Macbook White (late 2010) battery bulge

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Level 1

6 points

Macbook White (late 2010) battery bulge

I took out my macbook white at the weekend to find that battery appears to have exploded through the trackpad. I purchased this late 2010 and it was still working fine (had no issues with battery)
Googling seems to suggest that this is a known fault, however, like an issue I had with a previous iMac (another known fault) I seem to have missed the window for repairs (though I doubt this can be repaired) - has anyone ever seen this happen with a Macbook before? Seems rather dangerous, this was placed on a carpet so could easily have set the house on fire had the laptop been plugged in...

I previously had to replace the back cover of the laptop (another known issue) when that bulged so not sure whether I still have serial number now as serial number would have been on the reverse of the old cover.

MacBook (13-inch Mid 2010), OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on May 31, 2016 6:19 AM

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Answer 1

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,329 points

May 31, 2016 8:38 AM in response to RacoonQueen

This can happen with old lithium ion batteries therefore I always replace batteries that are 4 years old regardless of the number of cycles on it. Obviously batteries do not last forever and your Mac battery is about 5-6 years old. Unfortunate for sure, but not that unusual.

Ciao.

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Answer 2

Aug 12, 2016 12:26 PM in response to RacoonQueen

Yep, happened to me, too. The first clue to a bulging battery is that the trackpad's lower right & left corners are becoming hard to push down & "click". But I didn't know that clue until too late.... So I had to buy a new battery, AND a new trackpad (gambled on a used/recycled one I found on eBay from a high-percentage seller for 20-something bucks--works fine!) because the cursor arrow began jumping around all over the place & auto-clicking stuff & man.... what a mess of a screen that used to make after just a short while. And I myself installed both the battery & the trackpad. Gotta get the battery out to get to the trackpad, of course. And you'll need a tiny philips head AND a special 3-pointed screwdriver. And the trackpad's got the tiniest screws holding it in that I've ever seen in my life, so if you decide to do it yourself do everything on a white sheet or pillowcase laid on a table, and do nothing to your Macbook's guts UNLESS you're doing it over that white sheet or pillowcase. Because once any of those little teeny tiny screws gets loose, and it winds up on the floor (you think) or elsewhere (you might also think), it's usually just as good as gone forever.

Good luck 😉
Kevin Kendall
White 7,1 2.4GHz Macbook running Sierra beta4 with Siri (yayy!!) / 1TB HDD / 16GB RAM / Windows 7 & 10 via VMWare 7

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