I have my late 2010 13" MBP in a stand and closed connected to an external monitor. Now for this to work I have to have it plugged in. But now it only shows 96% even though it says it is fully charged.

Is this normal?:confused:

My 15" MBP does this all the time. I consider it normal. Try this; unplug the power cord from the MBP while using it and run it on battery until it reaches 94% charge, then plug the power cord back into the MBP. It should first show green briefly, then orange and begin to charge. Mine always charges back to 100% by the end of the charge cycle. I would think yours might behave the same way.

Mine will then gradually lose the charge in a week or so until it again reaches that 94% when it cuts in and charges back up to the full 100%.

It's normal behaviour.

I believe its normal as well. Something to do with the rated max capacity and how much it can actually contain, saturation, etc etc...

Ah ok. Cool. I will use on the weekends unpluged as that is when I am disconnected from my workstation. Thanks all.

Try using an App called Coconut Battery. It will tell you what the current charge, current max charge, original factory capacity, model, age in weeks, cycles, battery temp and how much usage you have going. (Ass seen in the pic.) Also the little arrow that point down can be clicked and you can save the date and max capacity. This helps track the batteries declining or rising max capacity. You know if you're into that tracking the status of an expensive little machines innards type thing...

battery do drain itself when it is not used.

best is to use it at least once every couple days when using a laptop as a desktop replacement. There's nothing much you can do about how chemicals act . :)

I guess. If it didn't need to be plugged in while it is connected to the external display when closed then I would have no concern.

i think it's the action of closing the lid that puts the macbook to sleep. so once it is working awake, shouldn't it stay awake when unplugging?