wow this is really interesting as my macbook is always plugged in when am working on my limo hire website, i hope being plugged in always doesnt hurt!

Interesting. I have a 1999-vintage Dell laptop that was working fine one day and then all of a sudden it started spontaneously shutting down on me last year. Eventually, it wouldn’t even turn on at all. I just assumed something had broken, since the laptop was 8 years old at the time. The battery was the original battery and had long ago stopped holding a charge (I had been running it on AC for most of its life). I think I may have even removed the battery at some point.

Now, I’m wondering if removing the battery (or, at the least, having a dead battery) was causing it to shut down. Problem is, new batteries are expensive and I’d hate to fork over the bucks for a new battery only to find out the laptop still won’t run. Still, it worked just fine with Win XP right up to the point when it didn’t — despite being 8 years old. If it worked, it would still be useful.

Likely something like Cody B says, though the laptop does know what wattage the adapter powering it is.

I hear class action coming or they will just give you a bigger adapter. Great idea though Baz.

James or someone else that has a new MB, how many watt is the adapter?

So, if the battery is an integral part of the advertised operational specs of a notebook (MacBook or no) you are right to expect that the device’s warranty (or any extended warranty you purchase) must include the battery for the full length of term? Any failure or degradation of the battery must, by implication, be fully covered for the duration of the warranty?

Hmmm….

aesthetics over performance, anyone surprised?

This sounds like a copout. My old Fujitsu 3GHz P4 laptop chugs along quite nicely without the battery (which died many years ago). – Looks out the window at the ginormous power brick sitting in his garden melting all the snow.

Seriously, though, the adaptor is huge and it gets mighty hot (as does the whole laptop!). It outputs 20volts, 6Amps.

I have the HP HDX Dragon, unfortunately it does the opposite of the Apple notebook. I get full speed with the AC adapter installed (battery in or out). However once the AC adapter is disconnected, the CPU clocks down and there is no way to speeding the Dragon back to full speed. Maybe its a good thing since on full load with 3D games, the notebook does pull around 120Watts hence the battery may discharge too fast (84Whr capacity).

I guess it is like a hybrid car. The battery kicks in to help the engine in high load situations.

Yeah this isn’t new. I remember people complaining about the issue when the Macbooks first came out several years ago. It isn’t specific to Apple either. Thinkpad’s (Lenovo) and Dell’s do the same thing. As mentioned above the battery acts as a UPS of sorts for short transients when performance is maxed out. The battery handles those short power spikes better than the power adapter.

It might help to think of both the battery and the AC supply as both contributing to the power available. The laptop doesn’t switch from battery power to AC power when you’re plugged in, they’re both active.

I have a pavillion notebook from HP, and if I take the battery out while it is plugged in, performance does not drop. but if I try to do too much then the notebook will sut down claiming a dead battery. mainly the A/C cable is there to charge the battery, but if the computer is eating battery power too fast it will draw from the A/C plug as well

I have a pavillion notebook from HP, and if I take the battery out while it is plugged in, performance does not drop. but if I try to do too much then the notebook will sut down claiming a dead battery. mainly the A/C cable is there to charge the battery, but if the computer is eating battery power too fast it will draw from the A/C plug as well

Interesting. As Cody B said, it must be because the batt can sumplement the power requirement in high-wattage scenarios.

Steve.

Companies decided that a 60 watt power adapter sells better than a larger 120 watt adapter because it can be physically smaller. They also learned that they could get away with lower wattage adapters than a laptop needs at peak performance since they have extra power in the battery. This isn’t an issue since most computers twiddle their thumbs looking for something to do most of their lives allowing the battery to charge.

So in Apples case, people love their small adapter. So instead of giving people a larger adapter when they gave them a more powerful computer, they just clock it down a bit when there isn’t a battery.

I had a dell laptop with a bad battery that would shutdown if I pushed it with a 60 watt power adapter. The 90 watt adapter would be able to keep it running.