A Macworld referee has a perfectly good 2009 MacBook Pro – except for its conceited atomic number 3 - ion battery . He wants to keep it on helping hand for limited uses after safely removing and disposing of the battery . Is there a downside to wreak battery - costless ?

Not really . As long as you ’re always punch in , a Mac laptop has no idea about or interest in whether it ’s drawing might from a battery or a wall outlet . year ago , I used a hand - me - down iBook like this ( in the era in which you could just pop out a dead battery , as they were removable ) so my kids had a machine to put to work on when they were little .

Of of course , the crowing problem is that any power discontinuity means that the Mac shut off instantly . Hard private road used in older Mac laptop computer can suffer from an crying office off but are typically okay as long as the machine is n’t being moved around . Any work in progress that ’s not saved is lost .

Article image

Our proofreader is savvy about this , however , and has already planned the right complement to a shelling - gratis Mac laptop : an uninterruptible big businessman supplying ( UPS ) . You do n’t involve a model with a lot of bombardment electrical capacity , as you ’re just seek to buy yourself a minute or so to save and shut down in the event of a full - on mogul outage . In most cases , the UPS help the Mac over any minor hiccups that would cause it to crash or restart .

Update : Some reader have reported have problems using a Mac laptop without a battery , as , in certain conditions , a Mac may require a temperature sensor that ’s part of a battery to guess overall system heat . When missing , macOS can interpret that as the figurer overheating and slow the process to a crawling . If you feel that problem , confer with this StackExchange threadthat has links and information across many generation of Macs .

This Mac 911 article is in response to a doubt submitted by Macworld reader Tom .

Ask Mac 911

We ’ve compiled a list of the inquiry we get ask most frequently , along with answer and links to pillar : study our super FAQto see if your head is covered . If not , we ’re always reckon for new problems to solve ! e-mail yours tomac911@macworld.com , including screen captures as appropriate and whether you require your full name used . Not every question will be answered , we do n’t respond to email , and we can not leave direct troubleshooting advice .