tkmacbookbattery

Written by Topher Kessler

Yesterday we found that some laptop owners who applied the 10.5.8 system update were having difficulties connecting to their WiFi networks. There are a variety of reports regarding this issue, some of which claim the WiFi cannot connect at all, others that claim WiFi is slower, and some discussing only intermittent WiFi connectivity. Despite these, many other people who have updated (including us at MacFixIt) have not had these WiFi problems even on the same hardware reported.

It appears this problem for the most part happens when people run on the battery, as described … Read more

Description: Apple laptops ship with well-engineered battery systems that are advertised as providing some of the longest runtimes when compared with portable computers with similar specifications. Despite this, while some people are able to get times similar to those advertised by Apple, others are frustrated with their experiences of these runtimes being truncated by at least an hour from the advertised times, even on brand-new machines. This is mainly due to a difference in Apple's testing conditions versus the way an average user will run the laptop. It's best to consider the advertised battery times as being at … Read more

Apple has released a firmware update for 13" MacBook computers. The update addresses battery problems. According to the description from Apple, the update improves the computer's ability to maintain a charge when the system is shut down. This update applies to all MacBook models (Black and White as well as Aluminum), and is not for any Pro or Air models.

This update is not necessary for any MacBook that has a "Pack Lot Code" of "0003" (this can be looked up in "System Profiler" under the "Power" section).

The update … Read more

Apple has released a few new and updated Knowledge Base documents on how to access the batteries and hard drives in the new Unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops. While the 13" and 15" computers come with a hatch that provides easy access (at least to the hard drive and battery), the 17" computers do not have a hatch and many users have complained about the accessibility for user-serviceable hard drives, as well as RAM upgrades for the whole product line.

Apple's reasoning for removing the access hatch makes sense from a battery engineering standpoint, but … Read more

Users have noticed that the new MacBooks have some issues with the batteries. While they appear to run perfectly fine in most situations, when the computer is put to sleep the power seems to drain much faster than expected.

Apple Discussions poster madroberts writes:

"I have the 2.53Ghz, 4MB RAM, 320-7200RPM HD. The other night I unplugged it from the AC adapter and left it closed and supposedly in sleep mode for almost 24 hours. When I came back to use it the next night, the battery had drained all the way down and I couldn't restart … Read more