"MacBook Pro Battery Woes


By Christopher Breen mailto:mac911@macworld.com

Mac 911 Tip of the Week

Another year, another iPhone.

Reader Bill Grant has a problem with power, specifically the battery
in his MacBook Pro. He writes: "Recently, my MacBook Pro has been
behaving strangely. I charge the battery over night, yet the battery
menu constantly flickers between estimating a fully-charged state and
telling me that the battery isn't charging. When running from battery
power, I see a readout of about half full and then the computer shuts
off abruptly. Any idea what's going on?"

It's quite likely you have a bad battery. From the Apple menu, choose
About This Mac and then click the More Info button in the resulting
window. When System Profiler appears, select the Power entry and
eyeball the Health Information entry. If, under Condition, it says
"Check Battery," that battery is probably on the fritz.

Fortunately, these batteries are under an extended replacement program
as they're defective. Apple has issued a document that outlines
symptoms a defective battery might exhibit as well as a link to a
software update that can fix some battery issues.
http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/

If the software fix doesn't work, you should follow the document's
advice and contact Apple about having the battery replaced. And, as
always, check out the Mac 911 blog for weekly doses of troubleshooting
advice.
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/mac911.html?lsrc=mwweek "