Macbook Pro '12 shutting down on battery

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Level 1

8 points

Macbook Pro '12 shutting down on battery

I have a 2012 Macbook Pro retina, the same one they're doing the repair program for FYI http://www.apple.com/ca/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

When on battery, the battery life *****. My condition is "replace soon", and I get that - it's draining fast and needs to be replaced.

But when on battery, especially when watching video - it'll just go black. I can be at 45% battery and pop on Youtube and it just shuts down. It wont power back on until I plug it in. It's not a total power cycle, everything is saved in state (not sure if that's just how Yosemite handles power downs now).

This doesn't always happen, sometimes I can run the battery down to 0% naturally, but the shutdowns are sporadic and do seem related to video.

Is this related entirely to the batter or is this a video issue / related to the replacement issues above?

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on Mar 3, 2015 10:41 AM

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Answer 1

my ginger

Level 5

4,904 points

Mar 3, 2015 10:48 AM in response to Lvivske

That is hard to say. You could take it in to the apple store and let them run tests. That is free. They will want to replace your battery. Because as it would seem, your battery is getting flakey. If with a new battery it shows the same symptoms , that could be the graphics card.

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Answer 2

spudnuty

Level 5

7,116 points

Mar 3, 2015 11:34 AM in response to Lvivske

"I have a 2012 Macbook Pro retina, the same one they're doing the repair program"

"the shutdowns are sporadic and do seem related to video."

Since the Mac OS is GUI driven, random video glitches will cause the computer to shut down or at least freeze. That's exactly what would happen in the older iBooks w/ the GPU reball problem.

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Answer 3

Lvivske Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 3, 2015 1:16 PM in response to my ginger

Yeah I'll probably be forced to finally take it in, just wasn't sure if there was anything to go on.

To clarify, if it's at 40%, and I put on a youtube video, it can just shut off. When off, holding power down does nothing, I don't get the low battery graphic or any power lights. When I plug it back in, it powers back up and will be back at 40%, so it's not like it just loses its charge and drains to 0% (like my old cell phone would do)

I just watched a movie on battery and it didnt happen to me, so it's not 100% of the time, very erratic. Basically anything below 60% is playing with fire.

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Answer 4

my ginger

Level 5

4,904 points

Mar 3, 2015 1:32 PM in response to Lvivske

I had a older macbook that did that. It would go to full charge and if I ran on battery only,I could get about an hour and a half out of it. It would say that it still had a charge of oh maybe 48%. I'm a retired mechanic and it reminded me of a battery that has a bad cell. That will charge but doesn't go deep enough to maintain adequately . Lap top batteries have a built in memory that the operating system is supposed to read.

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Answer 5

Syao23

Level 1

0 points

Nov 12, 2015 9:44 AM in response to Lvivske

Sorry for the late reply but my Retina Macbook Pro (Mid 2012) just started doing the EXACT same thing as yours. However, my battery condition reads "Normal". Im not entirely convinced this problem has to do with the batteries health. Maybe a problem with the latest update or some hardware component. Have you managed to find a solution or any helpful information? I would love to hear some updates on this issue

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