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Dead/deactivated battery in my macbook?

H

hallaisen

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 28, 2006
209
0
Hi

As I wrote in another thread my Macbook has both the whining and the mooing, and it's really getting to me. I'm turning it back in, and hope to get a new, flawless one. However, I've discovered another problem with my Macbook...one that I haven't read about anyone else having: my battery doesn't work.

There's an x over the battery indicator in the top right corner, and when I click on it it says "no batteries available". If I disconnect the charger it shuts down after a second or two. I've tried to start it without the battery, and then turn it off and put the battery in it again. No change.

Considering that I'm turning it in it doesn't really matter, but I thought I'd throw this out there to let you know that the noise issues aren't the only problems with the Macbooks. If anyone has any ideas about what I can do to fix it I'll be happy to try, seeing how I won't have time to take it back until saturday.
 
I am also having this problem with my macbook pro. I have just had my power adapter replaced because it stopped working completely, only to plug my new one in and find this new problem. I have tried unplugging and replugging it several times. I have also taken out the battery, to no avail. I am very interested in a solution as I do not relish taking it back again so soon...
 
I have a Rev A, received on Feb. 22nd MBP and this just started happening to me over the weekend.

I think the battery chip that monitors stuff probably got fried because it gets so damn hot.

I spent time on the phone and all they wanted to do was sell me Apple Care.

I'm taking it in today and it's going to be a sight to see, 'cause I'm going to be screaming at them in the store about it.

There's about 10 posts on this subject. I'm just cutting and pasting my response to everyone, 'cause I'm so pissed about it.
 
Apple replaced the battery today. I asked if it had anything to do with my Rev A computer getting so hot, and would the new battery fail as well. They said no.

I'm skeptical, but we shall see.
 
My mother's MacBook has a similar problem. It has an X over the battery symbol. It won't boot with the battery. It will only boot on A/C. However, when it's running with the charger plugged in and then if you remove the charger, it continues to run on the battery. Anyone have any ideas?
 
There was actually a somewhat silent recall of the batteries of early MacBook Pros. I'm not sure if this is the case for any of the MacBooks though.

My Revision A MacBook Pro had its battery die in a very similar way... the computer would die after a few minutes of being on battery power, but the computer always recognized that a battery was there. Once it hit 97 or 96%, it would shut off as if it went to 0. Plus, while I was trying to troubleshoot this on my own for almost a week, the battery itself began to warp really bad to the point where my MBP wouldn't sit level on the table :eek: It would kind of rock back and forth on the bulge in the battery.

I sent it in and got it replaced and it's been fine ever since. I had also sent it in for heat issues and they replaced the logic board, but it still gets pretty hot. Plus I'm sending mine in again the first of next week for round 2... they never fixed the paint flaking below my keyboard from the first time, plus the guy I talked to said they *should* be able to fix the buzzing on the screen when the brightness isn't at max.
 
Do you know if a problem with the battery is something an Apple store can take care of or does it need to be mailed to Apple directly? My Mom's worried she may go without hers for a while if she has to send it in.
 
If it's just the battery and not any of the internal connections, I would imagine an Apple store could just give you another battery if they keep those on-hand.

It'd be worth checking out, at least... I'd say go to your local Apple store and see if you can talk someone into letting you try a spare battery to see if the symptoms go away. If they do, see if they'll let you just swap for a new battery and be on your way. If it doesn't go away, then you'll know you'd likely have to just go on and send it in.

I would think Apple should have plenty of extra batteries to toss into a computer for replacement, and since they seem to know what the underlying problem is, sending it in should only take a couple days or so. However, just an FYI, when I sent mine in for the heat issue, they ended up waiting on a part and I was without it for about a week, which was a huge pain (it's my only Mac, so I had to use Windows during that whole time.)
 
This same thing just happened to my girlfriend's Macbook. The computer was sleeping and then the light went out. When she tried to wake it up it wouldn't. After plugging it in and booting it up the battery monitor had an "x" through and said "no batteries availible". This was her first mac and she is really dissapointed that it would break so soon (she's had it for two weeks, the Macbook is a week 29 I believe). She's going to call our (relatively) local Apple Store and set up a appointment to get a replacement battery today. Hopefully it goes smoothly and they don't give her a lot of hassle. I reset the PMU and reinstalled the battery to no avail, hopefully it's the battery and not the hardware in the Macbook? What do you think?
 
In some cases you may be able to solve this by resetting the PMU, but obviously that won't help if the hardware itself is flawed. Might be worth a shot anyhow.
 
I took my mother's MacBook to the Apple store after troubleshooting on my own and then also with AppleCare. The problem was the MacBook and NOT the battery. Oddly enough, when I brought it into the Apple store, not only was it still not recognizing the battery it also developed signs of a logic board failure by displaying vertical lines across the entire screen instead of booting up properly. I'm wondering if that was a deteriorating problem all along and that the battery issue was simply a symptom.

Has anyone else experienced this?

The store is sending it into Apple for repair.
 
Well. My girlfriend called to make that appointment and they said since she didn't buy the computer from the store she couldn't make an appointment in advance and would she rather they just ship it directly to her?. She said yes of course, and one day later the new battery arrived and it worked! Wow that was easy. Just so everyone knows that sometimes a new battery will do the trick.
 
MacBook Battery Dead

I am having the same problem. X through the battery, no batteries available, green light on the power adapter, batt wont charge. Well, I have read a bit about this issue elsewhere -- see link below, and I am thinking that it is not the batt itself. While putting a new batt in might temporarily fix the problem, I think that when it is allowed to be fully drained the problem might begin again.

We had just gotten our MacBook back from apple after its logic board fried, taking the hard drive out with it in the process. It was all working just fin for about two weeks and now this! I guess its back to apple again.

There are some who beleive it has to do with the firmware update. This is possibleas we had just done the update about a week beforehand, but cant be sure.

Please check out this site and post your problems!

http://www.macbookrandomshutdown.com/2006/11/20/firmware-fix-killing-batteries/

What a lemon of a computer!

-m
 
Dead Macbook Battery

MacMan314 said:
In some cases you may be able to solve this by resetting the PMU, but obviously that won't help if the hardware itself is flawed. Might be worth a shot anyhow.
Click to expand...

I did reset the pram, the pmu, ran applejack, removed and reinserted the battery multiple times all before I called Applecare.
my macbook core duo, 2Ghz just went out yesterday too. Exact same symptoms and occurred as many others have listed after a day in sleep mode. When I called Apple today, they said the KNOWN problem which is a defect is indicated by a "red x" in the icon whereas mine is black. I think they just aren't admitting its more than that yet because in the end he agreed that a battery going bad that soon is by definition defective and is sending me a replacement. He asked me to if I had "drained it all the way two days in a row" which I hadn't. Their computers were REAL slow today, took forever to have this conversation.
 
I'm guessing this is a random issue with the macbook battery. I just was in to see a genius about this very problem and they replaced it, works like new now. Hope it doesn't happen again.
 
The exact same thing happened to me last night. My battery drained and I plugged it in to be charged and the battery appeared to die and had an "X" through it. I brought it to the Apple store today and they replaced the battery with a brand new one.

It works like a charm now. Things to note: I am still on 10.4.6 and have not updated to the new firmware which is rumored to drain the battery more quickly. It may very well be possible that Apple had a handful of battery batches that were defected. Mine was from the week 19 so it's one of the earlier macbooks.
 
Yea.. I'm on round two with x on the battery.

The first time it was because it was fully charged and then drained before I used it. Apple replaced it, and here I am again... x over my battery. I do web design and don't want to go without my laptop...
 
I'd be curious to hear everyone's story on how the battery died, to see if there is a common thread.

For myself, I left the macbook on over night running bittorrent with the screen turned off, it will usually go all all night like that. When I woke up I just closed the top and it was showing the light blinking as it does in sleep mode. Anyway I couldn't get a chance to plug her back in until 2 pm or so and the system had shut itself off by then. Unfortunately when I booted up, thats when the X issue started. I thought it was a 5 minute fluke, but after an hour I had a feeling it was more serious. I think in the future I will refrain from draining the battery just in case.
 
brbubba said:
I'm guessing this is a random issue with the macbook battery. I just was in to see a genius about this very problem and they replaced it, works like new now. Hope it doesn't happen again.
Click to expand...

sadly it IS likely to happen again. i had my battery replaced back in august, but once again have the infamous X. the cause in both cases was leaving it asleep and not charging it for several days. apparently the macbook doesn't like it when the battery drains. i haven't decided if i'm driving an hour and a half to the apple store, or waiting until tuesday when the local authorized repair shop opens....
 
The display white macbook at my university bookstore also has this problem. its kinda embarrassing.
 
ShellyFM said:
I took my mother's MacBook to the Apple store after troubleshooting on my own and then also with AppleCare. The problem was the MacBook and NOT the battery. Oddly enough, when I brought it into the Apple store, not only was it still not recognizing the battery it also developed signs of a logic board failure by displaying vertical lines across the entire screen instead of booting up properly. I'm wondering if that was a deteriorating problem all along and that the battery issue was simply a symptom.

Has anyone else experienced this?

The store is sending it into Apple for repair.
Click to expand...

my battery had the same exact problems.. but when i brought it into the apple store, they turned it on and my isight light was on. they couldn't seem to get rid of this light so they told me that it was a logic board error thing. so they told me they are going to replace it. now that i turned the computer on and then off, the light went away, but the isight does not work. is this really a logic board problem??
 
i got the exact same problem with my first revision of MBP
back in 2006, and weeks after that apple announced the battery recall for it so i exchange the battery and it's been ok since then and untill i sold the MBP last month.

Ans then i bought this Mac Book black colour C2D few weeks ago, and when i want to calibrate the battery, (keeping it on untill it turns off by itself) then the same thing happen !!!!!
when the battery indicator reach 2% the MB shutdown by itself,
i thought i misread the battery capacity, so i plugged in the charger, and to my horor the batery is "X" just like my previous MBP :(
i was very dissapointed as the MB is nly 1 day old !!!
so i take aout the battery and try to plugged in, and charge it without turning on the MB untill the charger light turns to green,
and when it does, i take out the charger and turn it on, and the baterry is back to normal!!!

heheh

i guess i was lucky cause the battery in my MBP when i tried the same thing, never "woke up" from it's death :p
 
Black "X" Through My Macbook Battery = Battery Dead

So I went out of town and left my Macbook asleep for about 5 days, I came home and had a black "x" through my Macbook Battery Icon. When clicking on it, it said No Battery Available.

I called the Apple Support Line - Tried reseting the PMU with no change.

If I plug into the power adapter the Macbook runs fine, as soon as I unplug it = Shutdown.

I have an appointment at the Apple Store at 4pm today.

I'll follow up with more information on why this might be happening to Macbooks.

Very embarrashing Apple! A $1499 Laptop that won't run on a battery after 4 months of use. VERY EMBARRASHING!

Shame on Apple for such horrible product quality.:mad:
 
Macbook is Fixed.

KaiMac said:
So I went out of town and left my Macbook asleep for about 5 days, I came home and had a black "x" through my Macbook Battery Icon. When clicking on it, it said No Battery Available.

I called the Apple Support Line - Tried reseting the PMU with no change.

If I plug into the power adapter the Macbook runs fine, as soon as I unplug it = Shutdown.

I have an appointment at the Apple Store at 4pm today.

I'll follow up with more information on why this might be happening to Macbooks.

Very embarrashing Apple! A $1499 Laptop that won't run on a battery after 4 months of use. VERY EMBARRASHING!

Shame on Apple for such horrible product quality.:mad:
Click to expand...

So I took the Macbook into the Genius Bar Saturday. Before even finishing explaining my problem, the tech knew what the issue was. He said there are 5-10 Macbooks a day coming in with the same issue. He went and grabbed me a new battery from the Retail side of the store. He put it into the Macbook and it was fixed. He took the battery from my Macbook and marked it defective and put it in the new box, eventhough Apple's policy is that I have to wait for a battery to be ordered for me.

His recommendation to me was to not let my Macbook discharge all the way in the future, Apple clearly has an issue with the PMU getting enough power to a dead battery to bring it back to life.

Good luck to anyone else with this same issue.

Thanks to the Genius bar for having common sense and fixing my Macbook right there on the spot.
 
i had the exact same issue on xmas day !! lol..

called apple on 28th dec 2006, and got a replacement battery sent out.. ok it arrived on 3rd jan 2007, but it did the trick :)

ps: i just saw that you can insert the apple icon now.. coolio!! :apple:
 
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