MacBook Pro 15" Unibody (Early 2011-Mid 2012) Replacement Battery

問題

My MacBook battery began to fail and expanded to the point of temporarily deforming the aluminum near the trackpad.

修理

Using the iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit, I followed the instructions in the step-by-step guide. The battery charged in a few hours and proceeded to work fine.

アドバイス

In the event that the battery swells, remove the screws from the case closest to the failing section of the battery. Use a flat tool to carefully help the battery case out of the machine if the swelling is enough to deform the case.

問題

My girlfriend's old MacBook Pro 15 2011 was dead, and she hadn't turned it on in the last 3 years. I put my hands on it and tried to figure out what was wrong. That computer is more powerful than my current MacBook Pro Retina 13 2015, so I decided it was worth investigating.

修理

I first tried to figure out what the problem was. The battery indicator was giving a sign of dead battery, so I decided to order a new battery from iFixit. But also the hard drive was corrupted, so I ordered a Samsung 500 GB SSD. Since I thought it was worth it, I also ordered 16 gigabytes of RAM 1600 MHz.

The old battery was swollen, and also the trackpad was not working properly. After removing the old battery, I unscrewed the trackpad, cleaned it, and put it back in place, calibrating the little screw until I got the expected behavior. I replaced battery, hard drive, and RAM. The keyboard was also missing a few keys, so I ordered the five missing keys and I put them back on.

After a couple of hours of work, and an overall investment of $350, the computer is now working like a beast. It has an i7 quad core processor @2GHz, 16Gbytes RAM 1600MHz, 500GB SSD, and a dedicated ATI video card, and it is more powerful than the most recent MacBook Pro 13'' 2016 (which, by the way, costs $1,800).

アドバイス

If your old MacBook Pro is not working, check online and follow the instructions. Many times it's a hard drive or battery problem, and you can bring your laptop back to life with minimal expense (in the order of $100-200). Also consider that an old MacBook Pro 15 (pre-retina generation) is much more powerful than the most recent MacBook Pro 13, so it's totally worth the investment.

問題

Original battery was swelling.

修理

Very, very simple and straightforward. Almost as easy as changing a battery in a remote control.

アドバイス

The three holes that are used to mount the battery to the chassis are ever so slightly out of alignment. Fasten these screws loosely initially, then tighten them once all are seated.

問題

The original 2010 Pro battery finally gave up the ghost. While the Mac help desk diagnosed a bad hard drive, replacing with a new one did not help.

After spending $100 on an online site (known to all) for an off-brand battery, which never charged properly, turns out the charger was malfunctioning. Purchased a replacement charger and THIS time I wanted an authentic Mac replacement battery.

修理

Like a dream. The new battery from iFixit arrived 3 days after order and with the working charger performed as designed.

I have to admit: This repair job was like falling off a log, once I had the properly working parts in place.

アドバイス

Don't violate Occam's Razor; make sure you resolve the simplest issue first.

On the bright side, now I have two hard drives, one to serve as a backup device.

Oh yeah: Go to iFixit first. This is an outstanding company supporting the DIY community!!

問題

The battery in my five and a half year old Mac Book Pro swelled up and distorted the case.

修理

My first step was to remove the old battery to relieve the pressure on the case. I then ordered a cheap replacement from Amazon. It arrived and I installed it. The computer booted up and then kept rebooting over and over. At this point I did what I should have done in the first place and ordered a battery from iFixit. Due to time pressures and my proximity to San Luis Obispo, I drove up to iFixit and picked up the battery the same day. Installed the iFixit battery and everything is working well again. Got full refund from Amazon seller.

As a footnote, I already had the necessary drivers to remove the battery. If you don't have these, you will need them.

アドバイス

Avoid cheap aftermarket batteries. The batteries have a chip which lets the computer recognize the battery. The chip in the Amazon battery was clearly either defective or the incorrect version. I could have saved a lot of time and stress by just ordering from iFixit in the first place.

The new battery seems to last very well.

問題

At first the issue was with booting up. The MBP would not get past the progress bar screen no matter how long we had waited. Using Command+Option+R+P didn't help. What finally helped was booting it into safe mode. Every boot up after that would work. Yay!

Once it was logged in, performance was abysmal. It would take a good minute or so for anything to happen. I checked the battery and it wasn't accepting a charge at all, and it had only gone through 220 cycles! Since it's a 2011 model Apple doesn't carry the hardware to repair this anymore, so this was my only course of action.

修理

The repair went quickly as easily, like pulling off a band-aid. I had actually live-streamed the whole process on Twitch.tv.

アドバイス

Despite what the guide says, when removing the battery, I actually had to use a Y0 screwdriver and not a Y1. I bought the iFixit Pro Kit for this repair and I'm sure I'll get much more use out of it.

問題

My 2011 MacBook Pro battery finally died. It had expanded so much, it was pushing the trackpad out of place and I couldn't do much on the machine. Went to Apple, they found the part on ifixit, it went out of stock quickly, I asked to be notified when they had more in, they notified me in the next couple of days. It only took a few days for the battery to come in.

修理

I took it to a local repair shop where an employee used to work for Apple. He was able to replace the battery then and there and dispose of the other one in a way that was safe.

アドバイス

When you find your part on the website, just be sure to buy it as soon as possible

問題

Battery worn out, and OS said to "service soon".

修理

Ordered replacement from iFixit and installed it with my own tools. A couple screwdrivers, a spudger, and a few minutes time, and I have a new battery! I did have an odd instance of the computer suddenly sleeping (very shortly after typing and clicking), but I reset the SMC, and it's been working fine since then. OS now says Battery "Condition: Normal." So far, so good!

アドバイス

If you have trouble with the computer randomly sleeping, etc, you might try resetting the SMC: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

問題

I came back from vacation to find this battery had inflated and nearly busted its way out of the bottom case.

修理

Only difficulty was that I had to reshape the bottom cover since it had been bent by the expanding battery.

アドバイス

The Note 7 is not the only battery that can have problems. You should never leave any, especially older, devices in warm sunrooms when you go on vacation.