Hi, fairly new to MacBooks but have spent a career in IT so trying to figure out exactly how to get this working again.
Problem started when I put the MacBook to sleep about a week ago by closing the lid while on battery power. It's not my work laptop, so it normally sits unused for several days but usually after being powered off. This time I forgot to power it off and it apparently ran down the battery so when I want back to use it what I got was the low battery icon and no boot. I plugged it in and immediately saw I was getting no LED on the 60W MagSafe 2 adapter. I remember this happening once before when I first bought it about 6 months ago, and I was able to get it charging again by some combination of VRAM/PRAM or SMC reset. That's unfortunately not working this time, which is frustrating because the MacBook's in perfect condition (credit to Mac of All Trades) and I've gotten to the point where I use this first laptop I pick up when not doing something for work, I like it that much.
So, this is the troubleshooting I've done:
-Reset VRAM and PRAM, this seems to work as expected but doesn't fix the problem
-Tried to reset SMC with charger unplugged but can't tell if it's doing anything
-Tried to reset SMC with charger plugged in and nothing, not getting any reaction from charger LED, never toggles orange/green/orange it just stays off when plugged in
-Removed case bottom and unplugged battery and plugged charger back in and it goes green/orange and laptop will power on without issue, and seems to run just fine
-When doing a SCM reset with battery unplugged and charger plugged in, the LEDs react as expected and it looks like SMC reset works
-Shut down OS and with charger still plugged in I reconnect battery and orange LED stays lit
-Power back on with no issue and able to log in to OS
-Battery status reports charging and will behave as if no issues at all, will charge to full and charger will eventually indicate green as expected
-At this point, if I unplug the charger the LED will turn off and when I plug it back in LED stays off, so I have to start again with unplugging battery and plugging in charger and then plugging battery back in.
Battery is reporting 350 charge cycles and has similar build date as MacBook (both 9/16), so I'm guessing it's original battery or an OEM replacement from the same time period. Capacity is showing about 75%, so I know it's probably ready for a replacement, but I don't want to drop $100 and then find there's something else wrong, great device but makes no sense to start spending a lot of money on repairs. Battery cells are not bulging.
Any thoughts on what I might have missed with troubleshooting?
Thanks,
BobP67
Problem started when I put the MacBook to sleep about a week ago by closing the lid while on battery power. It's not my work laptop, so it normally sits unused for several days but usually after being powered off. This time I forgot to power it off and it apparently ran down the battery so when I want back to use it what I got was the low battery icon and no boot. I plugged it in and immediately saw I was getting no LED on the 60W MagSafe 2 adapter. I remember this happening once before when I first bought it about 6 months ago, and I was able to get it charging again by some combination of VRAM/PRAM or SMC reset. That's unfortunately not working this time, which is frustrating because the MacBook's in perfect condition (credit to Mac of All Trades) and I've gotten to the point where I use this first laptop I pick up when not doing something for work, I like it that much.
So, this is the troubleshooting I've done:
-Reset VRAM and PRAM, this seems to work as expected but doesn't fix the problem
-Tried to reset SMC with charger unplugged but can't tell if it's doing anything
-Tried to reset SMC with charger plugged in and nothing, not getting any reaction from charger LED, never toggles orange/green/orange it just stays off when plugged in
-Removed case bottom and unplugged battery and plugged charger back in and it goes green/orange and laptop will power on without issue, and seems to run just fine
-When doing a SCM reset with battery unplugged and charger plugged in, the LEDs react as expected and it looks like SMC reset works
-Shut down OS and with charger still plugged in I reconnect battery and orange LED stays lit
-Power back on with no issue and able to log in to OS
-Battery status reports charging and will behave as if no issues at all, will charge to full and charger will eventually indicate green as expected
-At this point, if I unplug the charger the LED will turn off and when I plug it back in LED stays off, so I have to start again with unplugging battery and plugging in charger and then plugging battery back in.
Battery is reporting 350 charge cycles and has similar build date as MacBook (both 9/16), so I'm guessing it's original battery or an OEM replacement from the same time period. Capacity is showing about 75%, so I know it's probably ready for a replacement, but I don't want to drop $100 and then find there's something else wrong, great device but makes no sense to start spending a lot of money on repairs. Battery cells are not bulging.
Any thoughts on what I might have missed with troubleshooting?
Thanks,
BobP67