wierd macbook battery problem

[dknightd]

My daughter has a wierd problem with her macbook 5,1 snow leopard.

When the charger is plugged in, it shows charging, and shows percent charge on battery.

When the charger is disconnected, is shows "not charging" - as expected.

But we cannot get it to tell us the capacity. We choose show percentage, or show time, all it shows is not charging (we know it is not charging, the charger is not connected, but we'd like to know how much battery is left)
She has to monitor battery by pushing button that shows charge by lighting leds.

tried reseting SMU and PRAM

Any ideas?

Thanks

edit: apparently this problem started when she upgraded from leopard to snow leopard.
Do you think upgrading to lion would fix it, or makes things worse (I'm always reluctant to upgrade a machine that has a preexisting problem.)

 

[Detrius]

It could be the battery, the battery board, or the logic board. I don't expect it to be the magsafe board.

Test it out with a known-good Apple battery. If it still does it, I'd expect the battery board. If it doesn't, it's going to be the battery.

If you have a third-party battery, I'd suspect the battery immediately.

 

[dknightd]

thanks for the thoughts. I'll see if I can find a spare battery.