As most folks know, rechargeable batteries can swell up when they fail. And I see that pretty often here at work given just now much hardware is floating around for employee use. But occasionally the failure is more spectacular than usual.
Yesterday I get an email from a tester stating that his MacBook Pro won’t turn on and he needs a different one for the project he’s on.
I ask a few questions over email, and he’s totally unsure of why the laptop just stopped working all of a sudden. So I tell him to bring it in and I’ll swap it out.
And here’s what he brings me…
Nope, no idea why that laptop isn’t working… Total mystery…
Yes, that’s really the aluminum base plate and palm rest forcefully bowed out. And this of course shoves the palm rest into the screen — fortunately the screen looks to be okay.
After carefully removing a dozen tiny screws from the bottom plate, because the bottom plate was under enough stress to make them shoot out and fly across the office, I was able to extricate the battery.
Looks fine to me. Not sure why the laptop isn’t working…
What’s funny is the battery is covered in Do Not Remove stickers and uses tri-blade screws… I’m a rebel; a sticker that says do not remove and weird screws is simply a challenge.
Anyway, I was able to flatten the case back out and I’ve got an aftermarket replacement battery coming. Hopefully nothing on the logic board was broken by the stress from that swelling battery, and if not I’ll get this back into service next week.