Any Mac Experts?

[BlueRaiderFan]

Need a little feedback on my MacBook Pro I bought in Dec 07. It is a 15" with 320GB drive and 2GB mem. The battery will not hold a charge and needs replacing. Lately I have been getting frequent kernel panics and cannot figure out why. The Apple hardware test says everything is fine. The 2GB memory is the original mem from Apple. I upgraded to 4 when I got it but thought that might be causing the kernel panics (guess it wasn't the case).

I have been considering buying a new one. I was wondering what a good price would be to sell my current system even though it has a few problems. I'm sure someone with a little more experience could fix the issue with no problem. Everything else is in great shae. A few scratches on the case due to my ring but that's really it.

Thanks for the help.

[TGO David]

Chances are your battery is the problem. The battery in my MB Pro 15" died recently and it exhibited some of the same problems. Unless you're just dying for a new model, I'd try a new battery and see what happens.

[Guest jackdm3]

Macs don't have problems.

[dunndw]

Check out Batteries - Green Series Battery, Notebook, Laptop Battery, Digital Camera Camcorder PDA Batteries & Adapter Charger from Laptopcharge.com for a replacement battery....unless you need it right away. I'm going on 2 or 3 weeks waiting on mine.

[TGO David]

Everything I've read suggests that you'll kick yourself if you don't go with an OEM battery on these. The knock-offs just don't hold up.

[BlueRaiderFan]

Thanks guys. I'm going to try the battery first. I found one at fastmac.com for $99.99. Cheaper than Apple and made in America.

[Guest jackdm3]

You say it like it's a good thing.

[Guest 73challenger]

Everything I've read suggests that you'll kick yourself if you don't go with an OEM battery on these. The knock-offs just don't hold up.

In my old macbook I used a non OEM battery and it didn't have near the battery life the apple battery did. I highly agree with david.

[SavageSig]

Just curious, why would a dying battery affect your laptop if it's plugged in? I can run my nice PC laptops with their batteries removed without any issue.

[Guest 73challenger]

Just curious, why would a dying battery affect your laptop if it's plugged in? I can run my nice PC laptops with their batteries removed without any issue.

Mine worked fine without a battery for two weeks. I have never had a kernel panic besides my hackintosh's.

[Guest CK1]

Like has already been said, since you MBP is no longer holding a charge you need a new battery, but that's probably not causing the kernel panics... Your Mac is probably confusing some of it's basic exercises since it's power management is off and overcomplicating some of it's everyday operations.

You probably will just need to reset the PMU here and there until you get your new battery, and it's a pretty safe bet that reseting your PRAM will help also:

PMU reset: disconnect battery and power cable, then hold down power button for 10 seconds... reconnect battery and re-plug-in power and your Power manager (PMU) is now reset.

resetting PRAM: shutdown. Hold down command+option+P+R and hit the power button, keep holding the key chord down until you've heard 3 "bongs"... your PRAM is now reset.

Also, repairing you disk permissions in Disk Utility may help stabilize Mr.Mac (if you have Disk Warrior loaded on another Mac, fire this one up in target mode and repair the directory with Disk Warrior with the other one, that does wonders!).

In general, resetting the PRAM and repairing the disk permissions helps keep Macs running like champs, and fixes MANY issues.

I built high powered Pro Tools rigs and Edit rigs for all the major players in NYC (HBO, Showtime,CBS, etc) working out of a place called Tekserve in NYC (THE original Mac-nerds and the inspiration for Apple-stores and the Mac-genius'....) for a few years in-between projects (I work in audio). I learned a lot there and became Apple certified for the desktops and laptops... If you look on Tekserve's site (tekserve.com) they have some helpful info and you can order their Mac-troubleshooting guide which is awesome (and I think still free... YES! here:http://www.tekserve.com/service/mac-faq/).

Good luck.

P.S. - Apple Hardware Test doesn't always catch bad RAM - get a copy of the freeware program called "Rember" - that'll really give you an answer on whether or not your RAM is sketchy.

Edited February 9, 2010 by CK1

[TGO David]

Just curious, why would a dying battery affect your laptop if it's plugged in? I can run my nice PC laptops with their batteries removed without any issue.

At first glance you'd think the two are in no way related. However on some laptops the battery is enough a part of the charging circuit (even with the power adapter plugged in) that a faulty battery will cause problems with other systems. We've seen this recently at work with two Dells and one HP laptop. While I have no proof that the Apple is the same, I have no proof that it is different either.

If he knows he's having battery issues, I'd change the battery and see what happens. If for no other reason than the fact that a laptop with a known good battery brings more on the resale market than a laptop with a known bad battery.

[Guest CK1]

David is on to something here, with Macs, the power manegment of the computer screws itself up whenever it's having trouble with one of it's sources (think timeing in an auto engine sorta)... Mac's alternate between the AC cord and battery as to not prematurely kill batteries, but when they get worn out you have to reset the PMU now and again so the Mac doesn't start going back to it's routine so to speak...

I have a Mac now that's battery is dead and won't charge and it runs fine because the PMU gets reset now and again and is "calibrated" to run like that.

[BlueRaiderFan]

Thanks for the info guys. I've got a new battery coming in so I hope that fixes everything. I sure hope so. As much as I would like a new Mac I have a digital camera in my future, and I really don't want to put it on hold any longer.

[BlueRaiderFan]

You say it like it's a good thing.

Yes I know. They're probably foreign components, assembled by illegals. But it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling seeing that Made in USA symbol.

[MacGyver]

A lot of electronics companies take a cheaper route to a common problem today that often does mean that a weak battery may cause other problems. It's pretty common today to use the same circuit that regulates current to the battery during charging to regulate power to the laptop as well. When you have a good battery, this isn't a problem. When your battery starts going bad, it can result in issues that you will notice via the OS. It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to have two separate power regulation circuits - one to the battery and one to the motherboard. In the interest of getting computers as small as possible and as least expensive as possible, that's not the route that's chosen most of the time.

Also, I'll give a +1 on going with an OEM Apple battery if you've not ordered a replacement yet. Apple specifically has introduced some pretty good tech in batteries over the last couple of years starting with the original iPhone that hasn't filtered down to the 'replacement battery' market yet. Yes, you can get a cheaper battery, but it's not going to last nearly as long as the OEM will.