This is the second time this has happened and it happened in almost the exact same amount of time as with the first one.

The battery is about a year old (just over) and has 137 cycles as I was told to keep using the battery and charging it. With my last one there were only 60 something cycles in the year.

I even installed the Apple iCal thing to remind me to use my battery and I've been following it.

Now when I get down to about 30mins on the stat bar the MBP just cuts out completely as though I've taken the battery out. No warnings, no sleep, just dead.

This is exactly what happened with the last one too.

GRR! I have all the battery updates and the latest updates of all the software. It's fracking annoying. Has this happened for anyone else?

Did you "calibrate" the battery?

I remember Heather saying something along the lines that you need to let the battery run down so that OS X knows exactly how long it runs for?

I don't remember doing that with my first one but I definitely did it with this one.

Try it with a Linux live DVD.

If it does the same thing then it tells you that it's the hardware.
If it runs properly then it's something in the OS

Sounds like a good plan! Is there any way of getting a live USB linux distro for Mac to work?

Sorry - never tried it.

I'm not quite middle-class enough to be allowed near an Apple.

Can you not just change the boot order in the BIOS or EFI or whatever the frikking thing is?

Change the startup disc to the DVD drive and you'll be fine (I think)

I don't seem to be able to burn any DVDs

I've tried a couple of ISOs and it tells me that either the disc isn't compatible or I'm trying to write it too fast. I've burned these DVDs a million times before though

Well, I managed to get it working and loaded into SLAX with it all in the RAM so I could tak out the DVD. It lasted about 20 minutes.

Tried again and this time made sure the battery said it was 100% and then unplugged it. Again it lasted about 20 minutes

Sounds like the battery or power circuitry.

Back to the shop and ask them WTF is going on?

Well, bizarrely it looks like a year of rest has done the world of good to my first battery.

I decided to give it a try and it had 0% life so I fully charged it and left it on charge for a further 2 hours and I've been running it down since 8:45.

It's currently at 18% and hasn't shut down yet!

Fingers crossed!

What operating system are you using. I had a problem where under 10.5 it would not shut off completely and when I turned the machine back on the battery was dead. Upgrading to 10.6 solved it.

I updated to 10.6 the week it came out and I've applied all updates as soon as they become available.

The previous post about the battery was short lived. I am now solely using it on mains power because when I unplug it I get about an hour's use (or less) and then it turns off with no warning.

Have you checked how many cycles your laptop battery has been through? There was a problem with them and Apple have a replacement program for the dodgy batteries.

Yeah, I did that with the first one.

The first one had fewer than 70 cycles in a year.

This one currently has 100+ cycles in just over a year.

I had to push Apple to get the replacement on the last one and that was about 2 weeks beyond the warranty. This is now about 4 months over a year old so I've given it up as a lost cause.