When my MacBook Pro i7 runs out of battery, it powers off.

I couldn't find out how to edit my post from my iPhone but I wanted to amend my last post. It turns out that instead of shutting down my MBP went into hibernation. When I started it back up it did it from the disk image instead of a scratch restart. I'm not sure what this means but I am going to call AppleCare I think just to push the issue more to the front of Apples mind.

I have the latest MBP, I also went to calibrate my battery. When the warning bell comes up, a few minutes later it just shuts down instead of going into sleep mode with the pulsating light. But, if you look at the log, it shows that "safe sleep" mode has occured. In fact, when you power back up after, the safe sleep mode progress bar shows for 5 seconds and then all is well.
I called Apple, they said they are indeed seeing this behaviour and is the way it is suppose to be. I asked the tech to pass along to someone that a kbase be posted, since the others kbase articles state otherwise.

Message was edited by: powerbook1701

My battery (I've had this refurb MBP 13 mid-2009 since October 2009) was recalibrated yesterday... for the first time ever, it shut down instead of entering safe sleep mode, and the battery health suddenly dipped from 93% to 89%.

After only 66 cycles, it's hard to imagine that it will still retain 80% of its life after 1,000 cycles.

I would take it in to Apple Store. They can actually run a battery test really quick to determine if it needs replaced.

hi,

my 2009 MBP worked fine for almost a year now, untill yesterday.
When the battery runs low, the MBP shuts down without warning, and when connecting a power chord, it restarts totally, losing all of the unsaved data.
What's more: date & time are reset to ancient times and the wi-fi connection has to be re-set up. Very annoying.

As it worked fine before, I wonder what is causing this.
The ONLY DIFFERENCE I notice, is that, when running out of battery and shutting down, I makes a one time CLICKING sound.

Maybe this helps to figure out the problem?

Okay folks, let's see if the new EFI 1.9 Firmware update solves this problem. For those of you who have applied the update, can you essentially calibrate your battery and report back how your mid-2010 MBP operates when the system is forced to sleep once the battery is drained. What we are looking for is:

1. Does the MBP keep battery reserves beyond empty (pulsating sleep light) to maintain contents of memory (as documented in pmset)?

2. If there is no reserve beyond empty (no pulsating light), does your MBP improperly shutdown? or does it just have enough battery power left to complete SafeSleep (contents of memory saved to HD)?

Thanks everyone!

I haven't done the update yet, but I called Apple support the other day to let them know that when I am calibrating my battery, the warning message comes up as expected when it almost runs out, then, the computer actually shuts down instead of going to sleep (with the light pulsating). Instead, it seems to go into "safe sleep" mode. When it is charged back up, I see the safe sleep mode process when I start back up (a progress bar with blurry screen) and then all is normal. I was told by the tech that this was normal for the "newer MBP's." It will be interesting to see if yesterdays firmware update makes this different. However, I was at least told by AS that this behavior is normal.

I will do the update, but I always waite at least a day or two after it comes out.
I hope this update does address this, but I am not sure what to think since AS supplied me with the above info.

New EFI 1.9 Firmware Update does nothing to solve this issue for me. On my mid-2010 MBP:

1. There are no battery reserves beyond empty to maintain contents of memory (contradiction to the pmset documentation)

2. There was enough power to complete SafeSleep (writing contents of memory to HD) before shutting off.

I don't mind if this is the normal function of the mid-2010 MBPs but Apple should update their documentation to reflect this behavior as it is different from previous models. Particularly, the battery calibration documentation should say that this model will actually shut down and not draw any more power beyond that point (currently, it says to let it sleep for 5 hours to drain the battery further).

Anybody else care to chime in?

Same here. I agree with you, apple needs to update those kbases. I sent a feedback regarding that. You might chime in on that too with a feedback nothing the article numbers.

Hi,

I have a MacBook Pro 6.2 produced in October 2010 and the same problem occurs. However, this is on some occasions. I've been testing some program settings that might interfere with passage of the system to Sleep or Safe Sleep mode, for example, some services that synchronize with servers or between databases on the same system (the case of a service the new Outlook 2011 , which shares contacts data), and it seems to have some relationship, but I have not yet confirmed.

Since the last post in this thread is relatively old, I would appreciate if anyone has one solution.

Greetings.

ROM Version: MBP61.0057.B0C
SMC Version: 1.58f16

Could it be associated..?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1776?viewlocale=en_US

Hi ube and everyone else,

I'm using an i5 MacBook Pro and after my first calibration I observed the same problem you mentioned - the computer went straight into safe sleep without doing the normal sleep for some time before that. I've started a thread in this forum to seek clarification too but it was fruitless. I agree your saying that Apple should update the relevant documents concerning the change to restore our peace of mind, since most of us regard Apple's documents in Support the official and infallible guidelines.

Probably for now there's not much we can do; but maybe the fact that there's more than one user experiencing the problem, and that replacing the machine doesn't solve the problem, can make us feel a bit better, as it seems to suggest that this is not a random hardware problem but a persistent 'feature'.

Best regards,
Tin

One thing I still dont understand is if this is an issue that affects just a subset of 2010 MBP or the entire production. If it is the latter, I can live with it but if it is the former then it needs to be repaired!
Also I noticed that some contributors to this thread are posting their experience on pre 2010 MBPros, please only contribute if you have a 2010 MBP or else we will be mixing up different problems.

I agree with Prisms and tinmeigut.
Anyway, I spoked today again with AppleCare about this issue and was told that it is not what expected for any Mac system. I was informed that, at least in my case -and given the behavior may be in many cases of this thread- may be a problem with power management or the SMC.
This week will go to the Genius Bar in Barcelona to let my MBP in examination.

A greeting.

MacBook Pro 13" mid 2010. Same problem here. When on battery and battery is completely drained, computer dies. When turned back on time is reset to 1st jan 2000. Password for wlan is lost.
OS X 10.6.5 (10H574)