[Bobby]

I'm having a problem with my MacBook not knowing when the battery is charged (just noticed the problem today). My battery is at a 99% charge but shows an orange light on the plug and my battery menu item says "calculating..." on the time remaining. I've reset the PMU but it had no effect...

At any rate, I thought I should also zap the pram. I found if I try to hold the key combination down after the chime, I can't hold it down fast enough (before the gray screen shows). So I hold it down before the chime, but the computer boots as normal if I do this. I cannot seem to get the PRAM to zap... I've gone through a few reboots and still havn't gotten the second chime to go...

Anybody have any ideas on either the battery charge issue or the inability for me to zap the pram.

[Bobby]

Well, I think I figured out WHY this is happening...

Unfortunatly there isn't much I can think to fix it...

I decided I would repair disk permissions, so I figured I would boot from my OS X install disc. I inserted the disc, rebooted with C held down, and found it booted on to my HD...

So, I decided to run a test. I booted with the T key held down to boot into target disc mode. Any guesses on what happened??? My computer booted normally (no target-disc mode)...


So basically durring boot up my macbook's keyboard is being ignored...

Anybody have any idea on how to fix this???

[cyberwarrior]

Have you tried calibrating the battery? let the computer drain the battery, when it forces itself to sleep (ensure you've saved all crucial data first) turn the computer off (or wait 5 hours with it sleeping), then plug it back in and turn on. Exact instructions are on apple's site, search for battery calibration. Let it charge completely.

I hold down the keys before turning the machine on. It will start to boot then restart itself, keep holding these down until you hear a second chime (i don't think it would hurt if you waited for 3) also if you run with volume < max you will hear a louder chime the second time as it resets the volume to max. When you reset the PMU you may be greeted with coloured lines on your screen, if so... don't panic! (as i did yest.) just reset the PRAM and it should clear up (worked for me).