Chosen Solution
how to replace the little CMOS battery of an A1286 MACBOOK PRO, as i cant find it. does it have any? if yes, please send instructions thanks lcg
The A1286 uses a super capacitor for the time and date - not a coin cell like the older MacBooks. Unlike older Macs where it can be that battery on portables, it’s either due to a tired battery or the capacitor needs to be replaced. Since you own a 2011, my strong recommendation to fix this is to buy a 2012 motherboard (or a whole 2012 laptop and move the hard drive), if the battery does not help. The GPUs in these are ticking time bombs. While the GPU is a problem, it can be disabled if it’s bad thankfully. dosdude1 has a patch to fix it in software but it isn’t permanent and will be re-enabled if you reset the NVRAM. In addition, the driver gets removed so it will behave weird if it is reset once patched. The other option is to use gfxcardstatus to disable it manually but it will still remain active in NVRAM.
