[mike868y]

I have a white macbook (got it for christmas 2007. It was worked flawlessly until about a week ago when it stopped charging. It will pull power from the power adapter, but the battery does not charge and the green light on the mag safe does not turn on. Unfortunately, it is just out of the included one year apple care . What do you think it could be? I updated it to 10.5.7, and reset the PRAM and it didn't help at all. I don't believe that it is the physical battery because its functionality did not decrease gradually, it just stopped working one day, so it would seem odd that it would randomly stop working one day. I've heard it may be the motherboard, which I really hope its not...

I'm planning on bringing it to the apple store on Friday, but I've got a question, if I want to bring it to the genius bar, do I need to like call and make an appointment? I've never had to bring my macs to the apple store to get looked at. Thanks for the help.

[Simon]

You should make a genius bar appointment in advance. You can do that online.
Apple Retail Store - Genius Bar

Before you bring it in you can check a couple of things yourself.
1) How many lights flash up on your battery? Does that number change when you remove the battery from the computer?
2) Reset SMC
3) Recalibrate battery
4) Check System Profiler > Hardware > Power > Battery Information. What's the full charge capacity of your battery and what's the cycle count?

It there's a problem with the charger or the MB itself Apple would have fixed it for free under AC; without it you're at their mercy (they're usually quite generous if it's just out of warranty).

If it's just the battery in principle you will have to buy a new one. Batteries are explicitly exempt from AC and are only covered by the standard 12 month warranty. However if you ask nicely chances are you'll get a replacement for free. I have had Apple replace bad batteries on two different occasions for free. If the battery is within the first 300 cycles it should retain 80% of its original capacity. Once you're below that Apple usually does the replacement. Explain the situation, show them your numbers, and be kind. That pretty much always works. Good luck.