macbook shuts down when battery dies

[scottfenner]

hi,
i've got a newer macbook than my old one (which was ruined by a spillage) and i love it, but the trouble is, this one will turn off completely down when the battery dies and when i connect the power cable and press the power button, it starts up, chime and all. my old one would sleep when the battery died, then after sticking the charger in, it'd just come back on exactly how it was before it died! sometimes it'd take a while to come back on, then come back on with a dimmed screen and there'd be a set of white lights at the bottom of the screen that went left to right - but it still resumed where it was before battery death.

i've googled a bit to try and fix it, and i may have, but haven't ran this charge down yet.

i've calibrated the battery for the first time, then i ran a terminal command someone suggested in a thread: sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1 - then read down the thread a bit more and it mentioned that '1' means hibernation. i think that's the dim screen, white light progession at bottom of screen, then back to normal thing - so i did the command again but with '3' instead of '1', as '3' just means normal.

then that thread moved away into other issues so i'm making this new one.

do you think i've done right here, and it'll be alright when this charge has ran out? it's got about 3 hours left so i will post again when i recharge, but i thought i'd post now to be safe.

thanks for reading this very long post

 

[spinnerlys]

Hibernation is the process of copying the content of the RAM onto the hard drive, shutting down the computer and when being started up again, the computer reads the written data from the hard drive and copies it back to the RAM.
It's like sleep, but without the battery and longer waiting times.

The MacBooks have a feature, that copies all the content of the RAM to the hard drive before going to sleep, so in case of the battery not having any charge anymore, the data from the RAM is saved, and at the next boot up the data is returned to the RAM.
This is not hibernation in the actual meaning, more a precaution.

How long did it take the computer to shut down after going to sleep/the battery dies?

What percentage was the battery when the Mac shut down?

Is the light on the right front pulsating after closing the lid/putting the Mac to sleep? For how long? And does it just go out after a while?

 

[scottfenner]

Hibernation is the process of copying the content of the RAM onto the hard drive, shutting down the computer and when being started up again, the computer reads the written data from the hard drive and copies it back to the RAM.
It's like sleep, but without the battery and longer waiting times.

The MacBooks have a feature, that copies all the content of the RAM to the hard drive before going to sleep, so in case of the battery not having any charge anymore, the data from the RAM is saved, and at the next boot up the data is returned to the RAM.
This is not hibernation in the actual meaning, more a precaution.

How long did it take the computer to shut down after going to sleep/the battery dies?

What percentage was the battery when the Mac shut down?

Is the light on the right front pulsating after closing the lid/putting the Mac to sleep? For how long? And does it just go out after a while?

thanks for the reply,

sorry, i maybe shouldn't have said shut down - it just suddenly dies, i think, as if you had held the power button down. the battery meter ran all the way to zero, after the warning of the 10 minutes left.

as for the light, i've just this second waited for the battery to go to zero again and when i plugged the charger in, it came out of sleep instead of starting up as new. also i noticed the light was pulsating more than usual, before being plugged in. it pulsated slower before i recalibrated and ran that terminal thing.

maybe i've fixed it! time will tell though, i've heard some people have had this fixed and then the problem came back in after a couple more charges and drains.

 

[scottfenner]

it's definitely fixed.

next time the battery ran down, when i plugged the charger in it automatically turned itself back on - something i'd actually forgotten my old one did! not sure why it was broken but just happy now that it isn't

 

[xbcrguy182x]

I am having the same problem. I was using mine and with like 40 minutes left, it just shut down, not even a standby, no warning or anything. When I tried to boot it back up, nothing. So now i am going to calibrate it and hoepfully it fixes it.