My Macbook Keeps Turning Off

whoatherechunk · #1 05-23-2009, 12:13 PM

So yeah......I have a Macbook summer 07'ish series. (white). It originally had Tiger than when it crashed I got it serviced for free by Apple

and got OSX. Anyways.....I think the battery may be going out on me. It will turn off with like 25% of power left. Is this the problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks guys!!!

Chris

Sterling_Bass · #2 05-23-2009, 12:17 PM

How many cycles do you have on your battery? Click on the Apple at the upper left corner, then About this Mac, then More Info, then Power.

whoatherechunk · #3 05-23-2009, 12:33 PM

cycle count 338. it says its good. hmmmm? any other possible problems?

Sterling_Bass · #4 05-23-2009, 12:42 PM

Unfortunately, notebook batteries have a limited lifespan. I am not saying it's certain, but it may be possible that yours is losing its full capacity. The battery has been in use for almost two years. Does the problem occur when you are plugged into the outlet? I really would suggest plugging in if you are sitting around at home. It saves the battery in the long run. Call up Apple Care or see a Mac Genius if an Apple store is close to home.

MakiSupaStar · #5 05-23-2009, 12:54 PM

One other thing to check. In the settings. Make sure the "put hard drive to sleep" option is set to never. This can cause problems sometimes. It's a dial that can be set to a specific time. It's in the "Energy Saver" section of settings. See if that helps.

whoatherechunk · #6 05-23-2009, 01:28 PM

maki. i'm not sure how to get to there. i know how to get to the energy saver setting....but not the hard drive one.

69limeRev · #7 05-23-2009, 01:30 PM

If I had to put money on it, I'd say it's the battery. That's exactly how my Ibook behaved after about two years.

Snarf · #8 05-23-2009, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whoatherechunk

So yeah......I have a Macbook summer 07'ish series. (white). It originally had Tiger than when it crashed I got it serviced for free by Apple

and got OSX. Anyways.....I think the battery may be going out on me. It will turn off with like 25% of power left. Is this the problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks guys!!!

Chris

Your "computer" is telling you to dump it and live a life free of Apple's mind-boggling pretentiousness through using lower-priced, better-performing, and non-proprietary hardware PC devices.

i_got_a_mohawk · #9 05-23-2009, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snarf

Your "computer" is telling you to dump it and live a life free of Apple's mind-boggling pretentiousness through using lower-priced, better-performing, and non-proprietary hardware PC devices.

zing!

NJL · #10 05-23-2009, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snarf

Your "computer" is telling you to dump it and live a life free of Apple's mind-boggling pretentiousness through using lower-priced, better-performing, and non-proprietary hardware PC devices.

um, sounds like you're the pretentious one...

jimb213 · #11 05-23-2009, 03:03 PM

is your battery bulging at all? My '07 MacBook Pro battery started getting a little puffy a while back, and more or less stopped working. I made an appointment at the Apple Store, and they replaced it free of charge. Definitely make an appointment at the nearest apple store to get your computer checked out.

here's a photo of my broken battery before I got a new one:

If yours is looking anything like that, I'd say it's definitely time to get a new one.

Quote:

Your "computer" is telling you to dump it and live a life free of Apple's mind-boggling pretentiousness through using lower-priced, better-performing, and non-proprietary hardware PC devices.

I've had easily ten times the problems working with PC's at my day jobs than I've ever had with my personal Macs I use for freelance work. More down time, more lost work, more crashes during renders, more missed deadlines because of hardware problems... so absolutely not better performing, regardless of what benchmarks may say. I'm happy to pay a little extra for a computer that actually works (and when you compare apples to apples

, they're not over-priced, unless you buy extra RAM or hard drives from Apple - they definitely gouge for that).

The only time I'll ever bring a PC into my home is if I decide to get a gaming machine...

Sterling_Bass · #12 05-23-2009, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NJL

um, sounds like you're the pretentious one...

Truth.

Alcyon · #13 05-23-2009, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sterling_Bass

How many cycles do you have on your battery? Click on the Apple at the upper left corner, then About this Mac, then More Info, then Power.

Most likely this, but you might also want to try zapping your PRAM by booting up while holding down Command-Option-P-R. This is how your computer guesses how much battery life it still has, and it can get screwed up over time. That should fix it, if not, you might want to look into getting a new battery as lithium ones do wear out after several hundred cycles, especially if you don't "prime" it when it's new. You might also want to try turning your computer on and waiting until it drains it's entire battery (including hibernation mode) so that it is forced to shut down - this will reset the battery memory as well.

Not to be pedantic but technically Tiger is also OS X, which was released in 2002 to replace OS 9 (which they'd been using since 1984). All the different cat names just represent newer versions of the same basic OS, often with newer features. Just FYI.

P.S. Maki, I'm not sure that feature actually exists anymore. I don't think my 2006 Macbook has it, at least.

Quote:

Your "computer" is telling you to dump it and live a life free of Apple's mind-boggling pretentiousness through using lower-priced, better-performing, and non-proprietary hardware PC devices.

Are you sure your name shouldn't be "Snark"?

whoatherechunk · #14 05-23-2009, 03:17 PM

thanks for all the help guys! seems like it may be the battery because it works perfectly fine when being charged through a wall wart. and nope....my battery isnt poofy! definitely will watch out for that in the future!. thanks guys!

NJL · #15 05-23-2009, 03:19 PM

as well, last year, my batt went bad... i went to apple and without any they replaced my batt.. my MB is the mid 2006 intel..

to the op, take maki's advice, using the power settings, make sure everything is set correctly.. there are different profiles you can use, as well..

whoatherechunk · #16 05-23-2009, 03:19 PM

AND WHOOPS i have leopard now hahaha. does that have a code name?

Alcyon · #17 05-23-2009, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whoatherechunk

AND WHOOPS i have leopard now hahaha. does that have a code name?

Well, yeah, it's called Leopard

You could also call it 10.5.7 if you like.

whoatherechunk · #18 05-23-2009, 03:30 PM

haha nice! well damn i love macs regardless.

Alcyon · #19 05-23-2009, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whoatherechunk

haha nice! well damn i love macs regardless.

I'm glad to hear that. I think most people that own one are very happy with their machines.

bencwalker · #20 05-23-2009, 03:44 PM

Similar thing happened to mine, where the thing wouldn't even turn on unless plugged in. Just take it in to the Apple store and they'll fix it up for you, usually free of charge.