Permanent amber light on magsafe adapter

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MacBook Core 2 Duo

Model A1181: 1.83, 2, 2.1, 2.13, 2.16, 2.2, or 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo processor

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jakob @jakob55944

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Posted: Dec 1, 2013

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Permanent amber light on magsafe adapter

Hello, on my black macbook A1181 with a 2.16GhZ processor, the battery will not charge past 90%. The amber light simply stays on, and the "time till full charge" meter in the upper taskbar hovers around 2-2.5 hours, actually increasing with time. Here is some of my battery information.

Charge Information:

Charge remaining (mAh): 4413

Fully charged: No

Charging: Yes

Full charge capacity (mAh): 4842

Health Information:

Cycle count: 96

Condition: Normal

Battery Installed: Yes

Amperage (mA): 174

Voltage (mV): 12625

Is this something that resetting the SMC unit would fix? Is my battery shot, or my power adapter shot? I will try another power adaptor to see if that is the problem, and post with an update. Thanks.

Jakob

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I just checked another magsafe adapter, and with that one plugged in I get about 2 hours charging time as well with 91% charged.

Dec 1, 2013 by jakob

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I just checked another magsafe adapter, and with that one plugged in I get about 2 hours charging time as well with 91% charged. — jakob

rdklinc @rdklinc Rep: 32.4k RDKL, Inc. 207 156 62 · Answer 1 · 2013-12-01T18:11:41-07:00

Batteries vary and are not 100% predictable, and most show numbers that are not perfect. It sounds like your laptop is charging it fine, your cycle count is a low 96, and 90% capacity is not all that bad for a laptop/battery of that age, so really I'd say you don't have a problem. That is, if the battery actually works as expected, and doesn't cut out after 5 minutes, etc.

You can reset the the SMC/PMU and PRAM, and you can try "battery conditioning" by letting it discharge completely, and then charging it back up again, and those things might get the numbers back to something you would expect. But again, unless you notice actual performance issues, I'd say it's nothing to be concerned about.

To be 100% certain whether it's the battery or some element of the laptop (unlikely), you can try the battery on another laptop.

Also, in my experience, 3rd party batteries tend to have more quirks, so that could account for it if your battery is not OEM.