MacBook Pro Retina late 2013: Replaced battery and shuts down at 100% battery even after resetting SMC

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MacBook Pro Retina late 2013: Replaced battery and shuts down at 100% battery even after resetting SMC

Hi All,

I recently replaced the battery with a new one from a merchant on Amazon. I’m stuck in the following cycle:

The computer will run fine for quite a while (battery stays at 100%) on battery power. I can stream movies for at least an hour. The Mac seems to shut down when the fan turns on ( due to a CPU demanding process like handbrake ).

After shutting down when I press power the button I see the charge battery icon.

Connecting the charger displays a green light.

If I reset SMC the charger light turns amber, and Mac powers up fine (restores previous state), the charger light then turns green in the boot screen (Apple icon with progress bar), and battery is back to 100%. Cycle repeats. I’ve tried resetting SMC and PRAM several times. Does not shut down when when light is green and there’s a resource hungry app like benchmark running. Thanks for any help. I’m wondering if this is a software or hardware issue…

No issues found in Mac Diagnositics

Posted on Mar 17, 2024 10:48 AM

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HWTech

Community+ 2026

Level 9

72,122 points

Mar 17, 2024 5:06 PM in response to Gjpmho

Did you calibrate this third party Lithium battery? Most of them require a calibration procedure by charging them to 100% and letting them sit at 100% charge for several hours. Then use the laptop until the battery charge level drops to 0% and automatically powers off, but do not use it for any intensive tasks since you want to just slowly discharge the battery. Reconnect the power adapter and let it charge to 100% again and let it sit there for several more hours. You should now be able to use the laptop normally.

More than likely you have a bad battery. Unfortunately the quality of third party Lithium Batteries is extremely poor even when purchased from a reputable vendor such as OWC or iFixIt. These would be the only two vendors I would purchase a Lithium battery.

Or maybe the Logic Board is bad or was damaged during the battery replacement. I've seen a number of people post on this forum where they accidentally damaged the Logic Board (especially on the 15" model where everything has to be removed in order to remove the speakers to make it easier to remove the battery).

All things being equal, the battery is usually the weakest link assuming no accidental damage (physical or liquid).

FYI, a passing diagnostic does not mean everything is Ok. Most times the diagnostic will not show any problem, even when hardware issues exist. There are some battery hardware issues which are not detected by the diagnostics.

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MacBook Pro Retina late 2013: Replaced battery and shuts down at 100% battery even after resetting SMC

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