Monday, April 19, 2010

No Batteries Available - MacBook Pro

Today while we were using our MacBook Pro, it just shut off, even though it still had lots of battery left. It would only turn back on once we plugged it in, and at that point it showed a black "X" over the battery icon, and when we clicked on the battery icon it told us "No Batteries Available". Annoying, it was only around 6 months old.

Searching around on Apple's website was useless, phoning their tech support got us an answer something like: "Yes, we know what the problem is but we won't tell you unless you pay us $50." Oops, bad Apple, major fail right there.

The one good thing about their answer was that it told us that their was an answer, up until that point I figured it was a hardware issue (time for a new battery). A couple of Google searches later we got an answer for a MacBook Air, we tried it, and it worked. Here is the answer:

Turn off the Mac, make sure it is plugged in. While holding down the shift, control, and option buttons on the left side of the keyboard press the power button once. Wait 5 seconds and press the power button again to start the Mac. This is supposed to reset the SMC or power manager. It worked like a charm.

There was also information on how to reset the PRAM, although I don't know when or why you would need to do that.

11 comments:

  1. Pressing the power button once turns the Mac on. Pressing it a 2nd time turns it back off.

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  2. Thanks Nathan! it Works!

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  3. Thank you so much Nathan. I was going insane when it happened but your trick has worked. I blogged about that http://ubermoe.com/archives/453

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  4. Thanks, it worked for me too on a 3 years old MBP!

    The instructions should read:

    Turn off the Mac, make sure it is plugged in. While holding down the shift, control, and option buttons on the left side of the keyboard press the power button once. Wait 5 seconds, release shift, control, and option buttons. Press the power button again to start the Mac.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much! I was accidentally holding Command instead of Control, and was losing hope. But I figured it out, and it worked instantly.

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  5. amazing. worked for me too. Thanks so much!

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  6. Worked for me as well!! Thank you so much!! :)

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  7. Thank you so much! Worked like a charm. Much appreciated.

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  8. OMFG DUDE YOU JUST SAVED MY LIFE AS WELL AS MY COMPUTER AND MY BANK ACCOUNT! <3 I not only cannot afford, but also it would of been troublesome since I am going to school in September. But any ways, THANK YOU SO MUCH! <3

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  9. you seriously saved my life omg T_T thanks T___T <3

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