2007 MBP 15-inch, cheap battery problem

[steve roche]

Hello-
I am new around here, but not really.. (I was last on this forum in 2008-2009
but I can find no evidence of my old account, so I have made a new one)
Anyway-- a cheap replacement battery seems to have damaged my 2007 13" MBP. I have put my old
one back in (Apple), which is ok but has only an hours' worth of charge.

The cheap one wouldn't start the MBP by itself, so I started it up with the charger. Battery read 51 percent.
Directions said to run it down to 2 percent, then charge it up to 100 percent. Did that.
Anyway, it still wouldn't re-start the MBP without the charger. System Profiler told me the battery was
there, and not my old one. I reset the PRAM and the nv-ram, and whatever that is that you hold the button down till you hear that sharp 'beep' before the chimes. Anyway, the battery is junk.

Now, with my old battery back in, I see a very long power-up (like 4 minutes), and otherwise normal
behavior, except the cursor and keyboard stop working after a few minutes. Never had this issue before.

Re-start, did Disk Permission Repair, (no help), did Disk Permission Repair using Fire Wire in Target Disk mode from a 2006 imac, (didn't help either), re-booted with a Snow Leopard disk and did Permissions
Repair with that (didn't help), and re-installed Snow Leopard using the disk. Didn't help-- So now the thing still starts up ok with old battery or charger, and I have maybe 3 minutes before the cursor stops working (it will move around but it will
NOT open anything in the Dock), and then the keyboard stops working.
Or-- an endless beachball
if I select Re-start quick enough, before the cursor has stopped working.

Beachballs are not something I see on this laptop, usually. When I started it, I used firefox to briefly open the NY Times page; that's all. I did not visit any other websites.

I've kept this laptop running over the years as a backup, and to take on trips for email and simple
newspaper-reading. Nothing much more. I have a Lion disk, which I will probably use later this week,
and this will wipe everything I currently have (as per Lion instructions). I have enough RAM and
am only using half of 150gig HD. I had not installed Lion yet because I did not ant to lose my PhotoShop.

My other alternative to the Lion disk (and an entire day of sitting around the house) is to clone the
Lion program which is on the 2006 iMac overnight. I used to fix a lot of problems this way...

I will never buy a cheap battery again, but I had no idea it would permanently mess up the MacBookPro.
I got a refund immediately, no questions asked. It was a model 1175 battery. I will run a check on the
RAM later (sorry I do not have the number with me but I sort of recall it is 2gb)

Is there a setting I have missed? To restore the power/battery settings? I am old now, and I can't remember half of the Mac fixes (and I used to know them all!)

This keyboard/cursor problem shows up on the internet in other forums, but I have never had before
yesterday when I put in this new battery, and then removed it. The MBP is now useless.

P.S. where is the 'search forums' option now? I couldn't find it...



thanks in advance-

steve

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hello-
I am new around here, but not really.. (I was last on this forum in 2008-2009
but I can find no evidence of my old account, so I have made a new one)
Anyway-- a cheap replacement battery seems to have damaged my 2007 13" MBP. I have put my old
one back in (Apple), which is ok but has only an hours' worth of charge.

The cheap one wouldn't start the MBP by itself, so I started it up with the charger. Battery read 51 percent.
Directions said to run it down to 2 percent, then charge it up to 100 percent. Did that.
Anyway, it still wouldn't re-start the MBP without the charger. System Profiler told me the battery was
there, and not my old one. I reset the PRAM and the nv-ram, and whatever that is that you hold the button down till you hear that sharp 'beep' before the chimes. Anyway, the battery is junk.

Now, with my old battery back in, I see a very long power-up (like 4 minutes), and otherwise normal
behavior, except the cursor and keyboard stop working after a few minutes. Never had this issue before.

Re-start, did Disk Permission Repair, (no help), did Disk Permission Repair using Fire Wire in Target Disk mode from a 2006 imac, (didn't help either), re-booted with a Snow Leopard disk and did Permissions
Repair with that (didn't help), and re-installed Snow Leopard using the disk. Didn't help-- So now the thing still starts up ok with old battery or charger, and I have maybe 3 minutes before the cursor stops working (it will move around but it will
NOT open anything in the Dock), and then the keyboard stops working.
Or-- an endless beachball
if I select Re-start quick enough, before the cursor has stopped working.

Beachballs are not something I see on this laptop, usually. When I started it, I used firefox to briefly open the NY Times page; that's all. I did not visit any other websites.

I've kept this laptop running over the years as a backup, and to take on trips for email and simple
newspaper-reading. Nothing much more. I have a Lion disk, which I will probably use later this week,
and this will wipe everything I currently have (as per Lion instructions). I have enough RAM and
am only using half of 150gig HD. I had not installed Lion yet because I did not ant to lose my PhotoShop.

My other alternative to the Lion disk (and an entire day of sitting around the house) is to clone the
Lion program which is on the 2006 iMac overnight. I used to fix a lot of problems this way...

I will never buy a cheap battery again, but I had no idea it would permanently mess up the MacBookPro.
I got a refund immediately, no questions asked. It was a model 1175 battery. I will run a check on the
RAM later (sorry I do not have the number with me but I sort of recall it is 2gb)

Is there a setting I have missed? To restore the power/battery settings? I am old now, and I can't remember half of the Mac fixes (and I used to know them all!)

This keyboard/cursor problem shows up on the internet in other forums, but I have never had before
yesterday when I put in this new battery, and then removed it. The MBP is now useless.

P.S. where is the 'search forums' option now? I couldn't find it...



thanks in advance-

steve

It's 11 years old at least twice the expected life of a laptop especially from that period. Its just not worth putting any money or time into at this stage, its limited to mavericks OSX and is no longer supported by apple with updates.

Batteries for it are almost certainly no longer being made and knock off batteries are dangerous if it costs less than $80 its not worth the risk in my opinion any original batteries will be old and not worth buying.

I would cut my losses and buy a new machine. For you that's probably a 2012 13 inch MBP second hand, get one with an ssd it'll be a massive improvement over what you have and shouldn't break the bank.

 

[Fishrrman]

If there's any way you can afford it, like Samuelsan says above, start shopping for something new or at least "new-er".

If you can't afford that, buy ANOTHER replacement battery but this time DON'T buy "a cheap one"....

 

[steve roche]

I have this MBP laptop, an old iBook G4, a white iMac, and a Pismo laptop. I've kept them all running over the years.
It's kind of a hobby even if it's occasionally maddening.
I wouldn't be so obsessed if it weren't a really dependable laptop which suddenly has irreversible problems
resulting from a new battery. I just wondered what kind of re-sets are worth trying, before I trash it.
But thanks for the help.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

I have this MBP laptop, an old iBook G4, a white iMac, and a Pismo laptop. I've kept them all running over the years.
It's kind of a hobby even if it's occasionally maddening.
I wouldn't be so obsessed if it weren't a really dependable laptop which suddenly has irreversible problems
resulting from a new battery. I just wondered what kind of re-sets are worth trying, before I trash it.
But thanks for the help.

Fine as a fun project, but this one sounds pretty much dead, every piece of electronics will fail eventually, a new battery with a dodgy provenance could well have blown something i’m afraid.

 

[elf69]

what happens if use external keyboard/mouse do they stop working too?

I have old 15 inch MacBook Pro of same vintage stuck on 10.7, but still going.

 

[Fishrrman]

Old hardware can be fun to play with, but if you want "modern connect-ability", you need a more modern Mac...

 

[steve roche]

Old hardware can be fun to play with, but if you want "modern connect-ability", you need a more modern Mac...

I have a three-year-old Mac Mini, and iphone, so I am not relying on this for living. It's just a puzzle, and in the years
I was staying in Mexico with an old laptop, this site saved my life more than once. I guess there are not as many
hobbyists or "tinkerers" on this site anymore. I guess I need to post this problem elsewhere.

Anyway, thanks
[doublepost=1516308007][/doublepost]

what happens if use external keyboard/mouse do they stop working too?

I have old 15 inch MacBook Pro of same vintage stuck on 10.7, but still going.

I haven't thought to try that, since both things stop at the same time, but I will.. thanks!

 

[Samuelsan2001]

I have a three-year-old Mac Mini, and iphone, so I am not relying on this for living. It's just a puzzle, and in the years
I was staying in Mexico with an old laptop, this site saved my life more than once. I guess there are not as many
hobbyists or "tinkerers" on this site anymore. I guess I need to post this problem elsewhere.

Anyway, thanks
[doublepost=1516308007][/doublepost]

I haven't thought to try that, since both things stop at the same time, but I will.. thanks!

Hobbyists and tinkerers are all good but you used a dodgy battery and seemingly have blown some hardware somewhere. There are literally thousands of components that could have blown and without seeing it I doubt even the hobbyists and tinkerers can help you much. There is just not enough information to go on here.

I would guess that something is expanding as it heats up and is interfering with the connection for trackpad and keyboard, but that is just a guess.

 

[steve roche]

Hobbyists and tinkerers are all good but you used a dodgy battery and seemingly have blown some hardware somewhere. There are literally thousands of components that could have blown and without seeing it I doubt even the hobbyists and tinkerers can help you much. There is just not enough information to go on here.

I would guess that something is expanding as it heats up and is interfering with the connection for trackpad and keyboard, but that is just a guess.

[doublepost=1516425771][/doublepost]yes, I am a Very Bad Boy for using a dodgy battery, but I have now re-installed Snow Leopard and then the Updates,
and next I will be upgrading to 10.7... (except that there is disagreement about how much it will help on such an old laptop)... there hasn't been any freezing up of the cursor or the keyboard all evening.
So everything looks ok so far.

 

[Fishrrman]

Actually if Snow Leopard is running ok for you, I'd forget about Lion.
10.6.8 is the better OS...

 

[steve roche]

It seems to be a lot more stable than Lion... still, I had to do a clean install of Snow Leopard no less than four times
since changing back to my old battery... stupid cheap battery (stupid me, actually)