Charger light always very faint green. Will not charge but will run on battery power.

[quantum003]

Hi all,

I am having a Power/Battery problem with a Macbook (surprise surprise!). This Macbook is the first generation, early 2006 model. It is a 2Ghz Intel Core Duo, black.

This Macbook will not charge a battery, any of the 4 Macbook batteries I have tried. However, it will recognize each battery I put in (using About this Mac), and it will run on battery power when not connected to AC power.

The charger light is always a very faint green light (same for both 65 and 85W chargers). Occasionally it will shine the bright green (normal) for a moment, but quickly dulls to the very faint green light. Last night I tried swapping out the internal battery connector that I know is right for this macbook.

After the installation, when I started it for the first time, the light on the charger appeared orange for the first time... I waited to see if the "charging" lights on the known-good battery would light up, but they never did. Eventually the charger returned to the same faint green color. Has anyone seen this before? From what I can tell the only parts remaining that could be the problem are the internal Magsafe connector and the logic board itself (noooo...). Or am I overlooking something else?

Thanks for any and all advice!

 

[quantum003]

Swapped out the battery connector and as expected the situation is not improved. At least the charger's light stays orange for a little longer now, but the battery still never lights up at all.

 

[KielderWolf]

Black MacBook of the 2.4GHz C2D flavour here bought June '08.

Same issue. 70% of the time I connect the MagSafe and get either the dimmest green lights or a solid green light that flicks off and on once a second or so. If either of these happen the MacBook draws it's power from the battery and eventually dies despite being plugged in.

30% of the time however it works perfectly.

Can anybody shed light on this?

 

[quantum003]

Interesting... so yours refuses to run on AC power and mine refuses to run on battery power. But we're both getting the very faint green light on our chargers most of the time.

I assume you've tried using both types of Magsafe chargers as well- 85W, 65W... have you swapped out any internal pieces yet by chance? I'm not sure of the name of the part that connects the magsafe to the logic board but I'm tempted to try changing it out next.

Thanks for posting! Hope someone with some experience in this area can help us both.

 

[AreYouAMac]

HA!

Same as me - Blackbook 2.4 with the charger light being faint green when plugged in.

WELL - I just came back from the Apple store and they replaced my CHARGER for free. Literally, like 30 minutes ago.

Make an APPOINTMENT.

Goodluck!

And yes - I had the same problems as yours.

Black MacBook of the 2.4GHz C2D flavour here bought June '08.

Same issue. 70% of the time I connect the MagSafe and get either the dimmest green lights or a solid green light that flicks off and on once a second or so. If either of these happen the MacBook draws it's power from the battery and eventually dies despite being plugged in.

30% of the time however it works perfectly.

Can anybody shed light on this?

 

[AreYouAMac]

My problem was that it was the charger NOT the macbook.

And you should only be using the one that came with the original macbook.... don't use the newer macbook chargers are the macbook pro chargers. It might POSSIBLY be giving your macbook a "surge"-too much of power. Maybe this has caused your macbook to go sour?

Interesting... so yours refuses to run on AC power and mine refuses to run on battery power. But we're both getting the very faint green light on our chargers most of the time.

I assume you've tried using both types of Magsafe chargers as well- 85W, 65W... have you swapped out any internal pieces yet by chance? I'm not sure of the name of the part that connects the magsafe to the logic board but I'm tempted to try changing it out next.

Thanks for posting! Hope someone with some experience in this area can help us both.

 

[quantum003]

My problem was that it was the charger NOT the macbook.

And you should only be using the one that came with the original macbook.... don't use the newer macbook chargers are the macbook pro chargers. It might POSSIBLY be giving your macbook a "surge"-too much of power. Maybe this has caused your macbook to go sour?

Well no, not in this case at least... this Macbook was sour before I ever met it. But you make a good point about the chargers, I have been using the same 85W charger with all my laptops... and now that I think about it I'm sure the Macbook hardware from 2006 was not future-proofed for use with 85W chargers. But the girl I bought this from did give me the original 60W charger with it, and it was busted when I got it so it wasn't the 85W charger that caused this issue...

Thanks for your posts though, your insights are very much appreciated.

 

[AreYouAMac]

No prob. That was the only thing that I can think of.

When I was at the Apple Store yesterday, some girl also had the same problem as yours too I believe. BUT she wasn't under warranty and guess what happened next?

As in your case Apple would say - either it is the charger or the logic board. WE already know that it is not the charger. They will test it out on their charger, etc etc. Explain to you "what the problem is". Then tell you "Well it's definitely NOT the charger. It's your logic board".

Good Luck! - Try the Magsafe connecter option.

Well no, not in this case at least... this Macbook was sour before I ever met it. But you make a good point about the chargers, I have been using the same 85W charger with all my laptops... and now that I think about it I'm sure the Macbook hardware from 2006 was not future-proofed for use with 85W chargers. But the girl I bought this from did give me the original 60W charger with it, and it was busted when I got it so it wasn't the 85W charger that caused this issue...

Thanks for your posts though, your insights are very much appreciated.

 

[quantum003]

Cool, I will try swapping out the internal magsafe piece next. Thanks.

Truth to be told, Apple already did diagnose this Macbook as bad logic board. That's why the girl sold it to me for $200. But just like you said, Apple diagnoses a lot of things as bad logic board, and I've found through my own tinkering and experimentation that they are often wrong.