Wednesday, May 5, 2010

macbook pro not charging - fixed

So, I know Apple has been getting a bad rap lately for their batteries dying, and perhaps that’s the truth. 

In my particular scenario that wasn’t the case.  My MacBook Pro just suddenly stopped charging yielding a “Not Charging” message at the top.  Powering the machine off and pressing the battery button yielded a bunch of rapid blinks on only 1 led.  This happened after I upgraded to Snow Leopard from Leopard (10.5.8 -> 10.6).  Not sure if it was a coincidence or not.

Yet, oddly,  2 weeks ago, I had a 2 hour charge when on battery.  I thought it really odd… after further investigation I learned that the SMC (System Management Controller) was responsible for battery charging, amongst other things (like closing the lid puts the laptop into sleep mode, which was acting funky too, and this method fixed it)… maybe it’ll fix the laptop from getting so hot (thermal management)… well, one can hope! J

Here’s a quick fix to try, which got me rolling…

-          Shutdown your system

-          pull out the battery

-          press and hold power button for 5 seconds (I gave it 7 seconds “just in case”).

-          Pop battery back in, connect to power (via magsafe), and power on.

-          You (hopefully) should see the charge indicator turn orange, which means it’s charging again – yay!

Here’s the list of functions the SMC is responsible for:

§  Responding to presses of the power button

§  Responding to display lid opening and closing on portable Macs

§  Battery management

§  Thermal management

§  The SMS (Sudden Motion Sensor)

§  Ambient light sensing

§  Keyboard backlighting

§  Status Indicator Light (SIL) management

§  Battery status indicator lights

§  Selecting an external (instead of internal) video source for some iMac displays

Yanked from here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

 

Andy Slezak
CTO
CytexOne

 

Tel:+1 212-792-6722
Fax:+1 212-208-6889
Email:  andy@cytexone.com
Web:www.cytexone.com

50 Hudson Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10013


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