Solutions when your macbook refuses to recognize, charge or run from the macbook battery

Until very recently, I thought the main three issues which cause battery run and charge problems were: 

a.
dud batteries (which have circuitry inside them as well the lithium ion cells) (and genuine Apple batteries are superior for both these reasons. Cheap non genuine ones can be good, but vary it seems from batch to batch imo, half the price though). 

b.
Dead DC in boards - the magsafe gizmo inside the macbook. Cheap and really easy to replace from ebay, iFixit, Powerbook Medic or your favourite supplier.  You can easily replace them yourself once you have practiced taking a dead A1181 macbook apart or follow the quides on the net. eg at the above suppliers websites.

c.
Dud magsafe power adapters. These often don't last all that long. Always keep them in the open air, don't ever let them fall under the blankets when using the macbook in bed. For kids, its wise i think to insist that the short power plug is fitted to the power adapter rather than the long power cord, even if only for bed time use.  No plug pack at all, of any kind,  should be shut off from open air flow and should never be left on unattended.  It applies to every one on the planet of any brand.

However, I recently came into possession of 3 cheap A1181 macbooks, with the declared fault of 'runs fine off power adapter, but these macbooks do not recognise, charge or run from batteries.'. ok, I thought, time to swap in another battery and to maybe have to drag out my spare DC in board.

Alas. Nothing I tried worked.  New battery, known good,  not recognized by any of these three macbooks. Trying the new DC in board in each one also produced failure. 

So yesterday i started hunting on the net and came to the usual forums where the issue was discussed by not resolved. The Apple forums lamented lapsed Apple Care coverage, and most blamed the batteries, even though some people had tried different batteries and different power adapters. Like me, doing the usual resets produced no success either.

Then i stumbled an very interesting blog, written by a creative thinker in, i think, Iran.  He had the same trouble. One day, his macbook just refused to charge, run from or even recognize his battery. He tried the usual swaps - different battery, different power adapter - no luck either. 

Seeing as this was a new fault on his machine,  he started thinking independently. knowing where the battery sat beneath the keyboard, he tried pressing in various places on the keyboard. Just below the "fn" key he hit pay dirt. Apply finger pressure to that point,  the magsafe connector went from green to oranage - it was charging. The top task bar no longer showed the battery icon with an x in it, but the percent charge. System profiler no longer claims battery not fitted, but battery fitted and charging.

Then he lifted his finger pressure from the point on the palmrest just below the fn key and all went dead again. Green magsafe light, battery icon with an x through it, and unplugging the power adapter immediately resulted in the macbook turning off. 

Well,  i guess Iran can get hot and humid and cold and wet, like most other places. And one thing i had never thought of is heat and humidity induced corrosion at the point the battery cable joins the main board - at that point just under the fn key.

Here is the gentleman's blog post: http://attakk.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/possible-fix-for-macbook-not-recognizing-battery/
the last bit of his post he writes; "This next step is where the magic happens, I couldn’t find any damage on the connector nor anything indicating it
was broken, but I decided to at least scrape the pins gently, in case of corrosion or dirt causing the pins not
to connect to the logic board properly. Remember at this point, this was a long shot and I only acted on my intuition  .

Anyway, I plugged the connector back and this time made sure it was connected to the logic board. I plugged the
power cord in and pressed the area again just to make sure ….and wohoo the light went orange instead of green. After ~4 hours the battery was fully charged, I pulled the cord out and started my Macbook with ONLY the battery.

I titled this as a “possible fix”, thus I can not guarantee anything, but If you have tried all the standard procedures that don’t work. I suggest you try to locate an area where the battery state will change on your computer and take it from there. Or you could try “repairing”the battery connector as I did.'

i tried his method on all three of my afflicted machines. on taking them apart, I noticed on removing the battery cable connector from the main board that not only were 18 (Australia) connector pins -US models have 20 pins and other variants -  were dull, but the socket holes they go into all had black copper tracks. Note burnt out, but badly oxidized by heat.  At the time I did not have circuit board cleaner - but I did buff up the connector pins. Today i went and bought some circuit board cleaner and also found a two pack metal contact de-oxidizer/ contact conditioner, mainly aimed at hi fi buffs. I can the de-oxidizer a go on all the contacts and main board sockets for the battery cable connectors as well as doing it to the DC in board contacts and main board plug. And even to the magsafe contacts.  The chemical turns the oxidation green and liquifies it. I am leaving it on all the machines overnight.  Tomorrow I will use normal circuit board cleaner on the areas, let it dry for a day and then apply the conditioner, which is supposed to stop further oxidation.   i must say i did get one of the machines charging the battery before doing this, but only after wedging the connector extra tight into the socket, so that's not a real solution. 

i have new battery cable connectors on order and a couple of more DC in boards while i was at it, always good to have around.  But the big test comes tomorrow night when all the cleaning agents have dried. 

The brand names of the cleaners/conditioners I am using are ; 'Deoxit Connector Cleaner, (part 1) Enhancer and Protector (part 2)' and 'Servisol Electronic cleaning solvent. Which I will use between Deoxidit part 1 and part 2.   If that doesn't solve the problem,  then I will await the parts from Powerbook Medic.  And if those don't fix, I was thinking, this guy might be my only hope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obi-Wan_Kenobi

And then, thinking ok, how do you make a macbook that will not run on its internal battery run on battery?  (apart from using a car charger, a Dodge Viper battery and a sack truck?) and so I again searched ebay. And came up with some neat stuff, that costs more than a 2008 macbook. Before i give the cheap solution, here is the price no object answer:

http://www.hypershop.com/HyperJuice-External-Battery-for-MacBook-iPad-iPhone-USB-s/91.htm

It looks like high quality gear, not made for my purpose but it will do the job of giving portability to a macbook which wont recognize it's inbuilt battery.  But its nearly $200 us for the cheapest version.

Happily another person has noticed this high price (for the purpose of keeping an old mac alive and portable) and he has come up with the use of two 12 volt CCTV rechargeable batteries, hooked together and wired through to a macbook car charger.  He explains his method here:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/2/2905463/create-a-diy-macbook-battery

He admits his solution is not as flash as the big dollar job, but hey,  it works.  And if all conventional means fails to get your macbook seeing its inbuilt battery and you have to take it on a field trip with no power point for your power adapter, well,  Evan Rodgers may well have just saved our bacon, if the guy in Iran's method was not able to.  

So maybe your Tiger macbook may live to edit video in imovie 05 for another few years.

Tomorrow will be a big day for me. Will leaving the circuit track deoxidizer work?  It takes three weeks by el cheapo post for the powerbook medic parts to arrive. If no luck tomorrow with clean contacts, while I wait the new battery connectors and cables and DC in boards, i'll be scanning ebay for the cheapest 12 volt CCTV batteries.

By this stage, some people who have read all the posts here will be thinking 'Why doesnt he just get with the program and buy a new mac?' No. I don't like em. It's osx crossed dressed as the world's most annoying mobile phone. I work alone and this face time crap really gives Tonto and me a really hard time. This however a guy selling a brand new Lenovo 15 inch running osx for very little money, and i am sorely tempted to add it to my Dell mini 10v running Snow Leopard. (i run that throught the big LCD using a blue tooth keyboard and its really neat. (have to use a usb to dvi external box as the vga port does not have an osx driver. As usual third party to the rescue.

i hope someone out there has found this round up of a quite serious issue to be of some use.

As always, heat and moisture kills laptops.  it is a constant battle to hold back the tide of oxidation.