Macbook Optical Drive Failure? PMU error?

[bcortens]

Hello

My White Macbook (2.0Ghz GMA950) has 2 problems.

First: I'm pretty sure my optical drive is now dead , when attempting to eject , with nothing blocking the slot it completely fails to eject, it makes the standard eject noise, clicks for a bit, but the disc doesn't move one millimeter! I can also if I gently rest my hands on the keyboard while its trying this can feel it clicking and moving slightly upwards. I think my drive is broken but maybe I'm wrong.

Second: My computer will often shut down arbitrarily when on battery power, this has been going on for some time but I have been, mostly, ignoring it. I have basically learned to not trust my battery indicator when it dips below the half mark. Anytime after that and it will shut off, it seems to think the batter is drained but I never see the warning (you know the one you get when your battery is low and it thinks you should connect to AC power). It shuts off and can sometimes restart without plugging it in, and sometimes it will not restart without a recharge, the battery LEDs and the computer indicator both think the battery is charged more than a third usually.
I'm mostly wondering if this could mean my PMU is fried or is this battery faulty? (I've reset the PMU and reinstalled 10.5 to no effect)

Thanks

 

[misterredman]

Second: My computer will often shut down arbitrarily when on battery power, this has been going on for some time but I have been, mostly, ignoring it. I have basically learned to not trust my battery indicator when it dips below the half mark. Anytime after that and it will shut off, it seems to think the batter is drained but I never see the warning (you know the one you get when your battery is low and it thinks you should connect to AC power). It shuts off and can sometimes restart without plugging it in, and sometimes it will not restart without a recharge, the battery LEDs and the computer indicator both think the battery is charged more than a third usually.
I'm mostly wondering if this could mean my PMU is fried or is this battery faulty? (I've reset the PMU and reinstalled 10.5 to no effect)

Did you perform a calibration of the battery? Here is a guide on how to do it:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

Eventually also reset the SMC (PMU):

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411

 

[bcortens]

The problem with calibration is that I cannot get to the battery warning screen and the laptop never just puts itself to sleep, instead it just turns itself off. Within the calibration instructions there is a requirement to run it on battery power till it goes to sleep, but I cannot get to this state, it won't run till it goes to sleep it will run till it gets below half and then at some arbitrary point it just turns off...

 

[misterredman]

The problem with calibration is that I cannot get to the battery warning screen and the laptop never just puts itself to sleep, instead it just turns itself off. Within the calibration instructions there is a requirement to run it on battery power till it goes to sleep, but I cannot get to this state, it won't run till it goes to sleep it will run till it gets below half and then at some arbitrary point it just turns off...

At that point you could wait an hour or so and try turning it on again, without plugging the power cable. If it starts let it drain again and once it shutdown just let it disconnected for the night (ideally you should repeat that procedure until the battery is really depleted). Then charge it completely.

Another technique, is to follow the procedure and when discharging the battery, put it to sleep manually before it shut down. Then leave it alone until the pulsating led is off (mac shut down completely). Then charge it completely.

If it still doesn't work after that you may need a new battery. Can you post how man cycles your battery has and it's capacity?