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My Macbook has recently entered a state where the battery no longer charges. Currently the battery is reporting 25% charge when not plugged in. When plugged in, the bar at the top reports (Not Charging), though as long as I keep it plugged in it runs without running down the battery.

Any idea why this happened? And is there a way to fix it without just replacing the battery?

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  • How old is the battery? It's not uncommon for laptop batteries to lose the ability to hold a charge after 20-24 months. Aug 13, 2009 at 17:40

3 Answers 3

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This happened to me less than a month ago. It was my MagSafe adapter, not my battery that was failing. Try finding a spare adapter, or bring it into an Apple Store and test their adapters. Hopefully they'll replace it for you.

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  • And if you do have to buy a new MagSafe adapter (e.g. if Apple doesn't provide a warranty replacement), go for the big 85W monster over the minimal 60W MacBook charger. They're the same price, and both will charge a regular non-pro MacBook, but the 85W can charge a pro and tends to run cooler when attached to a regular non-pro MacBook.
    – Kevin L.
    Aug 14, 2009 at 5:14
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How old is the Macbook/battery?

Batteries typically have a full lifespan of about 1 year, and they usually fail to retain charge at about about 2 years.

If this is the case, then you will just have to go to an Apple Store to get the battery replaced.

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Try resetting the System Management Controller (SMC), as described in this Apple KB article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411

I will say, though, that the same situation has occurred to me in the past (twice, actually) and resetting the SMC didn't help -- I ended up having to replace the battery.

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