Sonoma M1 Macbook Pro 2021 dead battery, won't boot with charger.

My macbook's battery won't charge and is at 0 percent. Plugging a charger in at any of the ports (magsafe/usb-c) results in the same thing: The apple logo will show, then power gets cut, and the apple logo will show again. Sometimes its stays on long enough to boot into the login screen. But when I try to type my password it'll shut down. Most of the time the apple logo and loading bar only reaches half way.


I am able to bring up start-up options sometimes.


When I check the battery indicator I see the lightning bolt on the battery. Never the 2-pin plug logo.


I have brought it to the Apple store and the genius mentioned there was no liquid damage and would need me to pay 2/3 the price I paid for it just 2 years ago to replace the logic chip.


I have tried to disconnect and re-connect the battery, as suggested by a reddit post I saw, but after that it still boots the same.


Any one has any insight on how I can at least possibly recover my data inside or just get the battery to start charging again? It doesnt make sense for me to spend that much on the repair.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Feb 1, 2025 8:12 AM

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Posted on Feb 1, 2025 9:59 AM

The classic way to recover from 'battery completely discharged, and Mac won't boot' is to connect the power adapter and let it sit overnight (completely shut down, but with display OPEN). During that time, it may trickle-charge enough so that you can get it to do a little more in the morning.


On intel Macs, we used to do an SMC reset.


On Apple-silicon Macs, the best we have is to leave the display open, and when you go to start it up in the morning, double-tap the power button to start up.


If they already told you you need a logic board, it could be hopeless.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 1, 2025 9:59 AM in response to Lorapoid

The classic way to recover from 'battery completely discharged, and Mac won't boot' is to connect the power adapter and let it sit overnight (completely shut down, but with display OPEN). During that time, it may trickle-charge enough so that you can get it to do a little more in the morning.


On intel Macs, we used to do an SMC reset.


On Apple-silicon Macs, the best we have is to leave the display open, and when you go to start it up in the morning, double-tap the power button to start up.


If they already told you you need a logic board, it could be hopeless.

Feb 1, 2025 5:13 PM in response to Lorapoid

With the USB-C Macs, power & battery is extremely odd especially when the battery is at 0% charge. Many times the laptop won't be able to power on at all....sometimes not even being able to charge the battery. With the USB-C Macs things are even worse.....many times even with a good battery the laptop will reboot as it is logging in when the battery is at 0% charge....so that part is "normal" for a USB-C Mac, but the laptop should stay powered on after the reboot assuming there are no other hardware issues.


My first assumption would be the Battery needs to be replaced on a 4 year old system. Lithium Batteries usually need to be replaced sometime between 3 - 5 years. I'm not sure why Apple would suggest a Logic Board replacement as the first option unless they saw something else or their service diagnostic reported an issue specific to the Logic Board. Of course a Logic Board failure is also a possibility. All things being equal, the battery is the weakest link.

Feb 1, 2025 8:51 AM in response to Lorapoid

Lorapoid wrote:

My macbook's battery won't charge and is at 0 percent. Plugging a charger in at any of the ports (magsafe/usb-c) results in the same thing:

I have brought it to the Apple store and the genius mentioned there was no liquid damage and would need me to pay 2/3 the price I paid for it just 2 years ago to replace the logic chip.


How to revive or restore Mac firmware - Apple Support

How to revive or restore Mac firmware - Apple Support



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Sonoma M1 Macbook Pro 2021 dead battery, won't boot with charger.

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