2005/2006 MacBook Pro says service battery?

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2005/2006 MacBook Pro says service battery?

Okay so I have had this MBP since 2005 and it has really been an amazing laptop. It has lasted me almost 6 years. Just about 7 months ago my battery status said to service battery. I didn't have any Applecare or anything to help me pay for it and couldn't afford to take it into Apple. It made a grinding noise upon startup but ran well. I just bought a new battery and everything was fine and the service battery sign was gone and so was the grinding noise. This was about 4 months ago. About a few weeks ago I noticed the Service Battery sign came on again and the grinding noise came back. The noise wasn't frequent and still isn't which is a relief. However, the sign is back and on top of that, when my battery died and I needed to recharge the green light would come on and not turn orange and it took me a long time to get it to actually charge. So what my questions are:

1) Is my MBP messing up the battery, hence the grinding noise?

2) Why did my battery take a while and many tries to start charging?

3) What can I do? I still cannot afford to take it into Apple unfortunately

If anyone can help I would appreciate it. I can also be reached at h.sodhi1991@gmail.com. Thank you in advance

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 10, 2012 8:19 PM

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Answer 1

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Feb 10, 2012 8:47 PM in response to Sodhi

When your machine tells you to "service battery," what it means is "replace battery." You eventually got that figured out once, and it still means the same thing now. I suspect maybe you bought a cheapo third-party battery then, and now it's doing what such batteries all too often do: crapping out early.

My guess is that the grinding noise has nothing to do with the battery. I've never heard of a failing battery producing any such sympton, and there's certainly no way the battery itself could make a grinding noise. One of your machine's mechanical parts -- the hard drive, the optical drive or a fan -- may be on its way out. Your machine needs to be checked out at a Genius Bar, which costs nothing.

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