MacRumors.com

Christopher Price from PCSInfo.com reports that Apple is replacing early Macbook Pro batteries (serial numbers up to W8608) that are experiencing multiple failures.

Symptoms of battery failure include battery cutting off power to the system at very early stages, sporadic ampere hour reporting (coconutBattery), and the battery failing to respond when pressing the charging status button (after being charged and only slightly drained).

Early Macbook Pros have been plagued with numerous issues (flickering, whining, heat). Recently, users at SomethingAwful.com posted a link to an Apple Service Manual that showed that Apple was instructing its service technicians to incorrectly apply thermal grease on heatsinks. Indeed, the user reported that opening up the Macbook and re-applying the proper amount of thermal grease resulted in a dramatic drop in operating temperature. Webmasters at the site were subsequently met with a cease and desist order for linking to the service manual.

Some users fed up with their whining Macbook Pro's are massing to all call Apple's support numbers on Saturday, May 20th.

In related news, summer 2004 1.25 Ghz eMac's also seem to be having significant hardware issues.