Macbook Pro Retina 13 Improper Shut Down on Low Battery

Question

Retina13Bear Author

Level 1

12 points

Macbook Pro Retina 13 Improper Shut Down on Low Battery

I have a Macbook Pro Retina, Late 2012, A1425 model, that is behaving badly on battery power.

Here are the symptoms:

1) Seems to shut down/crash at ~10% battery with no warning.

The last time it did this the NVRAM I think got corrupted - it came back with a Date of 12/31/14 (it is 10/10/15 now).

I think the NVRAM I think is powered by the battery.

When I restart with a power cord is registers about 10%.

I'm not totally sure this shutdown/crash is battery related, but it has now occurred 2x at these low battery levels.

2)I've reset the SMC and the NVRAM.

3) The battery seems to go down fast. It has lost 30% in 1 hour, and the total time extrapolated

from full to 0 seems to be less than 3 hours at my current work level. Finder, Chrome, a Print Queue and

Mail are the only apps open.

4) Battery Info posted below. Short story: not that many cycles (170), condition "normal", and

a full charge rating of 4755 mAh out of 6600 mAh on a new battery. This seems like a lot

of degradation for the battery to be labeled "normal".

One subquestion: The battery info reports this: "Device Name: bq20z451"

That number is a battery for an old, old macbook, not this model. This seems

really odd, but is probably just an oddity/bug in the battery status reporting code.

5) Any clues? Seems like I might need a new battery.

6)I'm running a test right now to see how this shut downs/crashes without a power cable when

I'm not actively working on the machine.

Thanks.

Model Information:

Serial Number: C0______________________(I blanked this out.)

Manufacturer: DP

Device Name: bq20z451

Pack Lot Code: 0

PCB Lot Code: 0

Firmware Version: 511

Hardware Revision: 000a

Cell Revision: 1155

Charge Information:

Charge Remaining (mAh): 3497

Fully Charged: No

Charging: No

Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 4755

Health Information:

Cycle Count: 170

Condition: Normal

Battery Installed: Yes

Amperage (mA): -1198

Voltage (mV): 11664

System Power Settings:

AC Power:

System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 25

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 15

Wake on AC Change: No

Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes

Wake on LAN: Yes

AutoPowerOff Delay: 14400

AutoPowerOff Enabled: 1

DarkWakeBackgroundTasks: 1

Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes

Hibernate Mode: 3

PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep: 0

Standby Delay: 4200

Standby Enabled: 1

Battery Power:

System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 5

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 3

Wake on AC Change: No

Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes

AutoPowerOff Delay: 14400

AutoPowerOff Enabled: 1

Current Power Source: Yes

DarkWakeBackgroundTasks: 0

Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes

Hibernate Mode: 3

Reduce Brightness: Yes

Standby Delay: 4200

Standby Enabled: 1

Hardware Configuration:

UPS Installed: No

AC Charger Information:

Connected: No

Charging: No

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 10, 2015 4:22 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Rick Blythin

Level 4

1,070 points

Oct 12, 2015 1:39 PM in response to Retina13Bear

Related to your first issue:

I had this same problem on the late 2007 macbook, there was discussion thread about it on the forum at the time. Some users had luck by replacing the battery. No amount of resetting NVRAM or SMC ever worked for me, there was hope an update would resolve it but it never happened. The user community weren't able to determine the cause, tho many 'fixes' were posted and tried. No official word was mention from apple about it. You could try a new battery and hope for the best. In the end; I had to resort to keeping an eye out and plugging in when the battery reached 20-15%.

As for battery drain; estimates are typically optimistic and chrome is known to be a resource hog. I would test with safari or firefox and see if the same drop occurs. If all else fails you might consider taking it to an apple store or depot and have them run diagnostic checks.

Reply

Answer 2

Retina13Bear Author

Level 1

12 points

Oct 12, 2015 1:44 PM in response to Rick Blythin

Rick,

Thanks for the response. Now that the machine has fully discharged and then fully charged it seems to have recalibrated where the danger shutdown point is on the battery and is now giving me a proper warning. I had not discharged the battery all the way for some time (maybe a couple of months) and so perhaps battery degradation during that period was enough to confuse the machine.

I've seen some info about battery 'recalibration' but didn't really know how to do it. It seems that just doing the complete discharge-recharge cycle seemed to solve the problem, although in my case it seemed that I needed to do it at least 2x.

Reply

Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

140,924 points

Oct 12, 2015 2:16 PM in response to Retina13Bear

At the time that report was generated, your Mac's battery will be depleted in less than 4 hours.

It's very easy to determine energy-wasting apps. Read Apps can affect Mac performance, battery runtime, temperature, and fan activity - Apple Support.

Google products including Google Chrome will burden any Mac regardless of its age or configuration. Chrome's sole purpose for existing is to harvest your personal information so that Google can sell it. It will stop at nothing toward that objective, even if it means killing your battery. As far as Google is concerned that's your problem, not theirs. Read http://betanews.com/2015/08/06/dump-google-chrome-to-extend-your-macbooks-batter y-life/ for one of many such reports regarding Google Chrome.

Google has yet to demonstrate the ability or apparent desire to write efficient OS X apps. If you are required to use Google products, expect a very limited useful economic life from your hardware investment.

Reply

Answer 4

Oct 13, 2015 12:47 AM in response to Retina13Bear

Glad to hear it was a simple fix for you. With modern batteries there's normally no need for regular deep discharges. A good baseline is to plug in at the 25-20% mark and to use the battery at least once a month (minimum) to keep it healthy.

Reply