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Last ditch MBP battery help

A

Anex

Señor Member
Dudes, my MBP battery status has changed to 'service battery'. I took the bottom off the machine and disconnected the battery, held power down for 30s, connected mains power, disconnected and put it all back together. No change.

Then did a full calibration cycle, flatten the batt, sleep until full shut down then charge and again, no change.

Coconut battery seems to think it's fine but OSX doesn't. Anyone got a fix or do I need to go and see one of those creepy genius people?
 
DIY battery replacement time? There are sources out there. I'm keeping an eye on mine - nearly 4yrs old and still 86% of original cap. so far...
 
Do you actually need a battery?

I don't as I use my lappies as portable desktops. If you do the same don't worry. But if you work commuting then may be better to get it sorted before you get let down.

Cheers,

DV
 
Yes, do need a battery unfortunately.

Fine to fit one of course but they're expensive and given the dodgy iphone PSUs in the news, I'm worried about being sold a fake.
And the annoying thing about it is that there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with it - the laptop runs fine off the battery, it just isn't very good at estimating capacity so possibly it's the jiggery pokery which does the estimating which has gone wrong rather than the cells.
 
I had a similar problem. A Genius did some sort of a deep reset on the battery firmware and it's been fine since.

JC
 
Anex said:
And the annoying thing about it is that there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with it - the laptop runs fine off the battery, it just isn't very good at estimating capacity so possibly it's the jiggery pokery which does the estimating which has gone wrong rather than the cells.
Click to expand...

The thing which is weird is Coconut Battery, iStat or whatever will be reading the exact same jiggery pokery. Is there a OS X system pref file or some such that needs fixing / deleting?
 
Tony L said:
The thing which is weird is Coconut Battery, iStat or whatever will be reading the exact same jiggery pokery. Is there a OS X system pref file or some such that needs fixing / deleting?
Click to expand...

Ah yes, duh. Hmmm.

Sorry forgot to mention I've also done SMC, PRAM and NVRAM resets. I do suspect it's a software problem - prefs file or whatever.

Thanks, I guess I'll take it to an Apple shop then. I presume they charge by the hour or something?

EDIT: Apparently Apple can't programme a booking system.
 
They don't usually charge for fault finding and preparing a repair quote, ime.

Repairs are generally on a fixed scale of charges, which you can accept or decline.

I think a new l/h i/o board, which contains the battery charger and power supply controller, is about £80 inc fitting for older MBPs. Genuine batteries are about £90. From Apple.

JC
 
Yes, take it to the shop. Make sure you tell them that the machine has been very lightly used, mainly on the PSU and the battery has suddenly gone west ;-)

They will check the battery stats to see whether it is within expectations for a battery failure (recharge cycles and charge capacity), and if you are lucky they will replace it for free...
 
type in the shop location in google then there is a website for that store where you can book a weird genius guy.

I went in the other day as my iphone five would only charge with the cable in one orientation, I complained it should not matter, turns out a pin went missing, so they gave me a new phone. Happy days.
 
Cesare said:
Yes, take it to the shop. Make sure you tell them that the machine has been very lightly used, mainly on the PSU and the battery has suddenly gone west ;-)

They will check the battery stats to see whether it is within expectations for a battery failure (recharge cycles and charge capacity), and if you are lucky they will replace it for free...
Click to expand...

I've put an SSD in and it has a series of stylish go faster dents - they may not believe the light use thing :)

Gary - that's what I did, for covent garden and regent st. It just says there are no time slots without asking me when I want or giving me options in the future. It's hosed.

Thanks y'all, I'll phone covent garden tomorrow and set something up.
 
I had the same fault message.
Don't do as I did, buy a cheap replacement. Every time I close the lid, the MBP closes done and I have to re-boot.
 
Paul3 said:
I had the same fault message.
Don't do as I did, buy a cheap replacement. Every time I close the lid, the MBP closes done and I have to re-boot.
Click to expand...

I had the opposite experience with a £20 replacement from Ebay, works as it should with maybe a little less battery time than the original.
 
monkfish said:
I had the opposite experience with a £20 replacement from Ebay, works as it should with maybe a little less battery time than the original.
Click to expand...

That would certainly be my usual approach. It just worries me that the fakes seem to be getting easier to create which potentially means dodgier. I think in the scheme of things I'd rather spend the hundred buck or so and get a proper one rather than risk exploding a nearly £2K computer...
 
Anex said:
That would certainly be my usual approach. It just worries me that the fakes seem to be getting easier to create which potentially means dodgier. I think in the scheme of things I'd rather spend the hundred buck or so and get a proper one rather than risk exploding a nearly £2K computer...
Click to expand...

I did think along similar lines but my tight git syndrome kicked in, also my MBP is an older model.
 
I'm self employed and it's a work machine so I can at least get some cash back if I do have to stump up.
She's booked in for Monday.
 
Yeah that's the annoying thing, it all seems fine. The 15 mins on Monday doesn't cost me anything so I'll see what they say.
 
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