Galane Posted May 7, 2017 Share Posted May 7, 2017 Early 2011 MacBook Pro 15". 2.0 Ghz with 4 gig RAM and 500 gig hard drive. The original battery died and inflated, breaking the trackpad. Really *great* design there. Especially love how the weak spot in the battery case is below the trackpad to ensure it destroys it - rather than having a blowout panel on the bottom. Bought a used trackpad and an inexpensive new battery off eBay. Trackpad works but there's always a "Service Battery" warning at the top of the battery status menu. It's EXTREMELY SLOW, takes forever to do anything. Go to about this mac on the Apple menu and several minutes later the window pops up. Yes, literally minutes. I watched my clock while waiting. It's not an over full hard drive. It got a clean Sierra install shortly before the battery puffed and there's over 400 gig free. I've reset SMC, zapped PRAM, did Safe Boot, cleaned out a couple gigs of junk with CCleaner too. It's nearly almost fast enough to use in Safe Boot. It's NOT overheating. I blew the dust out when I had the bottom off for replacing the trackpad and battery. Stays cool as can be and the fans whisper quiet. If running so slow as to be unusable is its response to a 3rd party battery, then I'm glad it's not my MacBook. (I have several PC laptops, and others in the past, all have been perfectly fine with non-OEM batteries.) Where can I get a battery that the thing won't do a slowdown strike over, that also doesn't cost so much it'd be cheaper for the owner to buy another MacBook? Would it be worth it to upgrade to 16 gig and an SSD, or at least a 7200RPM drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LouCioccio Posted May 7, 2017 Share Posted May 7, 2017 I would have done this first: https://www.dvwarehouse.com/922-9749-Apple-Trackpad-for-MacBook-Pro-15-Early---Late-2011-and-Mid-2012--Refurbished-p-42266.html Then gone to OWC https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/BAP15MBU78W/ Also check out iFixit tear apart for your particular model to see if there is sensor. Fleabay is fine but if you know how Lithium batteries are made and how they can fail. And usually Google Apple recalls for specific and you get this https://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/02/apple-launches-repair-program-for-longstanding-2011-macbook-pro-gpu-problems/ Yes it would be worth it to get 16GB RAM and SSD drive I did with my 2012 13inch MacBook pro and boots to logon in about 15 seconds! Also look at OWC for a data doubler and put the CD outside when did you last use?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galane Posted May 7, 2017 Author Share Posted May 7, 2017 I got the trackpad for a few $ less than that. I'm going to suggest to the book's owner that buying the $99 battery would be a good idea, same for bumping the RAM to 8 or 16 gig, if the OWC battery cures the slowness. The recall would be great, if it was still available. Feb 2016 is gone past and being an Early 2011 model there's no way she bought it new less than three years ago. During boot, sometimes there's a few video glitches. Maybe she can sweet talk the Apple Store in Boise, ID into sending it in on the recall. From the size and shape of the battery, I don't know why Apple didn't go with the usual 18650 cells. The flat ones are the ones that inflate when they die. What I'd like to know is *why* that technology continues to be used when it's possible to make prismatic lithium-ion cells and batteries that don't blow up* when they conk out. I've a couple of old Palm PDAs that I charge up once in a while. They're years older than many dead inflate-o-cells I've had go bad in much newer gear. My LifeDrive still has its original battery from 2005. I did have to change the battery in my Tungsten E2 some years ago, but when it quit it just quit, no puff the magic dead battery. OTOH, I have a Nobis NB7850S Android tablet with a flat pouch type battery that holds a charge just about forever when the tablet is off. I last did anything with it six months or more ago. Still 100%. I don't use it because it's developed a glitch where rebooting or turning it off and back on does a factory reset and wipes all the data. I've a second one of them where the battery puffed up, popped the thing apart. I got it fixed free under warranty but shortly after the warranty expired it refused to run off the battery, only works when plugged in. *Or literally *blow up* as some unfortunate people have experienced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vusun123 Posted May 7, 2017 Share Posted May 7, 2017 On my old 2012 non-Retina Macbook Pro, if the battery is removed everything will be slowed down on plugging in, so I guess it should be the same as in your case but with a cheap battery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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