While you can look at your Mac battery’s health and deal with it getting worse, is it possible for a dead battery to slow down your MacBook pro? Since Apple has a bad history with batteries(my 2015 MacBook lasts 2 hours!) I think it is essential to know whether this affects Macs.
If your MacBook’s battery is defective, the CPU is likely to throttle down into a less powerful speed, which can cause it to slow down. However, if you’re unsure why your Mac’s speed is acting up, try to fit a new battery to see the difference. You can also opt to check the battery’s report in the system report.
When you talk about the MacBook battery, I certainly feel your concern because after using my MacBook for long hours of gaming, I realized a dead battery is no joke. It can make your MacBook not work well, putting a hold on everything you might be doing
I will explain in this article whether it is bad to let your Mac pro battery die. Also, if you’ve been experiencing slow operations with the Mac, you will know whether replacing the battery will make it faster at the end of this article. Are you already excited to find out? Read on!
For a complete guide to charging your MacBook, you can read my super helpful battery charging guide.
Is It Bad To Let My MacBook Pro Battery Die?
There is no harm in allowing your Mac’s battery to die but this may shorten its lifespan. The more you use your MacBook Pro, the faster its battery will run out. It is not good to not charge MacBooks polymer or lithium-ion batteries as recharging can become a problem.
If you’re looking for the best practices to keep your MacBook pro’s battery healthy for the next several years, here is what I would recommend:
1. Use Your Mac While Charging To Reduce Cycle Count
Every battery no matter what device can only be charged so many times before it’s performance starts to offer, the amount of times a MacBook pro battery has been charged is called the ‘cycle count’
To find your MacBook Pro battery current cycle count, consider taking a look. Simply go to the Apple menu, select system information, and on hardware listings, click on power. According to Apple, concerning Mac batteries, they can retain 80% of their original capacity at 1000 full charge cycles.
My 13-inch MacBook Pro is rated for 1000 cycles. Although it doesn’t seem a lot, I should at least get three years out of it, especially if I completely drain and recharge the battery every day. Since a MacBook Pro battery should roughly stay up to five years, it is not advisable to deplete and charge your battery completely within 24 hours.
So you know how long the MacBook pros battery should last but how about the keyboards? Learn the facts in my article.
2. Don’t Keep A MacBook Shut Down For Long With A 0% Battery
While we are always advised to store Macs shut down when not using for long periods, it is also crucial that you don’t store it with the battery at 0%. I insist on this because deep draining a battery is bad for your battery.
Instead, if you want to store your MacBook pro-long-term, don’t fully deplete or fully charge the battery because there are effects for both actions. For instance, storing your Mac fully depleted might leave your battery in a deep discharge state, making it hard to hold the charge in the future. On the other hand, your battery might lose some capacity if you store the Mac fully charged for some time.
3. Save Your Battery’s Life
You might not like this, but optimizing the settings is the way to go if you want to maximize your battery’s life. For instance, you can dim your screen’s brightness to the lowest level and switch off the lights when watching a video, or you can download the program flux to automatically reduce the brightness of your screen when the sun sets, saving your battery and your eyes!
Restoring your Mac’s energy-saver defaults is another alternative to ensure you get the best out of your battery. Learn more about energy saver preferences in the above video
Also, since Wi-Fi consumes a lot of power even when you’re not connected to a network, you can consider turning its status off in network preferences. Disconnecting peripherals and quitting applications, not in use might as well help. If you’re not accessing an SD card at the moment, consider ejecting it.
Do you find your keyboard gets dirty no matter how careful you are? Learn what are the best MacBook keyboard covers to buy and if they are bad for your machine in my article.
Will Replacing My MacBook Battery Make It Faster?
Replacing a MacBooks will definitely improve performance significantly. In case your Mac’s battery fails, the performance, including speed, will decrease continuously until you replace the battery.
You might opt to use your Mac with a removed battery, but this will only make the situation worse; hence, the only best way to recover your MacBook’s normal performance is by replacing the battery if it’s completely dead.
Apart from replacing your MacBook battery when you want to improve its speed, here are other reasons to get a new battery:
Battery Service Warning
Don’t assume when your Mac tells you it’s time to get a new battery. To see your battery’s current condition, click on the battery level at the top menu bar. If it says “replace now”, “service battery” or “replace soon”, then it’s time for replacement.
Low Battery Run-Time
It’s always a sweet feeling when a MacBook gives you hours of freedom to access it anywhere you, please. But if it demands a charge after only a few minutes, you might want to replace the battery. I bought my 2015 MacBook from eBay a couple of years ago and it has TERRIBLE battery life, it only holds a charge for 90 minutes and I know replacing it will increase its performance a lot.
Occurrence Of Unexpected Shutdowns
Any Apple device can shut down unexpectedly, including iPhones and Macs, especially after surpassing their shelf life. So, if you experience this with your MacBook, the battery has probably run out of juice, and buying a new one might be the only solution.
To see how much you’re expected to pay for a new battery at an Apple store and how Apple prices its repair check out my article.
Overheating
Since it can be annoying to have a MacBook that overheats every time you use it, getting a new battery might help. Although it is normal for Macs to overheat due to various software and hardware issues, it’s not okay to overheat quickly when performing small tasks such as surfing the web or checking emails.