While I've largely been quite happy with my MacBook Pro, recently some pesky little gremlins have started to appear (and old ones have persisted):
- If the machine runs out of battery, it shuts off completely, rather than going to sleep (let alone a deep sleep)
- Over the weekend, the laptop spontaneously lost a large chunk of its battery charge in a second (and shut off – see above). Apparently this is a known problem with certain early model batteries (Forum thread)
- … and it keeps on whining when not on full brightness (or when the screen dims)
I gave Apple Support a call tonight, reported the serial number and problem, and the guy refused to acknowledge the problem over the phone, instead telling me to take the computer to an Apple Service Provider and get them to diagnose and fix it. FFS! Apple KNOWS it's a problem, and even has a list of serial numbers affected by (potentially) defective batteries. Ship me a replacement battery, already! I don't have time to hand my computer over to a repair shop and lose it for a week, when my thesis proposal is due in just over that.
wife just bought a new macbook, i turned it on to look at see the display, it wants me to go through set up. i’m not ready to that yet, it would not let me shut it down. i just shut the lid, i read manuel, i have it in sleep mode, she is taking a class in the morning at apple, she will set up after that. will this harm the notebook to leave in sleep mode for next 24 hours? I do not have the battery plugged in.
I believe to have received a “lemon” macbook black– 1st gen., purchased with school loan I’ll be paying off for the next 10 years. Apple is pretentious if I call them, and is not willing to help me out because I am a college grad student who could not afford the $300 apple care plan.
The battery showed an X over it last year. They sent me a replacement. Now, as I am try to complete my thesis, the new battery also has failed (X–with no amber light on magsafe plug). The unit had RSS (Random system shutdown) when the computer would just turn off. The screen cracked–a little tiny line in the corner at first, then with use, took over the whole screen. No damage from me, it just happened with normal use.
Now, all of my utility files are missing except Adobe. The computer was dead on battery for a week over break when I was out of town and I returned to find those files missing. Unable to play dvds , do firmware updates, charge battery…anything.
As a long time mac user (through high school, college, grad school) and first-time buyer, I am appalled at the service Apple provides.
Through various message boards I have seen the numerous defects that Apple obviously knows about. Disgusting.
Bought Leopard, waiting for Time Capsule to arrive so I can back up and hopefully save the computer.
Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?
Thanks and sorry for the long post. Lauren
This is a long post but I’d like to explain my own experience, which in some ways has differed from those mentioned above.
I had my Macbook Pro for about 6 months and wasn’t having any trouble with it, but my battery was covered by the recall so I went ahead and got a replacement just to avoid problems later on. Well, the new battery worked fine for another 4 months or so but then suddenly started giving me instant shutdowns while still around 40%. It has just gotten worse and worse, to the point that it can be charged 100% but when I unplug it starts dropping at a rate of about 10% every 3-5 minutes. THEN it’ll die at around 70%.
As for the LED light in the magsafe connector, after the battery has died, the light remains green and has a very faint, steady flicker or “tick” to it. It will continue to do this for anywhere from 5 minutes to THREE HOURS, during which time the system will not power on (or if it does it’ll usually die before fully booted).
Once the magsafe light finally turns amber, everything is good to go again.
One important detail I noticed about this is when the magsafe light is flickering, there is a very faint “ticking” sound coming from underneath the keyboard that corresponds to the flicking of the light. I don’t know what’s under there but if I had to guess, it sounds like there could be a relay that’s supposed to switch between AC or battery and it’s getting stuck and switching back and forth rapidly until something warms up. The longer I leave the laptop unplugged from AC power (even when it’s powered off completely) the longer it takes for the magsafe to start charging the battery again.
The system detects that the adapter is connected but states that the battery is NOT charging.
This is becoming such a widespread problem, I almost feel that Apple should take care of it, regardless of warranty because there is obviously a hardware defect involved here. My laptop is currently useless as a portable because I can’t even unplug it for 5 minutes or it’ll die.
I have been experiencing similar problems with my Macbook. I just googled to search for some answers and found this forum. I completely agree with everyone’s statements. My macbook is just over a year old, so is no longer under manufacturer’s warranty. I’m a college student, so I could not afford to get the applecare protection plan. I believe I got a lemon of a macbook as well; when it was just three months old, little green pixels started appearing on my screen. Shortly after, my computer would not turn on. Since it was still under warranty at the time, I was able to send it in to apple and they replaced the power source. What was supposed to be a few day’s repair grew to be almost two months, and since I left the country to go home (Taiwan) on my summer vacation, I did not have my computer for about three months. When I finally got back, I found that they had replaced my keyboard with an American keyboard. This upset me because my keyboard had been in perfect working condition so there was no reason for them to replace it, and the American keyboard obviously does not have the Chinese characters that I use to type in Chinese. They also removed my extra ram (which was installed when I bought the computer at an authorized Apple reseller) and did NOT return it to me. Everytime I called Apple I was put on hold for at least 40 minutes and kept getting transferred to two or three different people even though I had a case number and repair number they could easily reference. In the end, they were unable to return my keyboard with Chinese characters on it, so I had to settle for the one they gave me. It took them another two months to finally return my ram to me. They had also wiped out my entire hard drive, because that is what those idiots do whenever they encounter a problem: easy solution, just wipe out the entire computer and re-install OSX. It’s the dummy way out because they’re not actually diagnosing the problem, but just using the easiest method they know of to make your computer work. Also, they never fixed the broken/green pixels on my screen, but at that point, the entire process had taken nearly five months, so I was not about to send it back.
Now, I am experiencing problems with either the logic board, or the battery because my computer will suddenly shut down when not plugged in to the power source and will not start up. It works perfectly when it is plugged in, but this renders my computer entirely unportable, which really defeats the purpose of having a laptop. This is a really unforunate time for me to be having these issues, because I am currently in the process of writing my thesis (and all of my data was on my computer, which I thankfully, managed to plug in to the power source and back up before anything else happened to it). I’m also leaving to TA at Princeton in about a week, during which I really need to use my laptop. I’m at a loss about what to do, since my computer is no longer under warranty, and whatever repairs they make will probably cost more than it is worth. At this point, I may as well get a new one, except that I don’t have any money to do that. If I do, it will be the third apple laptop that I have owned in the course of three years, which is ridiculous. I really love apple products and have been a devoted mac user ever since I got to college and had my first laptop, but the customer service and bad experiences with repairs has really discouraged me from continuing to use their products. I hope I don’t have to switch back to PCs, but I feel all out of luck with macs right now. I have an appointment at the genius bar today, so hopefully they will be able to help me.
I have had two “top of the line” mac laptops and they blow suck. Sure the performance is great, and the OS is great, but that has nothing to do with the “laptop-ness”. Both my TiBook and my MacBook Pro suffered from sleep problems. Both of their batteries sucked. Both of them were too flimsy in construction.
I believe that this is because corners are cut to meet cost, design and demand issues that large corporations face. If you got a macbook pro that was rock solid and could never break, it would cost a lot more.
I bought a pelican case for my lappy that keeps it from getting crunched whenever I travel. I also bought a really nice backpack for it for when I’m riding my bike to keep it safe. I try to always shut it down properly. I’ve had to send my apples off for repair. I’ve done a million PRAM zaps, SMC resets, verbose restarts and the like. All of these things annoy me, but it’s the cost of owning a mac. You learn to deal with it.
If you want a better laptop, build your own; or better yet start a new Apple so we can all buy one!
[For the pirate in you, there is a hacked version of OS X that one can run on a PC if you are willing to break a few copyright laws and aren't afraid of learning something. However, with this route you sacrifice regular updates as they break your system so you are sort of "frozen in time". If you want to proceed, you need to check out the guys on the IRC channels to get real help if you get stuck.... I've heard.]
I have a MAcbook Pro 15″ with Duo Core 2.2Ghz P, 4gigs of Ram and a 120g HD. I am beyond pissed off with it. I am a freelance designer and student with a brick of a computer to work with. I just got it back from Apple and they say they replaced my logic board. My computer will not turn on and the green light on the battery flashes rapidly with the small LED on the cord orange colored. I had similar issues when trying to get information from apple support. All they want me to do is take it into the store. And like Jeremy that is just not a big option. That means I’m out of work for another week and I have to stay at school to do my math and write papers. What will apple do when everyone finally realizes that they aren’t as cool as we thought!
wow. looks like I’m not the only one who’s had battery/logic board problems with the MacBook Pro. I got one of the first generation macbook pro’s … you know when they were brand new and you had to order them online before they were even in stores… Anyway a few months after I had it the battery expanded and eventually the machine wouldn’t turn on. I took it to the local Apple store and they replaced it right away. I thought all was well… NOPE!! a few months after I got it replaced I was listening to some music on itunes and next thing I know the song starts skipping, so I tried to turn the computer off and nothing. held the power key down for 10 seconds… still nothing. finally I unplugged the battery and then plugged it back in. when I went to turn the computer on it went to the start up screen and started skipping again. I took it into the local MacDocs and the logic board is fried. which would’ve cost me 600-800 bucks to fix. So finally I decided that I’d much rather just get a newer, faster macbook for a few hundred dollars more than it would cost to fix the one I have.
I’m wondering if the battery problems are linked to the fried logic board problems later down the road. And if so… Apple is shady for not addressing this issue!! if you’re going to sell a product make sure it’s not going to break down every few months eventually rendering the thing useless, forcing the person who owns it to buy a completely new computer.
Having the same problems… green on the magnetic power adapter and black x over the battery icon. system profiler says no battery is installed.. so i called applecare and they did some tests and reset some things and still nothing so they sent out a new battery even though i wasn’t on the recall list. (also have the updates installed) anyway… so i got the new battery all excited thinking it was fixed and same thing… so i called applecare again (thank god i have it) and he put me on hold for a long time and said he needed a product specialist but it would be better to have an “apple genius” look at it in the store. so i have to drive 30 minutes (not bad, i know, but still out of the way) to the apple store.
i’m glad i’m not the only one with this problem but unlike some of you who got the problem fixed with a new battery, that did not fix mine and i’m unable to unplug it. (or it dies, as most of you know)
so if anyone has any suggestions before i take it in tomorrow, let me know. this will be the second time it’s been in for repair in the past 5 months. i love it to death, but i think this is strange.
if anyone has any suggestions (besides resetting the power management and holding the PR command/option key at boot and holding the power button down and unplugging it and all that)
p.s. i also had to get a new power adapter because my original one was overheating and getting frayed… could that be doing this?? then why does the computer say no battery installed?
i’d like to hear your stories, what happened, advice, etc.
izaqblue@yahoo.com
Davin
The very same problem!
My Macbook is just out of warranty and the battery dead. I left my notebook in sleep mode for some days and after that I got the black X without any possibility to recover (reset of SMC etc..no results).
So I called Apple, I thought my Mac would match the Recall program on batteries as I bought it before April 2007 but…nothing!
I’m absolutely pissed off, they know they sold defective batteries but they simply dont care. I dont want to buy a genuine new one because I would give Apple more money than they deserve.
Do you have some suggestion for other rebranded batteries?
Thanks,
Simone
Same Problem!
Just picked up a brand new battery today from mac store. It works but won’t charge. X in icon saying no battery. LED on power cord is constant green when plugged in. My last battery didn’t work and physically expanded out of its case. I have a feeling if I leave this one in it will do the same thing. I’m guessing I am going to need some major work done or a new macbook with whatever internal hardware that works correctly. Luckily, I still have a year left on my warranty. So untill then, I just have a MacBook Pro Desktop!
How about this one. Having all the same problems, green light, X over battery icon, shuts down completely when I unplug the adapter. I’ve talked to Apple numerous times, sat on hold, been transferred, spoken with people who I can barely understand, and spent countless time trying to “recalibrate” my battery. After reading this blog today, I was shocked that I wasn’t the ONLY one. So I called Apple again. Sat on hold with technical support, got someone, got transferred again, was told the wait time was going to be 15 minutes and so I hung up. This time I called regular Apple, got a customer service person right away who spoke English and I began my rant. I told him all about this blog I was reading and that I was surprised Apple treats their customers this way. Then, out of nowhere, without notice, I started crying. Through tears and a cracking voice, I told the guy I thought this was B**** and that I was pissed off. And to make matters worse, I must have sounded like a typical girl because I think he thought I was crazy. I can’t believe I cried. Anyway, the new battery will be $129 plus my states tax he said. I got my computer in August 2006. Should batteries really die so soon? According to the Apple guy, YES! They only live 2-3 years. Weird, all my other computers before Apple, NEVER EVER needed a new battery. So anyway, I feel stupid and now I’m the crybaby that called Apple.