Late Model Macbook Pros, Dead Batteries and Speed...

Mijn probleem

A client said his machine went from fast and attentive to slow -like windows 98 on an E-machine slow- in just a couple of days for no apparent reason. I asked him what could have possibly changed and he said that the only difference was that the battery no longer showed as charging. After trying a Known-Good charger and testing the battery with my trusty old Harbor Freight voltmeter, I concluded the battery was dead. I have ordered aftermarket batteries before, usually with a 50% DOA rate, so I convinced him to spring for the extra 30 bucks and order from iFixit. Everything went great! The order processed and shipped quickly and efficiently, and I swapped out the battery in less than a minute.

Mijn oplossing

I have a pet goat which, had he the use of opposable thumbs, could have switched out that battery as fast as I did. I reset the PMU and PRAM and trashed all the caches and that machine purred like a kitten. Actually more like an adolescent snow leopard. Fast as hell... and quiet too...

With that said, the battery top case didn't fit as snuggly as the original. Not an immediately noticeable difference, but the whole thing seemed shifted slightly to the left by a millimeter or so. I don't usually bicker over the esthetics, but if you pay more for higher quality and support, well...

Mijn advies

I hesitate to declare it wisdom, but I have noticed a pattern with five such machines. All 15 inch MBPs, pre-unibody. As soon as the battery is removed, or the charge management chip inside the battery declares it truly deceased, the computer goes into turtle mode. The fans spin up like jet engines when you do simple tasks, the beach ball shows up for seconds when opening folders and sometimes for no reason at all, and surfing the web seems reminiscent of AOL dial-up. As soon as the battery is replaced, the various chipsets reset and the caches deleted, it instantly goes back to normal.

I have a theory that there may be some sort of thermal or other sensor in the battery itself which is required to keep the thermal management system on the motherboard happy. When the battery dies or is removed, the TMS can't find the sensor and just defaults to the conclusion that the computer must be on fire, and it should therefore throttle back the CPUs, crank the fans up to eleven, and refuse to do anything useful until the theoretical flames are extinguished.

I know these old beasts are getting up there in years, but for anyone who may still own one and happen to be browsing a site dedicated to prolonging the usefulness of their wonderful mac, then I hope this helps...