MBPro: flashing world, battery with X on it

[acme]

I was just using my 2010 13" Mac Book Pro when the display went dark.

pressing cap locks didn't make the little light go on and I heard nothing. I pressed power..

suddenly the machine's fans cam on full crank and I got a screen wtih a flashing world on it.

The battery in the menu bar has an X on it and when I pull down the battery menu it says, "No Batteries Available."

My guess is, this ain't too good. Any thoughts on what's up? and how to make the fans take a chill pill?

This thing isn't warm in the least.

thanks!

a

[anthlover]

I have seen Displays go dark for no reason many times. Often its possible with a flashlight to do a graceful shutdown or restart which usually clears up issue. Hard shutdown sometimes easier but always presents a risk.

Guessing that the battery has had it though its a little young for that.

Battery is not hard to replace. Or you can have Apple Store to it.

[acme]

yah, young's a good word: it'll be a year this March. As others have recommended, I take it to empty or near to it about once a month.

Have to get the apple store folks to give 'er a look. I don't get why the fans are going crazy, tho.....


a

[anthlover]

Hmm a year march def go to Apple store since it should have a warranty. Even without never hurts to let them look. Was it refurb? By its model year should be pushing two years. Old style batts should last 500 charge/discharge cycles. Newer like yours 1000.

[acme]

Yes, it was a refurb. I have no clue which parts are made new before refurbs are offered for sale...

weird, I am now booted under the battery which still shows the X...fans still freakin' out.

a

[acme]

talking to an apple genius wizard right now...

seems the flashing world means that computer is communicating with the Apple Servers, related to the restore partition...

as for the fans, if 2 of the sensors get "tripped," the mac thinks it's hot.

As for the battery with the X on the icon, no answer.

We did a reset: power off, then press shift-option-control + press the power button, then power up.

Mac booted normally, no fans going crazy and battery icon showing a lightning bolt (charging) icon on it.

no clue what caused all this whackyness...

hoping the apple guy develops a theory. I will share if he does.

a

[anthlover]

Progress

How many charge cycles does the battery show in the about the mac?

To answer about refurb... to the best of my knowledge they inspect and replace parts as the deem appropriate. I do like refurb from Apple can be a good deal as long as one knows what their buying model/year/value config wise. When the Core 2 Duo was around forever there was very little change from 2007 to 2010 at least CPU wise and so you could find some great values buying a year old model that was not much different then its predessors.

[acme]

cycle count says 56. condition says "normal"

[DeltaMac]

Sounds good.
Your problem was simply a glitch in the power manager (known as System Management controller - SMC)
You did a power manager reset (resets the SMC to defaults), which cleared up your problem.

Here's more info:

Quote: The System Management Controller (SMC) is a chip on the logic board that controls all power functions. If the computer is experiencing any power issue, such as not starting up, not displaying video, sleep issues, or fan noise issues, resetting SMC may resolve it.

Will it ever happen again, to you? Probably not, but there's no way to predict that.

[anthlover]

Agreed your Batt should be good for awhile

[acme]

anything about apple's explanation about what happen that raises a brow?

not that it's dishonest, but...here's the sequence, nutshelled:

1. computer's fine and charged
2. I slept it for several hours, plugged in
3. I opened the lid to do some work, screen went black after 2-3 seconds.
4. computer appears and sounds powered off.
5. plugged in, power the computer back, fans blasting away, X icon on batter, and I get the flashing world Icon (Apple says this means the computer is contacting Apple servers.

I don't see anything in that mix that leads to #5....or to #3 for that matter..


a

[anthlover]

Not me. Delta might have some thoughts... You did not mention what OS you are running?

Regardless of OS i have seen odd behavior with Backlighting going haywire. The SMC thing happens too. There are firmware updates for your machine.

I actually have a thread no one responded to a recently regarding issues with odd/freezing behavior after sleeping.

[acme]

10.8.2 is the version I'm on right now..

thank you!

"regular anomalies" I can live with. If there's something that points to a component having serious issues, I'd want to keep an eye on it.

Thank you all for reading and for weighing in!

a

[DeltaMac]

If your MBPro was forced off (either because you chose to do that by holding down the power button, or your MBPro weirdly shut itself off), then a possible result would be that the power manager was corrupted. The SMC might have already needed a reset, and the incident simply pushed it "over the edge." That explains the "missing battery, and the fans running full speed, etc". It doesn't tell you WHY that happened, but whatever the result - you fixed it with the SMC reset.
(what does your #4 mean? I don't understand "computer appears", and what do you mean by "sounds powered off"? Do you mean that it completely shut off? How does it then "appear"?)
Anyway, your #5 is a not-unusual result of the SMC being corrupted.
That's why I mentioned that quote (which, BTW, comes straight out of Apple's service manual for your MBPro)

What kind of answer are you hoping for? If you have used it for a few months - with no similar problems - and this is the first time... then, could just be a one-time glitch, fixed by the SMC reset.

If it's not a year old yet, then it's in warranty. If you are concerned, you could take to an Apple service shop for a checkout. If the event they find a hardware problem, then Apple would repair that.

[acme]

Quote: Originally Posted by DeltaMac If your MBPro was forced off (either because you chose to do that by holding down the power button, or your MBPro weirdly shut itself off), then a possible result would be that the power manager was corrupted. The SMC might have already needed a reset, and the incident simply pushed it "over the edge." That explains the "missing battery, and the fans running full speed, etc". It doesn't tell you WHY that happened, but whatever the result - you fixed it with the SMC reset. (what does your #4 mean? I don't understand "computer appears", and what do you mean by "sounds powered off"? Do you mean that it completely shut off? How does it then "appear"?) Anyway, your #5 is a not-unusual result of the SMC being corrupted. That's why I mentioned that quote (which, BTW, comes straight out of Apple's service manual for your MBPro) What kind of answer are you hoping for? If you have used it for a few months - with no similar problems - and this is the first time... then, could just be a one-time glitch, fixed by the SMC reset. If it's not a year old yet, then it's in warranty. If you are concerned, you could take to an Apple service shop for a checkout. If the event they find a hardware problem, then Apple would repair that.

Thank you, DeltaMac;

My #4 means that, judging by sight and sound, it appeared to be off: no noises, no lights, no monitor.
Curious you imply that the SMC can "need" a reset...is this simply part of day in/day out using this computer, that every once in awhile, it comes to need a reset?

To my knowledge there is only 1 or 2 times where the battery drained to 0 and the computer came to be powered off that way...is that the type of event that can corrupt it? Either of those events were months ago...

[DeltaMac]

The SMC is part of the firmware, and stores certain system information.
If that information becomes corrupted - for example, it might not turn on the display when called - or the battery charge information is incorrectly interpreted, etc - then, you would be experiencing problems of one kind or another.
An SMC reset would be one of the troubleshooting tips for those kind of issues.
The SMC reset is not a periodic task.
There's no utility software that will provide you with the means to reset the SMC.
There is no "SMC reset needed" message that will appear, and an SMC reset is just one of the tips that you might try for a variety of other situations (certainly won't hurt in any case - and if it fixes your issue, then all is good!
My feeling is that an unusual event that is related to power might result in a corrupted SMC (as one possibility) - but then there's no way to predict that result. What I mean is, you can't create a repeatable event that will (every time) result in a problem that is fixable by an SMC reset. It's just some glitch - a little voltage surge or tiny power interruption, or some random event that causes that.

You fixed the issue that you had, with an SMC reset.
When will you need to do that again?
Next time...
When will that happen?
Maybe never (or maybe tomorrow )
If you can figure out a way to predict a random event - you may be on your way to your next million

[acme]

Million...why not Zillion?

thank you for your frank, wise perspective.