
I have three proofs!
To be sure of my assertion, I conducted two experiments.
First, I worked for a whole week with the macbook plugged in, disconnecting the MagSafe wire only after closing the laptop. Then, on the weekend, I purposely discharged and charged it fully once. In parallel, every day I monitored the cycle rate in the regular program System Information.
I started the experiment on Monday March 22 with 21 cycles. On the weekend I used the battery two and a half times. And a week later, on March 29, I checked the condition. Saw what I expected: 22 cycles. Everything was adding up.
Second, I replaced the 140 watt power supply with a 20 watt one and saw what macOS would say. Here it was less clear-cut at first, but then it made sense.
In both cases, the status of the power supply did not change. As it was "AC adapter," it held. Even when the battery started to lose percentage because I started rendering a video and playing a game, the load of which the 20 watt power supply couldn't handle at all.
After 10 minutes the system made me understand that in this situation I was forced to switch over to the battery. In the System Monitoring program, the Energy section changed its status from AC to battery. And the energy from the small unit went not to the system, but to charge the cells.
As a result, macOS tells you in plain language when it uses one power source or another, always to the exclusion of the other.
This also explains why Apple actually put in a 140-watt adapter, even though the battery inside the 16-inch laptop didn't change in size. The power of the chip and the potential load on it under all conditions should be fully covered by mains power.
By the way, the third piece of circumstantial evidence was that under serious load, the battery area stays cool, while the 140-watt Gallium adapter out of the box gets hot. This also confirms why it is better to use an official charger.
Discharge the battery once a week as a precaution!
Since Apple does not comment on the benefits to the battery when running on an adapter, there is no advice from Apple on this topic. The official recommendations are only concerned with extending battery life within a single cycle.
But if you keep your laptop at the charger all the time, the points about turning off Wi-Fi, accessories and reducing brightness will not play the weather for you. In that case, it's important to do only one task. Once every 7 days, let your macbook discharge to 20%.
The mechanism of lithium-ion battery wear and tear is as follows. The cell consists of two chambers, the anode and cathode, with a metal separator between them, through which the lithium ion electrodes pass. When they are in the cathode, the charge is full, when in the anode, it is zero.
The more often, in a larger volume and at a higher temperature, these electrodes move from one side to the other, the faster the separator crystallizes and interferes with the transition of the ions. This is the wear and tear of the resource.
This is why they recommend charging the device at 20% to 80% and storing the device at 50%. That way the fill rate of both layers will be equal.
To at least simulate this condition, be sure to enable optimized charging (Settings > Battery > Optimized Charging), which should eventually keep the battery at 80% with the power plugged in, but for now just choose a day of the week when you will reset the status to 20%.
Not one, but five observations!
What conclusions you need to draw from the above.
Any modern MacBook has two modes of power consumption: through the battery and through the mains power adapter. This is not a myth.
Use the cord when doing work that requires high CPU or GPU processing power. It really doesn't use up the battery and reduces its wear and tear in cycles.
Once a week, discharge your laptop to 20%. This will reduce stress on the battery because of the constant 100%.
Turn on optimized charging. This will teach your laptop to keep the charge at 80% even when plugged in and even less damage to the cells.
Apple increased the MBP 16 adapter to 140 watts for a reason. With the bundled unit, mains power will fully cover the needs of the M1 Pro and M1 Max chip and won't switch to the battery. The same goes for the other models.
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