MacBook Air: Battery takes a long time to charge; keyboards, ALS issues

8 hours or more in some cases.

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 2:20 a.m. PT

4 min read

Battery takes a long time to charge Several users are reporting that the MacBook Air's battery takes an inordinately long time to charge after a full drain -- up to 8 hours in some cases. In other words, if the battery is at 50% capacity, it may take only an hour or so to charge, but if it is a 0% capacity, it may take 8 hours to charge.

In some cases, the fix may be to turn on the MacBook Air or wake it from sleep while it is charging. Conversely, some users have found that charging is faster when their MacBook Airs are turned off. As such, there may be a trigger associated with turning the system on or off that reinvigorates the charge.

A post on Apple's Discussion boards from "doser" is exemplary:

"We ordered a few MBA's (1.8 with SSD) so I grabbed another one to confirm this; not sure what is going on but both show the same symptoms [...] I let both systems run down 100% (so that they went to force-sleep, then off completely - the way you usually condition the battery).

"Hours later, I plug both in - and get this - after 6 1/2 hours or charging, both are at 61% and 64% respectively! [...] once back at the desktop the charging stabilizes. [...] So the conclusion, at least for the 2 systems I tried: This might be some software bug, or something with the charging circuitry. They either charge very differently depending if OFF or SLEEP; or there is an issue if charged all the way from 0%. In any case, it certainly would have taken 10hours or more on both - yet once I turned both on charging stabilized within minutes."

If you are experiencing a similar issue, please let us know.

Shift key not working Some users have reported that certain keys on the MacBook Air's keyboard are sporadically non-functional. MacFixIt reader Michael McAdams writes:

"I just received my new MacBook Air in the mail on Monday and I love it but there is one issue that keeps coming up. When using the shift key to capitalize, it doesn't work a lot of the time. This usually happens when I am on a remote desktop but it happens a lot. I had a case sensitive web address I had to type on a remote desktop today and literally 9 out of 10 times I hit shift and a letter it would come out in lower case. I do not have this issue on my MacBook Pro and never have. It is very strange. There are other times when I am not on remote desktop that I get letters that are not capitalized as well. Something is going on here."

Try the following if you're experiencing this issue:

Toggle the num lock setting
Open Universal Access preferences, click the Keyboard tab, and make sure that Slow Keys is turned off.
Open Universal Access preferences, click the Mouse tab, and make sure Mouse Keys is turned off.

Ambient Light sensor wackiness MacFixIt reader Joe Edgell reports odd behavior from his MacBook Air's ambient light sensors:

"Seems that in certain conditions, (the ambient light sensor) fluctuates greatly even when there are no outside changes. Here's the scenario, I'm sitting in the Metro in DC with my brand new Air on my lap (love the machine, by the way). Anyhow, the lighting is fairly subdued in the subway. With no changes in the environment around me, the screen brightness increased and decreased substantially. The decrease was so great, in fact, that I was forced to manually increase screen brightness. Unfortunately, the confused ambient light sensor then continued to fluctuate. I looked around me to see if there was some light changing that I wasn't perceiving, but couldn't see anything. So, it appears that at least in one MacBook Air, the ambient light sensor needs to take some medication and settle down."

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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