notebook is a 10 year old macbook pro without macos I installed xubuntu 24.04 in. It comes with an embedded battery.
First notebook I bought, not from apple, had a removable battery. The vendor told me to maximize its life I shouldn't plug the battery in, unless I need it (like for traveling). This way, I've managed to keep the original battery in good working condition for 8 years so far.
Back to the macbook: I cannot remove the battery and constantly loading it to up to 80% and discharge it up to 20% seems ridiculous. Furthermore, this would deplete the battery even faster, I believe.
What can I do to spare the battery as much as possible?
My son has a gaming laptop that is plugged in constantly. I vaguely remember reading that all modern laptops protect the battery to some degree, though not sure how. I'm guessing it is by using the mains while charging. Not sure what the damage is to a battery that is constantly fully charged.
After reading this thread I hope this is true I have had 2 laptops plugged in one for like 5 years non stop (this one I deactivated the battery in BIOS it's old) and the other for about a year...
When MacBooks are plugged in, they get their power from the charger. They are not simultaneously draining and charging the battery in general, unless they need more power than the charger can provide (unlikely unless you are using a charger with lower wattage than the official charger that came with your laptop).
I was not able to find an official source on this from a quick search, but if I remember correctly, this should be true for any moderately recent MacBook. Maybe any MacBook at all, since they only started making "MacBooks" in 2006 and then tech hasn't changed much since then.
Personally, I leave my MBP plugged in during use whenever possible, and I typically unplug it at the end of the day. You don't need to unplug it, but hey, it's a good idea to unplug anything that doesn't need to be plugged in, just to save power.
When MacBooks are plugged in, they get their power from the charger. They are not simultaneously draining and charging the battery in general.
so when the battery is fully loaded a controller tells the mobo to stop loading the battery and to use power from the charger to simply power the notebook, is this so?
Correct.
Batteries will still lose charge very slowly, so at some point the battery controller will top itself back up. This is nothing to worry about, and I'm not sure macOS (or Linux) will every display the true charge level of a battery. I believe there is some wiggle room built in at the firmware level.
No it’s got a charge controller that keeps it from fucking up the battery.
Source: I’ve owned many macbooks and worked on many more. The documentation and best practices for both implementing charge controllers for lithium ion batteries and the specific best practices for computers and phones with lithium ion batteries.
Your battery ought to be replaceable once the bottom panel is off the case. Just unplug it and use alcohol to weaken the glue while you scrape it out. New ones are less than $100.
E: if you’re worried about the thing catching on fire, stay on the latest macos you can and trust what it tells you in the uhh battery health section.
If you’re gonna use Linux then go ahead and replace the battery so that you’re not worrying about it failing miserably to communicate with the charge controller or battery itself and tell you when telhe thing is fucked and need replacing.
If you’re gonna use Linux then go ahead and replace the battery so that you’re not worrying about it failing miserably to communicate with the charge controller or battery itself and tell you when telhe thing is fucked and need replacing.
I'm already using linux, macos was nuked.
I don't understand this paragraph. Do you mean new batteries for this model (macbook pro from 2014) work better with linux?
no, i mean that linux doesn't always interface correctly with batteries and charge controllers in devices and subsequently can't always tell the user about battery health.
the idea i was hoping to convey was that it's fine to rely on the macos battery health indicators to figure out if you should replace it, but if you can't rely on that software and especially if it's an old battery its a good idea to replace it.
this is what sudo tlp-stat -b prints:
--- TLP 1.6.1 --------------------------------------------
+++ Battery Care
Plugin: generic
Supported features: none available
+++ Battery Status: BAT0
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/manufacturer = DP
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/model_name = bq20z451
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/cycle_count = 666
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_full_design = 6330 [mAh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_full = 5043 [mAh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_now = 4936 [mAh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/current_now = 0 [mA]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/status = Full
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_start_threshold = (not available)
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_end_threshold = (not available)
Charge = 97.9 [%]
Capacity = 79.7 [%]
do you still recommend a new battery?
nah you got about 400 more cycles at least.
keep it plugged in whenever you can to make it last longer.
It's a miracle that the battery is still working at ten years. The most realistic thing is to just keep up with your backups, and be ready to dispose of that laptop the moment the battery starts swelling.
Yeah you don't want the battery to sit at 100% or 0%. I just bulged out my 10 yr old work macbook battery by leaving it plugged in, not the first one i've seen either. There are utils that can set charge limits in linux https://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity
TBH you MBP battery is probably nearing EOL but it may actually be replaceable.
