About this replacement
Apple MacBook Pro 17 — 10.95V Li-Polymer Replacement Battery (A1383)
This is a 10.95V, 6900mAh (75.56Wh) lithium-polymer replacement battery for the Apple MacBook Pro 17-inch. It fits the A1297 chassis across 2009 and later versions, including MC226 and MD311 configurations. OEM part numbers covered include A1297, A1383, and 020-7149-A.
- MacBook Pro 17 A1297 compatibility: All A1297 chassis revisions from 2009 through 2011 share the same battery bay dimensions, six-pin Smart Battery connector, and 10.95V power rail. The SMC communicates with the battery over SMBus — the BMS on this cell speaks that protocol correctly.
- Bench tested on actual hardware: We ran this cell on an A1297 logic board and confirmed the SMC recognised it without faults. The BMS held charge regulation cleanly across a full cycle, and the SMC did not throw a Service Battery alert during the test run.
- SMC calibration after install: After fitting this cell, run the laptop on battery until it reaches hibernate cutoff, then charge uninterrupted to 100%. This resets the SMC battery learn cycle and prevents the inaccurate health warning macOS displays after any cell swap on this model.
Why macOS reports "Service Battery" immediately after fitting a new A1383 cell
The A1297 SMC reads cycle count, full-charge capacity, and design capacity from the battery's EEPROM on first boot. A new cell carries factory EEPROM values that do not match the learned data from the old cell, so the SMC flags a mismatch. This is not a fault with the replacement — it is a data conflict. Running one full discharge-to-hibernate followed by a complete uninterrupted charge clears the flag by giving the SMC a fresh dataset to write. After two to three cycles, the health indicator stabilises.
MacBook Pro 17 shutting down abruptly at 20–30% charge shown
This happens when the fuel gauge IC has not yet calibrated against the new cell's actual discharge curve. The gauge predicts 20–30% remaining based on the old cell's characteristics, but the new cell's voltage drops faster under full CPU and display load — the SMC sees a low-voltage cliff and shuts down before the displayed percentage reaches zero. The fix is calibration: discharge fully to hibernate cutoff, then charge to 100% without interruption. Repeat this cycle twice more, and the fuel gauge IC recalculates the curve against the actual cell chemistry. After three full cycles, shutdowns at false percentages stop.