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MacBook Pro Batteries Swelling and Failing
JohnnyCakes writes "MacBook Pro batteries are apparently swelling, then failing. MacFixIt has some grotesque pictures of their own swollen MBP battery, which looks like it has suffered an internal explosion. Apple is replacing batteries on a case-by-case basis, but hasn't yet admitted any wide-scale issues."
I currently have the issue where the machine simply turns off when the battery has reached around 30-40%, according to the operating system's battery meter.
Then, there is the issue of some batteries swelling, slightly to severely. If this is shown to be heat related, it may be also related to the issue of too much thermal paste being applied during manufacturing, thereby not allowing heat to be dissipated properly via the heatpipe and associated fans in a controlled fashion, but rather causing it to be dissipated in an uncontrolled way. Like, discharged into the interior of the case, affecting things like the battery.
The battery has definitely not suffered an "internal explosion", as the submitter speculates. This appears to occur over time to the batteries that do exhibit this issue, and it is by no means representative of the majority of MacBook Pro batteries. We've got plenty of MacBook Pros here, and we have yet to see one that exhibits this issue in a noticeable way.
These issues have not yet been acknowledged by Apple. While Apple is actually, from a statistical and reporting standpoint according to consumer organizations like Consumer Reports, the best at responding to these types of problems, it generally does not respond to or acknowledge any problems unless it already has a solution (or there is a defined safety risk that meets the muster of an immediate recall (which this is not (no, really, it's not))).
When Apple does acknowledge and address the issue, if it is indeed determined to be widespread (and anecdotal blog evidence aside, there is no reason to believe it is), Apple does make it very easy to get a replacement. See the examples for the previous PowerBook and iBook battery exchanges here. Just type in the serial number, Apple sends you a new battery. In this instance, Apple is most definitely replacing batteries that have failed or swollen; so, the end result is that affected customers still get a new battery. And, in the event that there is any larger problem that hasn't been addressed by the battery OEM, if that battery were to fail, it has its own warranty under which it will be replaced as well.
In any event, further awareness of the problem may adjust Apple's priorities in addressing the heat and battery issues on the MacBook Pro. For the record, with regard to thermal paste, Apple applies this much thermal paste on the new MacBook as well, and in the service manual, they specifically state that it is the correct, intended, and verified amount of thermal paste to be applying (even though that's a ridiculous assertion). So there's obviously more going on there, and anyone who has ever worked in a massive manufacturing operation knows how long a simple procedural change like this can take, and everything else that's involved.
As an aside, from the level of coverage all of these "issues" receive with Apple products, I can't help but wonder if some people get the impression that Apple just turns out one shoddy product after another, when the reality is that Apple is generally and consistently considered to be the best in the entire industry for quality, need for repairs, technical support, and so on, above all other manufacturers.
In the UK Apple have as good as told people not to buy iPods because they only last one year (despite UK consumer legislation protecting purchases for up to 6 years).
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http://money.guardian.co.uk/consumernews/story/0,
http://money.guardian.co.uk/howtocomplain/story/0
Now it's apparantly not just iPod batteries causing problems! Very amusing.
Apple is replacing batteries on a case-by-case basis, but hasn't yet admitted any wide-scale issues.
When has Apple EVER admitted to any wide-scale issues? They're notorious for sweeping problems under the rug and downplaying them. Only after people kick and scream with pitchforks do they grudingly admit to a "limited" problem, and sometimes they don't admit to it all but just quietly do away with the product (e.g., the cube Mac with the cracking case).
Before this year, I hadn't used an Apple since a IIe back in grade school. Why? Because most of my clients are office junkees, and it was just a heck of a lot easier to use windows in the interest of "compatibility". Then came news of the Wintel: a Mac that could do BOTH! I ran out and bought a MacBook Pro the week after they came out. Then my problems began...
I will skip the horror stories we have all read about, but needless to say the thing is hot, loud and the tech support people are still in denial about everything. I gave up, and down-graded to a MacBook instead. All in all, the MacBook is a solid machine and a quality value- but it still has MANY of the same problems (and a few all its own). In other words, things I consider unacceptable at $2,500 I view as "good enough" at $1,000. Then again, I've been using Dells for the last decade...silly me for thinking quality was a function of cost, eh?
I simply cannot understand why Apple would do this to itself. The iPod was a grand slam, and I was expecting these Mactels to DOUBLE Apple's market share in time for Vista. I had nothing but high hopes, which is probably why I am so disappointed now.
Bad metaphor time: I come visit you the day a family member dies. Mom is crying. Dad is drunk. Sis is sneaking a cig. Unbenknownst to me, for 20 years your family has been normal and wonderful, but this is one hell of a shitty first impression. I tell myself "never again", and don't bother to return your phone calls next week.
In the end, Apple nets even because I bought a second MacBook for the fiance. However, the way I see it, they still LOST a potential $1,500- and probably one heck of a lot of Windows users who are less patient that I am.
barack to the future?
For the last 10 years, I help my neighbor out with his mac. In this case, he has an e-mac that had a filesystem failing. I thought it was the OS so forced him to upgrade to tiger. When the problem continued, I checked up on other issues. What I found is that the emac has an issue with mb capacitors. So I popped it open to take a peak. Sure enough, they have started leaking. Yet, apple does not want to do a recall on this. Sadly, I fear that Apple is becoming no different than others. As it is, I will recommend that his next system have a seperate monitor/system so that if he lose his hardware again, then he can switch to a linux box.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
three MBP's, three batteries, all three fine.
Now, one of the laptops lost two fans within three weeks of ownership...but that's offtopic.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
No it's your own selective perception. Maybe 1 out the last 10 were negative. Now... Microsoft... that's another story.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Probably a good idea to avoid them...
Sad thing is that Apple gets the bad press over it.
Here's a much more disturbing photo of one of those batteries. It was posted on Accelerate Your Mac on June 15.
You have to be a plant from Apple to make a comment like that.
Hardly any other site that's not solely focused on Apple is as pro-Apple as Slashdot.
I've had comments modded down so often for even hinting that something could be wrong with Apple's strategy from time to time. Basically, either you're new around here and don't yet understand the nature of the site, or you're on Apple's pay roll.
Yes, exactly. Could you imagine a typical PC user complaining that he can hear the fan running in his PC from "over three feet away". Of course not, noisy PCs are normal but audiable niose from an Apple product causes Apple user's to complain.
Convenience my friend, simple consumer convenience. If I can walk in and purchase a new battery and replace it myself in 30 seconds, I prefer that to having to bring it and leave it at the shop.
You don't have to. You can replace it yourself in 5 minutes instead of 30 seconds, the one time you'll need to do so every 2 to 4 years or so.
Or you can just not get an iPod, I suppose, if having a battery door is really that important to you.
And as for consumer benefit, don't you think there might be benefits in terms of size, weight, and unblemished, sleek appearance from not having to have battery doors or other access mechanisms? Because - and I hate to say this, because people don't seem to believe it - it WOULD be bigger and heavier. That's because it's not just a matter of having the back come off with screws. They'd need to design the innards such that the battery was physically segregated from the rest of the inside, likely requiring some tradeoffs that would increase size and weight, however slightly. If people want to think "Apple fucked up" or that this was done to make iPods disposable, they'd be completely wrong, for one (since the batteries can be replaced in myriad ways), and it would seem they'd also not be a good decisionmaker at Apple, since the decisions on the iPod so far have led to it having 92% share for portable music players.
My 20" Intel iMac has also been rock solid. Guess that makes two data points. In any case, there's been little or no coverage that I've seen regarding problems with those machines. Not that there aren't any problems at all, but they are few, and far between.
And while this article is regarding batteries, the arguments are regarding first generation products, of which it would appear that the Intel iMacs have had little problems. The sweeping generalization that many people make about the status of quality regarding first generation products, whether they are Apple's, or any other company's products, is wrong.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
My hardware:
First gen MacBook Pro 2.0 GHz (shipped the first week,) with 2 GB of RAM and the 7200 RPM hard drive. All firmware updates applied, running Boot Camp. (95% of the time in OS X, 5% in XP.)
My symptoms:
This whole process occurred over about two weeks.
So I took it to an Apple Store's Genius Bar, and they did some diagnostics, then finally declared it a bad battery. (The Genius hadn't heard of any company-acknowledged failures that covered this.) Swapped my battery for a brand new one (straight off the sales shelf,) and went on my way. (I bought a second at the same time, simply because I had been wanting a second battery anyway.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
The problem is that in some cases temporary infertility leads to permanent sterility. In order to sell this drug as a male contraceptive pill they would have to do extremely lengthy and expensive studies to provide that it works as such, and it is not entirely unlikely that they would have to stop selling it in the interim. (The current status could "require" reevaluation.)
The drug I really want is melanotan, or alpha-MSH. There was an article about it in wired a while back, which prompted me to do additional research. Basically, it was originally intended to do what normal MSH, or Melanocyte Stimulating Hormon does; stimulate melanin production, causing darker skin, and increased resistance to UV. (Melanin is metallic.) It has two side effects; it suppresses appetite, and increases sexual desire. Wired's tagline was "Thin! Tan! Hotter than hell!" Sounds perfect to me. Now I'm just waiting for it to hit the market SOMEWHERE so I can internet-order it :) Unfortunately it's been continually delayed, and the reason given is the sexual appetite improvements. Mind-boggling.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We use LiPo batteries for radio control planes, and many of us have experienced swelling, and eventually combustion, because of the abuse that we put the batteries through. We demand massive current output to drive high-wattage brushless motors, and then get frustrated and charge the batteries at higher-than recommended currents so we can get out flying again.
Then there's the whole cottage industry of R/C flyers buying 'bare cells' and soldering together frankenstein combinations of cells in series and parallel to get the perfect size/voltage/weight battery for the plane we are building.
So in other words it comes as no surprise to me that LiPos in consumer products are swelling (and exploding) as the capacities and loads are increased, and as manufacturing perhaps gets shoddier as supply demand increases.
As I mention here, the more power you need, the more energy you need to store in a battery, and the higher the likelihood of some sort of catastrophic failure.
gadgetophile.com
For what it's worth, I found that my Mac Book Pro was running hot, and was consistently idling at 40% cpu activity, when there didn't seem to be anything consuming that much cpu as far as top was telling me.
It appears to have been caused by having Windows Sharing turned on. It was using that many cycles even when I was at home with no Windows machines on the network.
When I turned off Windows Sharing, the cpu usage dropped to single digits, and the laptop has been running much cooler.
Your mileage may vary, of course, but it might be something worth looking at if your laptop runs hot.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
LiPo batteries gets destroyed if they get below aprox 3V per cell, or over 4V something per cell. Your speed controller in the helicopter cuts of before they discharge that much. Apparently something is not right with the cutoff voltage in these computers (possibly). It could also be a charger problem, if it puts to much juice in the cells. These batteries are fragile and should be handled with care, it's not unknown for them to burst out in flames if not taken care of properly by the electronics. So this problem is quite serious.