MB Pro 13" loosing time/date.

Our French neighbour has a MacBook Pro 13". She has had it for about 2 1/2 years now, is running OS X 6 now Leopard and has kept up to date with updates and fixes.

The machine has started to display the message that tells her that the clock and date needs resetting and that certain applications may be unstable. At fiirst she thought it may be a battery problem but this evening it happened with the battery showing 100%. It also looses the WEP key for the Livebox router.

To get back on line she has to reset time/date and re-enter the WEP key.

Any ideas please folks. This is the message, in French

Would think a PRAM reset is what you need. I'd go ahead and do a SMC reset also.

Ta for that info Bob. The lass is out for most of today so I will get her to bring her machine around tomorrow and try those two resets. The SMC reset seems a little tame?

Both of your links go to the NVRAM, but I just googled the smc and found it straight away.

Sorry for the delayed response. The resets were both done and the unit was OK for a few days and then Wednesday the problem returned and the time/date and the wep key for the router had to be re-entered again.

I have read that it could now be the battery on the main logic board? I found the video on how to change it, but lost the link and can't find it again. Is this the next step to take or is there anything else first?

I have always hated intermittent faults!!!

Jonzjob said:

I have read that it could now be the battery on the main logic board? I found the video on how to change it, but lost the link and can't find it again. Is this the next step to take or is there anything else first?

Click to expand...

Are you 100% sure this 13" MacBook Pro has a logic board battery?

I don't think that Apple laptops have had user replaceable logic board batteries for quite a while.

- Nick

I am not at all sure it has a battery PP. I know the insides of these machines about as well as I know and have seen the back of my head ???

I am open to any suggestions as to how to fix this fault, or to tell her to get it to an Apple shop if you can advise please??

I still don't know if the board has a battery, but on further searching I found this

OS X Update (10.6.8) « Reevine's Trash Can

It is concerned with OS X 10.6.8 and the fact that with this version there is 100% Usage on one of the cores. It mentions a couple of files

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.db
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

Firstly, how do I find them, I have had a look and can't find them on my machine? I am running 10.8.4 and I wondered if it is different?

Secondly, if/when I find them is it safe to delete them?

You can't find them on your machine because your User Library file is hidden. Apple hid it precisely to stop people mucking about with vitally important files when they didn't know what they were doing.

You can use the Go menu in Finder to visit your user Library folder, just hold down the Option key when the Go menu is open and you'll see it.

Throwing away those files will cause OS X to generate new ones. Any changes you have made to your dock (putting things on, taking things off, etc) will be gone if you trash them. This does not destroy any actual applications or folders of course, so its perfectly safe, but your preferences for the Dock (including position and so forth) will have to be re-done.

Thank you Chas. I had an idea that that was the case.

The young lady in question has a BOAT LOAD if apps in her dock, so might just sneeze slightly if she looses them

If these files are recreated won't it just go back and do the same again if it is using 100% of one of the cores?

omething that is almost certainly slowing the boot down is that she has dozens of items on the desktop. I will get her to cut out the unnecessary ones.

Tell her pretty much all items on the desktop are "unnecessary" unless she enjoys working on a slow machine.

The time spent needing to open the Documents folder or the Applications folder, etc. is much less in the long run than the speed that is lost due to having a bunch of junk sitting on the desktop.

And get rid of anything on the dock that is only used "every once in awhile" or not used every day or multiple times a week.