I just had a MBP fixed (it was quick!) due to it swollen up one day. It would not lie down flat on a table and the trackpad was useless. Obviously could not close the screen either. How common is this?

I've had this exact thing happen with my 2012 15" retina. Won't lay down flat and clicking the trackpad required pressing really hard. Had the battery replaced, works like new now — on Mojave, I'm not updating to the dumpster fire that is Catalina.

My old mbp swelled up enough to shatter the trackpad glass. During zoom calls it would overheat and swell and disable keyboard and trackpad function until it cooled off.

I'm on my second swollen battery in my 2015 15" MBP.

Java dev though so my computer is always near the temperature of the sun's surface which I think has something to do with it. We purchased 5 of these MBPs on the same date and the other Java devs machine is swollen while the testers machines are still fine.

Very. It has happened to me so many times that now whenever I travel I always take a set of pentalobe screwdrivers with me so I can remove the back plate of my MBP when (not if) this happens to avoid structural damage.

pretty common occurrence, in my experience. if you own a macbook, it is just a matter of time until the battery swells up and needs to be replaced. usual first symptoms are that the trackpad can't be clicked anymore.

Deep discharge & Heat are common accelerators of swelling. Avoiding going to <10% battery and running aggressive heat dissipation will always help prolong the life.

My favorite is Macs Fan Control[0] for removing heat. 40' the fan is spinning mid range speed and by 50' it's full 6500 rpm.

It's the least I can do =/

[0]https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control

I think I'll rather take the battery performance hit than bear with (near-?)constant fan noise.

My favorite nerd hysteria conspiracy theory is that Apple runs its computers hot and fans loud in order to sell AirPods.

I think the goal of running Macs hot is to prevent the fans from kicking in for most use-cases. If you're running twelve virtual machines and compiling Chromium simultaneously, then you might need earplugs.

Below a certain rpm you practically cant hear the fans. Even with them screetching, if you are in a room with an ac unit or outside, it would be tough to notice.

Never got this gripe personally, as I’ve never had a quiet device in my life. Certainly not from apple.

FWIW, iStat Menus also does fan control quite well, and the paid version is cheaper. (And it does a lot of non-fan-related things quite well, too.)

after update status of the battery switched from normal to "service required"

Swollen batteries were a result of design/manufacturing defects. It was certainly a common issue 5-10 years ago but should hopefully be a thing of the past by now.

Modern batteries should never swell, but will still wear out over time. Smarter battery management should be able to extend their lifespan.

I don't think you can conclusively say "Modern batteries should never swell" since there's always the possibility of manufacturing and design defects in new batteries too.

It's the battery equivalent of the halting problem in software.

No manufacturing and design process is perfect, there will always be errors. If you do find a perfect design and manufacturing process, I think you wouldn't be posting here on hackers news but would be drinking champaign with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

The word "should" implies non-conclusivity.

"Never" implies conclusivity?

Either way, you wouldn't use "should never" when it comes to batteries, which still has bulging, quality issues, etc throughout the entire technology industry with cell phones bulging, phones catching on fire, batteries on airplanes themselves being damaged, car batteries catching fire.

It's very well known that modern lithium ion battery tech isn't all that "failsafe" so using the words "should never bulge" in this context is very deceptive.

It is more likely that any battery using current battery tech in consumer devices will buldge within a certain number of charge cycles (which might be higher than the useful lifetime of the device), but it's very likely that the battery will bulge.

https://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-note-7-battery...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner_battery_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicle_fire_...

> Modern batteries should never swell, but will still wear out over time.

Unfortunately they still do.

Saw at least 2 Dell's and 2 macbook pro's with swollen batteries in the last 1-2 years, and this just in the colleagues in my immediate vicinity.

It's pretty scary when the touchpad starts to misbehave and you realize the whole macbook starts to bulge.

In some cases (like the AppleWatch), a swollen battery upon failure is an intentional design choice, apparently. At least that's what they told me when my Series 0 battery swelled up and caused the face of the watch to pop off. They claimed they do it intentionally so you know it has to be serviced and can't be used anymore. Probably different for laptops, though.

Considering you can't change the battery (easily) they better offer a solution for maintaining its life.

Why does everything have to be automated? Why can't I just specify manually that it should not exceed, say, 80%? This is just another process running and ... using battery.