MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

[Stephen]

So I have replaced the battery. First I ordered a battery from Mobile Sentrix on our business account. Come to find out their batteries are not OEM, and after testing it had a charge but the battery would not charge when plugged into the oem 96w charger. So we assumed the battery was defective and asked them send a replacement, which they did, so they sent another one, tested that and nope same issue, battery doesn't charge. It just shows the charger plugged in and the battery status as NOT CHARGING, with 0 cycles.

So we returned that assuming well its not OEM so nevermind, so I decided to order an OEM Battery.

Battery came in two days ago. Plugged in and guess what..
SAME DAMN ISSUE, NOT CHARGING.

So now I am confused what could be the issue? Could someone point me in the right direction to see whats the deal? It seems the Logic board may be the culprit but should be an easy fix since the board powers on etc on a battery with good cells on it.

Also I have swapped out the USB C connectors with new ones and same issue is still there. So I wanted to rule out that as well.

A little guidance would be appreciated if someone has experienced this before.

[Stephen]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

Bump.

Also remember the board turns on and works and functions on the battery but won’t take a charge to charge the battery and it detects the charger but says not charging.

[Francisco.s]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

Good I2C_PWR_SCL & I2C_PWR_SDA dc levels? pulses?

[Stephen]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

Hey Francisco,
Come to find out the board as faulty and wouldn't even post in DFU mode anymore. I think it was going bad hence the battery charge issue. None the less when it is repaired again I will check those lines. Thanks!

[Stephen]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

SOOOOO MY DAMN LUCK!

After 3 Battery replacements, we tried another top case that had a good used battery, guess what? Works now. So all the new batteries we had ordered all were defective. EACH AND EVERYONE! Guys it is crazy how the Batteries in these models are failing and they are new! What the heck!? Anyways Logic Board is good. We thought it was the flex cable as well but nope all checked out. We tested a good known working logic board in the new battery to verify and of course it would not take a charge.

Good job Apple!

[piernov]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

You're getting garbage batteries, nothing surprising, market is filled with trash. Try another supplier. Also it's near impossible to buy good new genuine Apple batteries for MacBooks.

[Stephen]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

You're getting garbage batteries, nothing surprising, market is filled with trash. Try another supplier. Also it's near impossible to buy good new genuine Apple batteries for MacBooks.

Bro two of those batteries came from MobileSentrix! One from a person we buy from on eBay constantly and we never had issues with them (and it was OEM).

This was just sheer bad luck. Also the 16" seems to have major battery failures as I have noticed.

[mon2]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

Mobile Sentrix overall is a good store for local parts and we use them often as they are competitive with offshore pricing. Just need to be aware of sometimes that they ship used parts. Our ICC Pro Tristar tester was received as used even though we had paid full price. It is now not working at all. Fails to charge or boot. About to return to Mobile Sentrix for repair / replacement.

[mon2]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

Ok, Mobile Sentrix is losing points with our company very quickly.

The ICC Pro from Germany has only a 30 day warranty. What?? Lemon design and looks to be hand assembled. Used product from Mobile Sentrix - be aware when ordering product.

We will offer a much better tool very soon. Avoid this tool.

[Stephen]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

We are starting to see the batteries they shipped are not OEM. MobileSentrix usually is really good with this stuff. Blows my mind they sent two bad batteries to us already. Plus the batteires are not OEM.

[mon2]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

Ok. Some positive news. Not to take this thread off topic but want to offer closure about the Tristar tester and some feedback for future readers.

1) The Tristar tool from Germany (ICC Pro) was reported to be with a 30 day warranty from Mobile Sentrix.

2) Contacted Ben (developer of the tool) in Germany - he stated that is not the case and that they will review it if we sent it back to them. We needed this tool to be operational today.

3) Our deep discharged ICC Pro would not power on. We used the LVSUN captive Type C cable adapter to charge the tool. The Type C meter remained dark even while it was left connected overnight. Next, we applied a dedicated 2.4A USB Type A adapter w/ Type C cable. This allowed for about 10mA reading @ 5V !! Perfect and was expected. About an hour later, went to 100mA and the tool started to function.

4) Used the tool to review our Tristar 1610A1 we soldered on the iPAD AIR 2. Tool reported 100% success but the ipad would show 5V @ 0.000 A. No current draw. Replaced and tested 3 more times of the tristar chip replacement. Same results and no current draw. We had a partially charged ipad battery that would show the Apple logo and then flash RED screen and reboot - repeated this cycling.

Found a youtube video that reported that the RED screen means WRONG tristar IC is installed. Funny that 'A1' IC was onboard the Apple original yet our 'A1' replacements each flashed the RED screen.

5) Today our Mobile Sentrix order of the 'A3' tristar ICs arrived. Replaced it again. ICC Pro reported success. Powered on. No more RED flashing !! Booted to the login screen on the ipad.

6) Charging still showed 5V @ 0.000A. Replaced the charging port cable that looked like it was on a BBQ - some skid marks inside the cavity of the connector. After replacement - drawing about 80mA. Hot aired the same 'A3' tristar with higher pressure and it 'danced' into place. Tested again, now 2.4A and the ipad is alive and @ 16% and climbing.

In closing of this OT post - Mobile Sentrix offered to review the 'failed unit'. Truly believe that the root cause is that the tool is unable to charge with the captive USB C cable as the 5v rail on Type C connector is not enabled by the tool. Using a fixed old USB 2.0 Type A power supply, we managed to charge the product. Just a FYI for future techs.

Ben is stating that it works with all adapters and cable but we are suspecting the required resistors as per the Type C spec are missing to enable the LVSUN power adapter - at least on the tool we have in the shop.

[piernov]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

Not saying MobileSentrix is either good or bad here.
Garbage batteries are everywhere. Even a "good" supplier can have bad batches, and it looks like none of them test the batteries themselves so they just don't know.
Oh and same for counterfeit batteries.
There are some models for which it is just impossible to find good batteries. I don't follow everything going on in the market (I'm not a repair shop) so can't tell you in details which ones, but for example A1425 is well known to be one of them.
And again new genuine Apple batteries are almost nowhere to be found. For batteries that weren't glued in you had a higher chance of finding good used batteries with low cycle count, but with glued in batteries it became more difficult.

[Stephen]

Re: MacBook Pro 16" A2141 Battery Issue

Yeah Piernov, with the recent Apple MacBook Release they just solved that with making the batteries removable now again but removing a adhesive strip. iFixit did a tear down and Apple now allows us to remove the batteries again but carefully removing a strip off the adhesive. So far i use iFixit kit for removing batteries safely and effectively.