My battery suddenly doesn't work..?

[de Haan]

Hello Mac-forums

The battery in Macbook Pro (17" oct. 2006) suddenly does not work. As you can see on the picture, it sees the battery and that it is not full. However, it is not charging. And when I pull out the power cord the mac turns of, like it would have done if there were no battery.

Has anyone got an idea about what could be wrong?



Best regards Nikolaj

[chscag]

It's possible you need a new battery. That battery is going on 4 years old and while it does not have that many cycles on it, it's probably at the end of its life.

It's always possible that there could be a defect in the charging circuit of your MBP, but testing first with a new battery is easier. Try to buy the battery from a store which will refund your purchase price if it turns out the original battery was OK.

Regards.

[de Haan]

Actually the battery is only 4-5 months old, so I don't think that's the problem.


Is there any way to test if there is a defect in the charging circuit?

[chscag]

If the battery is only 4 or 5 months old it's not likely to be defective. As far as testing the charging circuit, you would still need to be absolutely sure your current battery is OK first as even a fairly new one could be defective.

Checking the charging circuit requires the use of test equipment and some disassembly of the machine. Usually, when the charging circuit is not working or is erratic, the problem is a defective DC input board. The board itself is not expensive but does require quite a bit of disassembly to change it out.

You can get some idea of cost and the procedure to change the board from this site which is located in the US: iFixit: The free repair manual

Regards.

[de Haan]

Okay. But how do I find out whether my battery is defective? Do I need another battery, to see if the problem still is there with another battery?