Intel macBook random black screen on battery value x

Five_Star · 10 Jun 2009 at 21:22

My wife has an intel macBook 2.2 that’s about 20 months old. Recently when running on battery the screen will go black and the unit will appear to be asleep. Pressing the keyboard a few times will bring the screen back on with the battery icon having an x inside it rather than a power symbol. The DVD drive will wirr like it does on startup as well.

I’ve Googled about this and can’t find much apart from an error affecting older MBP units. I have done the battery out reset trick on it to no affect as well.

The unit performs fine when on ac power.

I’m not overly knowledgeable about mac hardware so I’m struggling to track down exactly what this error is so I might be able to Google it properly.

Cheers

unknowndomain · 28 Jun 2009 at 00:46

Try doing a PRAM reset - notes on how to do that below, then if no luck try another battery if available or take it in for diagnosis/repair at an apple authorised repair centre or store.

PRAM reset - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

Also you can read this and try a SMC reset as it seems pertinent to your issue.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1894

FreeStream · 28 Jun 2009 at 00:58

SMC reset too, it controls the charging, power management etc.

unknowndomain · 28 Jun 2009 at 00:58

unknowndomain said:
...

Also you can read this and try a SMC reset as it seems pertinent to your issue.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1894

Hey thats what I said lol!

Five_Star · 14 Jul 2009 at 17:34

Wow some answers, thanks guys

Unfortunately neither worked

It has been fully connected to the mains for over a month now when in use (i.e. the battery light is green and always 100%) and has worked perfectly.

Last night I used it for a moderate amount of time and there was no occurrence of the x for a battery indicator or the screen going black or the random restarts.

Maybe it’s magic?

FreeStream · 14 Jul 2009 at 18:08

unknowndomain said:
Hey thats what I said lol!

Wow missed that or Ninja edit