R.I.P. MacBook battery

The golden week ended today so in the morning I popped the MacBook open to update the Documents folder via Dropbox. There was no reaction to the on switch so I plugged the laptop in thinking that I managed to deplete the battery completely. However instead of the usual orange charging light the charger lit up in a happy green and the menu bar icon reported: not charging. The problem persisted…

Snowflake-battery

OS X acknowledges the presence of the battery but reports its full charge capacity at 0 mAh and refuses to charge. Reseating the battery or resetting the PMU didn’t help either. In addition the laptop now often boots with a flashing white light similar to the PMU reset indication. All this after only 67 cycles.

I spent most of the breaks today hunting for power outlets in classrooms. Of course the newer ones have desks with outlets for each seat but I never seem to be able to have classes there. The newer auditoriums have a few along the walls, but in one of the old buildings I had to sit in the very first row and nick an extension cable from the professor’s pulpit.

Hopefully I can visit the Apple Store in Osaka on Wednesday. I bought Snowflake in June 2008 after the ominous grapefruit juice incident so it’s still under warranty (I hope).

I still shudder at the thought of such things happening when I’m in Hungary with no Apple Stores around.

5 thoughts on “R.I.P. MacBook battery

  1. Depner

    Jah, Li akkupakkok tipikus hülyesége. Nincs annak semmi baja, csak mélykisülésbe vitted. A megoldás annyi, hogy szétszeded az akkupakkot (ezt egyszerűbb leírni, mint megcsinálni, de nem lehetetlen), lekötöd az elektronikát, és CC-ben nyomatsz neki egy kis töltést pár órán keresztül. (Töltőáram az akku kapacitásának 5%-a, és a töltés ideje ne haladja meg az 5 órát.) Aztán visszakötöd az elektronikát, beteszed a laptopba, és hagyod teljesen feltöltődni. Probléma megoldva.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>