shut down with no warning 49% battery left.

I'm having the same problem. I have a 15" MacBook Pro 2.33 Ghz running 10.5.8. Same issue... all fine when on AC and when going to battery... shows more than 70% and suddenly shuts down. I loose all unsaved work. I was heading to buy a new battery until I read this discussion... HELP!

I had to replace my battery and they gave me a discount so it was about $100. The recommendation was to make sure that the battery was used, especially at the beginning and not just plugged in most of the time.

Ok, as promised here is an update. I replaced the battery and got the same recommendation as BassoTim. (Though I did not get a discount on the battery) I am now going through my 5th cycle and so far no shutdowns. So, it would appear than an unexpected shutdown may have several causes. Mine appears to have been caused by the battery. As I explained in a previous post, my battery was producing a bubble which is caused by overheating. The way it was explained, is that, once this happens, a short circuit is created in the battery. That causes the computer to shut down. I don't know if that is a form of self protection to ensure that no further damage is caused...

If I get any more unexpected shut downs, I will update. In the meantime, I urge everyone to check on their batteries to ensure that there is no "bubble" forming. Oh, and my trackpad is back to working very well...

Good luck

I was looking for info on this problem when I found this thread. I had the same problem - MacBook Pro shutting down with no warning and various percentages of power left ranging up to 80%.

I took it to the Apple Store - they said it was not the battery and sent it in for repair. It came back with a new logic board (no charge because of AppleCare), but the very first time I used it, the same thing happened.

Of course I will take it back to the store (45 minutes away), but I decided to see if other people were having the same problem and what the solution was. Seems weird they would replace the logic board instead of the battery, but what do I know?

I'm another one with this same problem. When I run my MacBook Pro on battery power, it shuts down abruptly at around 67% after only about 20 minutes of use. When I plug it back in it reads 67% and fully charges in 20-30 minutes.

The shut down happens every time I use battery power and there is no warning message. This seems to be a very common problem.

Has anyone been able to get an explanation from Apple? I just set an appointment for phone support so will update this post if I find an answer...

Same issue here - arrrg. My battery is less than a year old. Nothing odd in Activity Monitor, I have the BatteryUpdate 1.3, 2 weeks ago it was lasting 3 hrs, so what now? Let me know what you find, mgissy!

Same thing happens to my MacbookPro 2007.
Today I took it to an apple store, and was told I have to buy a new battery.
Really feel mad that some of you guys said new batteries have the problem too.

Why Apple has not given any solutions yet?
Should we do something to give them some pressure?

Disappointed

It is mighty cold in Ontario from what I can gather at the moment, Kaalas. What temperature are you using your MBP in? Very cold conditions can cause batteries to shut down prematurely, though they usually recover when they have warmed up to 40 or 50ºF.

But you don't provide some other important info, either. How old is your battery? The capacity and cycle figures for your battery are unusual. Not many batteries still retain a maximum capacity of 5027 mAh after 423 cycles (although looking further I see you have a 17", in which case it is not quite so unusual) !

Lithium Polymer batteries really only have an expected lifespan of two to three years, and the ones that came in previous models of MBP like yours were only expected to last for about 300 cycles. At 423 cycles you have done well but it is probably time to buy a new battery.

Cheers

Rod

mlaiuppa wrote:
It was the battery. Which turns out to have been one of the bad batteries they had a recall on. I didn't find out until after the deadline to get a new battery and after my Applecare ran out. So I had to pay for a new battery.

Mliaiuppa, you said in your original post, made at the end of October 2009 (ie a couple of months ago) , that your problem was with a "brand new battery" that you had just bought. Such batteries are covered by a 12 month warranty.

Now you seem to say that you "didn't find out" about a deadline???? (presumably the previous extended replacement process?)

If you bought a new battery, as you originally said, it was (and still is) clearly covered by warranty, regardless of any "deadlines" etc..

Could you have another go at clarifying just what you are claiming is the situation and the problem here?

Cheers

Rod

sysiphean wrote:
Same thing happens to my MacbookPro 2007.
Today I took it to an apple store, and was told I have to buy a new battery.
Really feel mad that some of you guys said new batteries have the problem too.

Why Apple has not given any solutions yet?
Should we do something to give them some pressure?

Disappointed

So , old rock rolling sysiphean, how old is your battery and how many cycles has it completed? The lives of the batteries in many many 2007 MBPs are coming to an end these days. 2 to 3 years is pretty much average for that generation of Lithium Polymer batteries, though a few hang on longer, and quite a few die earlier.

I'm sorry, but no-one with an MBP that is a couple of years old or more should really be surprised if their original battery dies and they have to buy a new one these days. Some will do better, but these batteries are coming to the end of their natural lifespan unless they have been very well looked after and the user is lucky.

Cheers

Rod

Sysiphean, just as we are always pushing rocks up hill in our lives, batteries fail all the time. Older ones fail more regularly, younger ones, less so, but if you do a Google search on any brand of computer and ask about battery failures you will find that far too many of the young ones die before their time , too.

We are, I'm afraid, a long way from perfection, or the end of sysiphean suffering, when it comes to computer batteries. Like optical drive technology, it is an area that there is still a long way to go in!

If you read through the various posts in this thread you will see that it is hard to judge in many of them just how old the battery is, how many cycles it has completed, how it has been treated during its life and so forth. People simply like giving "me too" posts about batteries , even when their batteries are years old and have notched up several hundred cycles. A few give more information, but rarely enough to even begin to look at the cause of their own problem.

I have no doubt that some will be batteries that have genuinely failed prematurely (around 25% of Lion batteries seem to pretty much regardless of brand, which is way too many to be happy about).

Anyone who buys an Apple battery, of course, gets at least a twelve month warranty with it, so those who buy new batteries and run into problems can simply go and ask for a new one if it fails. Annoying, maybe, but given the problems with the medium generally there isn't much more that can be done is there?

Yes, I reckon that all manufacturers should be providing more support in this area . As I've said elsewhere in this forum, I think the Apple Battery extended replacement program should have continued. I could say similar things about just about any other notebook computer manufacturer's batteries though.

Ultimately, despite the sometimes inflated claims of the manufacturers, we are all victims of still developing technology so far as this matter is concerned.

Cheers

Rod

So I just had this occur for the first time... I have a Late 2008 MBP that I bought in March '09 from Best Buy. I just spent the last hour reading through multiple forums and posts, and everyone seems to be relating it to two different things; battery or temperature / fans, and then rarely a hardwire problem (maybe). Now I don't think I have any of those problems. I have not modded my MBP at all, I have a fairly new battery with low cycles (coconut battery) and both my fans and temperature are working properly (iStat).

THERE IS ONE THING THAT I CAN POSSIBLY RELATE IT TO THOUGH!!! For the first time ever today, I was using my MBP on a metal surface. It worked fine while it was on the metal surface, but within about 2-3 minutes of taking it off the surface with the computer still on, it started this random shut down. The problem slowly slowed down, and after shutting down 5-7 times it stopped.

I can relate this metal surface to the magnet or magnets in the MBP. I know of one magnet for sure (where the power cord is put in. I'm sure it wasn't smart of me to use my MBP on a metal surface cause I'm sure with this aluminum cover and all the other metal pieces in there it doesn't help it much. And I do know that while putting together a computer you have to make sure you have no electric currents running through you, and magnets are similar to the same thing.

OR

Is it possible that it drained the battery completely? I had it plugged in, so maybe it surged or something. Just throwing some plausible ideas out there, seeing what everyone may think.

Anyone ever thought about this?!?!

I have an appointment with the Genius at my local store at 8:30PM PST tonight, I'll follow up on this forum IF I find anything out.

In the meantime, let me know what you guys think/remember/know about mine or your experience!

Message was edited by: NateBurgher

Hey Rod,

I did end up taking it down to the Apple store just a couple of hours after this happened to me. They ran the diagnostics, and everything was 100% fine. All they did was recommend me to reinstall the OS I was running.

As for the situation that I ran into, it did not happen WHILE it was on top of the metal surface, but instead a couple of minutes after I took it off the metal surface and set it onto a plastic/wood surface.

The people at the Bellevue Apple Store had not heard of this happening to the new MBP's, but only the old MB's in about 2006/7 when that big problem broke out. They couldn't find an answer for why this happened to me, that it must have been a software issue, thus the recommendation to reinstall the OS.

I never did reinstall the OS and I have been using my MBP for 6+ hours / day since and had no problems whatsoever, running like a champ!

NateBurgher wrote:

The people at the Bellevue Apple Store had not heard of this happening to the new MBP's, but only the old MB's in about 2006/7 when that big problem broke out.

If you mean the issue of magnetic effects on the Halls Effect switches, Nate, I can replicate it with 100% reliability with my very current model MBP 13" simply by sitting it down on top of one of our various MB's. 😉

Glad you are running again without problems , though!

I guess we'll never know the cause of your original problem. Do you still sometimes sit it on the same surface?

Cheers

Rod