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How frequently do you have to reset SMC?

N

newbie94114

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 10, 2020
6
3
Just got a new 2020 MBP i5 4TB ports, and have it hooked up to a Dell USB-C monitor with 90watts of PD, which worked perfectly fine until suddenly the last two days, the laptop will go from fully charged to a slow drain, and the status says "Not Charging." I tried rebooting, turning off and on the monitor, unplugging other USB devices from the monitor, but it persists in the slow drain / "Not Charging" mode. Finally, I reset the T2 chip / SMC, and it immediately starts working again.

It happened again suddenly today (while idling)... so now I'm concerned and wondering if I should return/exchange.

Any thoughts on whether I have a dud MBP? I've used this Dell USB-C monitor with my old MBP, and it worked just fine, never had an issue. Thanks!
 
newbie94114 said:
Just got a new 2020 MBP i5 4TB ports, and have it hooked up to a Dell USB-C monitor with 90watts of PD, which worked perfectly fine until suddenly the last two days, the laptop will go from fully charged to a slow drain, and the status says "Not Charging." I tried rebooting, turning off and on the monitor, unplugging other USB devices from the monitor, but it persists in the slow drain / "Not Charging" mode. Finally, I reset the T2 chip / SMC, and it immediately starts working again.

It happened again suddenly today (while idling)... so now I'm concerned and wondering if I should return/exchange.

Any thoughts on whether I have a dud MBP? I've used this Dell USB-C monitor with my old MBP, and it worked just fine, never had an issue. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Last time I reset SMC was probably four years ago. On five MacBook Pros and a Mac Mini.
 
This happened to me as well and so far my research points towards this being a part of the new Battery Health feature. It's basically reducing the max. capacity of the battery and also letting it discharge to ~90% (according to indicator, in reality it's less than that) and back up to 100%. Some people reported the OS to be doing this once per day.

If this is the cause, turning off battery health should stop this from happening.

If it is a software feature related to battery management, resetting SMC would probably delete what the system has 'learned' about your usage and thus delay it from happening until it "learns" again.
 
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Broko Fankone said:
This happened to me as well and so far my research points towards this being a part of the new Battery Health feature. It's basically reducing the max. capacity of the battery and also letting it discharge to ~90% (according to indicator, in reality it's less than that) and back up to 100%. Some people reported the OS to be doing this once per day.

If this is the cause, turning off battery health should stop this from happening.

If it is a software feature related to battery management, resetting SMC would probably delete what the system has 'learned' about your usage and thus delay it from happening until it "learns" again.
Click to expand...

That's my experience as well. Let the computer drain the battery a bit. Most people don't seem to realize keeping the charge at 100% negatively affects battery life.
 
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I may have done two SMC resets in 20 years.

Read up on the new power management features. Sometimes when I'm connected to my external display, the battery trickles down slowly, other times it charges. I don't really pay much attention to it (also, don't leave any of my MacBook computers plugged in overnight).
 
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I have noticed that since I updated to 10.15.5 almost every day without using it very hard my 2018/15" battery drops to 90 % and then reloads to 100%. I hardly did any SMC/NVRAM rests but I did them like 4 times in a week bit still no luck with the battery dropping issue.
This seems like a common issue I guess https://is.gd/mQCMiU https://is.gd/DFR0K5


newbie94114 said:
Just got a new 2020 MBP i5 4TB ports, and have it hooked up to a Dell USB-C monitor with 90watts of PD, which worked perfectly fine until suddenly the last two days, the laptop will go from fully charged to a slow drain, and the status says "Not Charging." I tried rebooting, turning off and on the monitor, unplugging other USB devices from the monitor, but it persists in the slow drain / "Not Charging" mode. Finally, I reset the T2 chip / SMC, and it immediately starts working again.

It happened again suddenly today (while idling)... so now I'm concerned and wondering if I should return/exchange.

Any thoughts on whether I have a dud MBP? I've used this Dell USB-C monitor with my old MBP, and it worked just fine, never had an issue. Thanks!
Click to expand...
 

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ISKOTB said:
I have noticed that since I updated to 10.15.5 almost every day without using it very hard my 2018/15" battery drops to 90 % and then reloads to 100%. I hardly did any SMC/NVRAM rests but I did them like 4 times in a week bit still no luck with the battery dropping issue.
This seems like a common issue I guess https://is.gd/mQCMiU https://is.gd/DFR0K5
Click to expand...

Is this not part of the new battery health management feature?

Have you tried turning it off to see if that makes a difference?
 
newbie94114 said:
Just got a new 2020 MBP i5 4TB ports, and have it hooked up to a Dell USB-C monitor with 90watts of PD, which worked perfectly fine until suddenly the last two days, the laptop will go from fully charged to a slow drain, and the status says "Not Charging." I tried rebooting, turning off and on the monitor, unplugging other USB devices from the monitor, but it persists in the slow drain / "Not Charging" mode. Finally, I reset the T2 chip / SMC, and it immediately starts working again.

It happened again suddenly today (while idling)... so now I'm concerned and wondering if I should return/exchange.

Any thoughts on whether I have a dud MBP? I've used this Dell USB-C monitor with my old MBP, and it worked just fine, never had an issue. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I think it's a bug with Dell Monitors and 10.15.5. My P2415Q was working fine with 10.15.4 and since updating it's not been waking from sleep and acting weird.
 
I understand when I read it will limit its max charge. But what is worst, keeping it plugged in running off AC all the time if it’s mainly docked or exercising the battery and adding cycle count?
 
Supra Mac said:
I understand when I read it will limit its max charge. But what is worst, keeping it plugged in running off AC all the time if it’s mainly docked or exercising the battery and adding cycle count?
Click to expand...

Keeping it at 100% all the time is the worst because the cells are in an extreme state of charge. The way macOS fluctuates between 90-100% is likely the best in terms of battery health and cycle count.
 
Ideally the best would be to cycle in between 40-80% for the slowest way to amount cycles on the cell, and to prevent the high stress of charging it when very low and when almost full. But hopefully Apple have done some testing and concluded this new system works best long-term when plugged in almost always.
 
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