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New battery from ifixit will not charge...help!

My friend has a Macbook Air A1237 from mid-2008 that had the original battery fail by way of expanding inside the case. The machine is running OSX 10.5.8.

I helped her select the new battery here on ifixit and replaced it for her.

From the get-go, it would act like it was charging at 0% but would fail to have the black X on the battery.

I have reset SMC several times with no change in the problem. Most recently, I even repaired disk permissions (and several repairs were made) before resetting SMC and still no improvement.

Before it got to the black X, I ran coconutbattery on the machine and it shows the battery as having -1mAh for both current and maximum charge and is 100%.

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There's a Known Issue with false "battery unavailable" Black X reports in OS X 10.4x 10.5x For some resetting PMU seems to do the trick, removing the battery and putting back again seems to solve the problem for others.

See this from Apple.

I have had this problem with my MacBook Air and have not identified why it occurs, and then, suddenly goes away.

I think this is good procedure:

  1. Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your PowerBook's battery until the light ring or LED on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.
  2. Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for at least two hours. You may use your computer during this time as long as the adapter is plugged in.
  3. Disconnect the power adapter while the computer still on and start running the computer off battery power. You may use your computer during this time. When your battery gets low, the low battery warning dialog appears on the screen. SOMETIMES IT DOESN"T!! OR IT"S VERY BRIEF.
  4. At this point, save your work. Continue to use your computer; when the battery gets very low, the computer will automatically go to sleep.
  5. Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.
  6. Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.

FWIW There is a minimal charge level on these batteries, and if the charge level ever gets below that line, its impossible to recharge the battery again. I have seen this happen within the first 2-3 cycles on a new battery... not from iFixit, but with Chinese batteries.

If this Answer is helpful please remember to return and mark it Accepted.

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Yeah, I am afraid that this procedure won't work as it does not have a charge at all. :( Trying to figure out if ifixit.com has a support number to call but cannot see one readily apparent.

The original battery failed by physically expanding inside the computer and actually caused the laptop case on the bottom to bulge. Had to replace it!

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I too suffered this same problem.

I did resets and could watch the AC adapter change colors- the battery would get recognized for about 1 minute, then revert back to no battery installed.

I reset PMU, updated Air with latest updates- put on a different 85W charger and majicaly everything is now working.

running 10.7.4

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