Macbook Air 2017 Sudden Shutdown

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Macbook Air 2017 Sudden Shutdown

i have a macbook air 2017 running macos monterey. its currently up to date on software, i.e, to the latest available version. i bought it sometime back as second hand from an authorized store.

recently, it suddenly used to shutdown at around 50% and would only start up again if plugged in and also would charge up from 50%, not from 0%. i tried the smc reset several times and didnt work. i also tried as mentioned in some apple discussion forums, by charging it to 100% and a little longer adn then to let it drain on sleep mode little by little, meaning it was on sleep mode for about 10 hrs. didn't see any solutions or any difference, just kept getting worse

the percentage of battery at which it was shutting down got higher and higher up until around 75%.

now, it doesn't charge above 83% and once unplugged shuts down. i tried all the setting resets and didn't resolve. i finally reinstalled macos, to see nothing resolved again. it would also shut down if any apps are consuming little higher power, meaning if the battery power has to drop below 83% due to apps being opened, it will shut down suddenly.

note taht the battery has been replaced by teh authorized store before i purchased it, the battery is around 150 cycle count (was 25 when i purchased), and has service recommended. i dont think service recommended would be much of an issue to this since i already have other macs with 500+ cycle counts and service recommended showing for quite sometime. it all works well with battery and on power.

anybody experienced such a thing? please suggest any resolutions

Posted on Oct 6, 2024 7:52 AM

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HWTech

Community+ 2026

Level 9

72,438 points

Oct 8, 2024 10:38 PM in response to ahmadhhaneef

If you are experiencing battery related issues and the battery condition is "Service Recommended", then it would seem the battery is most likely bad.

If you see the "Service Recommended" battery condition, but the battery is performing to your expectations, then just ignore the battery condition until the battery is no longer working well for you.

FYI, the "Service Recommended" condition actually encompasses various conditions...some are just warnings while others actually mean a hardware issue. It is unfortunate that Apple decided to go with this designation. Years ago macOS actually had multiple battery conditions which much better signified the actual condition of the battery (I believe this changed with macOS 10.15 Catalina). Back then macOS provided the following battery conditions:

Normal --- battery should be Ok
Replace Soon --- Battery capacity has dropped to about 80% of its original Design Capacity. Most people will start to notice a significant drop in battery performance. Battery is starting to wear out.
Replace Now --- Battery capacity has dropped significantly to where you may be lucky to get 2 hours of runtime from the battery (I'm not sure what level this condition was triggered).
Service Battery --- The battery has an actual hardware failure

With an update patch to macOS Catalina, Apple changed the battery condition to just these two:

Normal
Service Recommended --- Encompasses the older "Replace Soon", "Replace Now", and "Service Battery" conditions.

FYI, battery charge cycles is irrelevant unless the value is nearing 1,000 cycles. These days just ignore the battery condition until the battery is no longer performing to your expectations. If you see a "Service Recommended" condition, then it means you should replace the battery since it confirms your suspicions of a problem.

Keep in mind though that even a battery with a "Normal" condition status could still have a hardware failure....I see this all the time with my organization's Apple laptops (because of this I had to develop other methods to detect a battery hardware failure in order to separate the battery related service calls from issues caused by misbehaving software or configuration issues).

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Macbook Air 2017 Sudden Shutdown

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