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MBP shutting down at 1/4 full battery

A

avatar888

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 30, 2009
6
0
Hey, wondered if anyone had encountered this same problem as me...

I have a 15" MacBook Pro that's about a year and a half old and no longer runs it's battery down to empty. The meter gets to about 1/4 full (not yet in the red) and then the laptop just turns off without warning. It doesn't shutdown properly or sleep - just instant off, losing anything I had open.

Battery Health Monitor tells me it has 78% it's original capacity at 182 charge cycles. That seems kind of bad but I'm not sure it explains this problem.

It feels like somehow the laptop is no longer correctly measuring the charge?? Does anyone have any ideas what's happened or if it's easily fixable?


Thanks in advance!
 
The condition is 'good' in system profiler.

Exactly iBookG4user - so either that is calibrating it (and the battery meter is wrong) or I can't calibrate because it's shutting down before empty!

Yeah might have to get it down to the apple store :)
 
Yeah, I would take it down to the Apple Store and see what they have to say about the issue. Although unless you bought AppleCare you will be out of warranty and won't be able to get a free replacement battery.

If you, or a friend, have another MacBook Pro handy then you might want to test the battery in another MacBook Pro to see if the problem persists.
 
I'm sure that it's a bad battery. Sometimes the Battery Condition status isn't so accurate.
 
iBookG4user said:
Yeah, I would take it down to the Apple Store and see what they have to say about the issue. Although unless you bought AppleCare you will be out of warranty and won't be able to get a free replacement battery.
Click to expand...

Aren't batteries covered for one year or 300 cycles only, regardless of AppleCare?
 
This is a calibration issue. I would recommend calibrating your battery and then check the health of it then.
Coconut Battery is a great application.

aleksandra. said:
Aren't batteries covered for one year or 300 cycles only, regardless of AppleCare?
Click to expand...
Yes.
 
avatar888 said:
Hey, wondered if anyone had encountered this same problem as me...

I have a 15" MacBook Pro that's about a year and a half old and no longer runs it's battery down to empty. The meter gets to about 1/4 full (not yet in the red) and then the laptop just turns off without warning. It doesn't shutdown properly or sleep - just instant off, losing anything I had open.

Battery Health Monitor tells me it has 78% it's original capacity at 182 charge cycles. That seems kind of bad but I'm not sure it explains this problem.

It feels like somehow the laptop is no longer correctly measuring the charge?? Does anyone have any ideas what's happened or if it's easily fixable?


Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

This is totally my same problem.
Turns out it was a bad battery. Just today had Apple send me a new one under Apple Care. (No Apple store by me).

I did do multiple calibration attempts with Apple Support. We let it die, then left it off over night, then recharged the battery until full and repeated the test. Also took battery out, unplugged adapter and all accessories, then pressed and held the power button for 20 seconds and retested. It failed all of the above.

I took my laptop over to a friend's house and put my battery in his MBP and his in mine. After about 20 minutes, his laptop spontaneously shut off... Voila! Proves my battery is the culprit. Called Apple back and arranged the swap out. That was the final proof they needed.
 
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