MacBook Pro 2015 suddenly turns off and shows low battery screen when turned on

Question

Level 1

9 points

MacBook Pro 2015 suddenly turns off and shows low battery screen when turned on

Hi,
I have a problem with my MacBook Pro 2015. It does not have warranty any more. I bought it in "used" condition half year ago and it worked OK until last few days, when it started to suddenly turn off without notice. I am always using it plugged in and battery is 100%.
But yesterday it turned off out of nowhere and when I turned it on it shows low battery. I managed to get into OSX by resetting SMC and battery was 2% (I don't know how?) . Slowly over the night it charged to 100%. Today after 4 hours of usage (plugged in) it suddenly turned off and I see the same low battery screen when I try to turn it on.
Now I am trying to charge it and also to reset SMC but it simply does not work, it just shows this screen whenever I try to turn the power on.
Does anybody know what should I do, can anybody help me I would really appreciate that? I live in the area where I don't have Apple repair services available, and I bought this laptop on ebay.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6), null

Posted on Nov 21, 2018 7:32 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Allan Jones

Level 9

78,518 points

Nov 21, 2018 11:22 AM in response to nikola36

And what is interesting Amperage is occasionally going to negative numbers while charger is plugged in - that means that battery is discharging - this happens while cpu load is little havier. Why this is happening when MacSafe charger is plugged in ?

That was designed in. I got my first MBP in 2008 and that was the way it worked. It is always possible that some process or combination of processes will demand more power than the computer can supply for wall power alone. It will use the battery for extra power in those cases. I do not know a way to turn that off.

Having looked at those numbers, which look OK to me, I am thinking this could be a software issue. When you brought up "heavy load," that changed the troubleshooting path my old brain had laid out. Some software can cause extra strain on the battery, and most of it is useless to a Mac:

anti-virus software
so-called "cleaning/tuneup" apps
some security software for online
torrent software
adware

and some others

At this point your posting a snapshot of your software configuration is a good idea for proceeding. Fortunately there is a safe and secure way to do that.

A respected and long-serving member of these communities has created a simple utility that will take a "snapshot" of your configuration without revealing any sensitive information about you and your computer. It is Etrecheck, and is available free from the Mac App Store here:

EtreCheck on the Mac App Store

Run it, select Report" from the left-hand pane (scroll down to the bottom of that pane to find) and, when its report displays, click the "Share Report" icon and then "Copy " from the resulting dropdown. Paste the entire report into a response to your own thread here. It will allow us to quickly identify or eliminate software as the problem.

Reply

Answer 2

Allan Jones

Level 9

78,518 points

Nov 21, 2018 10:54 PM in response to nikola36

it says that it's 60W while I found online that I should have 85W adapter for this model. This is probably source of the problem right?

Certainly possible. The MacTracker database confirms that model uses the 85W charger, as do Apple specs:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) - Technical Specifications

I did not see some of the battery drainers I expected, but Google is a known drainer on both Macs and Windows notebooks. If you must use it, make sure it is not running in the background when not in use.

When I said heavier load, I din't meant on playing games, just watching some youtube videos or similar.

Videos use a lot of resources. I include them among heavy hitters.

Reply

Answer 3

nikola36 Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 21, 2018 3:26 PM in response to nikola36

I just checked my adapter and it says that it's 60W while I found online that I should have 85W adapter for this model. This is probably source of the problem right?

Reply

Answer 4

nikola36 Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 21, 2018 10:56 PM in response to Allan Jones

Maybe I did damage to something inside since I am using wrong adapter for months. I did not have issues until now so I did not realize that I am using wrong adapter. Anyway, I will buy new 85W adapter and see if that helps.

Reply

Answer 5

Allan Jones

Level 9

78,518 points

Nov 21, 2018 10:52 AM in response to nikola36

Please do this: from your Apple menu select "About this Mac..." and, when the new window appears, click the "System Report..." button.

That launches the built-in System Information app that will apply some useful numbers to your battery issue. In the left-hand panel that has the contents, find and select "Power." That will give you this basic screen:

The important data points we need are:

Charge remaining
Full Charge Capacity
Cycle Count
Condition

Reply

Answer 6

nikola36 Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 21, 2018 3:11 PM in response to Allan Jones

I checked MagSafe adapter it says that it gives 16.5 voltage output, while here MagSafe - Wikipedia it says that 18.5v should be available for MacBook Pro 15inch. Can this be a source of a problem, maybe I have wrong charger?

Reply

Answer 7

nikola36 Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 21, 2018 2:46 PM in response to nikola36

It's still charging very slow, and switching to "Battery is not charging" status whenever I watch some video.

Reply

Answer 8

nikola36 Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 21, 2018 11:03 AM in response to Allan Jones

After leaving it on charger I am able to turn it on again. Sure, I checked that already and tried to come to some conclusion without success. And what is interesting Amperage is occasionally going to negative numbers while charger is plugged in - that means that battery is discharging - this happens while cpu load is little havier. Why this is happening when MacSafe charger is plugged in ? At this moment it's showing this:Charge Information:

Charge Remaining (mAh): 1869

Fully Charged: No

Charging: No

Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 7399

Health Information:

Cycle Count: 229

Condition: Normal

Battery Installed: Yes

Amperage (mA): 261

Voltage (mV): 11292

Is it possible to disable battery usage when charger is plugged in ?

Thanks for you help.

Reply

Answer 9

nikola36 Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 21, 2018 2:01 PM in response to Allan Jones

When I said heavier load, I din't meant on playing games, just watching some youtube videos or similar. I left it turned off for hours and it's charged to 73%. Now I set display brightness and keyboard light to minimum to see if it will help charging..
I will see how it behaves now, but I am afraid the same happen again.

EtreCheck version: 5.0.8 (5A019)

Report generated: 2018-11-21 22:27:14

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 2:05

Performance: Excellent

Problem: Other problem

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

No Time Machine backup - Time Machine backup not found.

Minor Issues:

These issues do not need immediate attention but they may indicate future problems.

Heavy RAM usage - This machine is using a large amount of RAM.

Unsigned files - There are unsigned software files installed. They appear to be legitimate but should be reviewed.

32-bit Apps - This machine has 32-bits apps that may have problems in the future.

Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)

MacBook Pro Model: MacBookPro11,4

1 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 (i7-4770HQ) CPU: 4-core

16 GB RAM - Not upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0 - 8 GB DDR3 1600 ok

BANK 1/DIMM0 - 8 GB DDR3 1600 ok

Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 229

Video Information:

Intel Iris Pro - VRAM: 1536 MB

Color LCD 3360 x 2100

Drives:

disk0 - APPLE SSD SM0256G 251.00 GB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

Internal PCI 8.0 GT/s x4 Serial ATA

disk0s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk0s2 [APFS Container] 250.79 GB

disk1 [APFS Virtual drive] 250.79 GB (Shared by 4 volumes)

disk1s1 - U******d (APFS) (Shared - 124.14 GB used)

disk1s2 - Preboot (APFS) [APFS Preboot] (Shared - 22 MB used)

disk1s3 - Recovery (APFS) [Recovery] (Shared - 515 MB used)

disk1s4 - VM (APFS) [APFS VM] (Shared - 1.07 GB used)

Mounted Volumes:

disk1s1 - U******d 250.79 GB (124.90 GB free)

APFS

Mount point: /

disk1s4 - VM [APFS VM] (Shared - 1.07 GB used)

APFS

Mount point: /private/var/vm

disk2s2 - I********D 7.17 GB (1.62 GB free)

Mac OS Extended

Disk Image

Mount point: /Volumes/I********D

Network:

Interface en0: Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

Interface en3: Bluetooth PAN

Interface bridge0: Thunderbolt Bridge

System Software:

macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G3025)

Time since boot: About 5 hours

Configuration Files:

/etc/hosts - Count: 2

Security:

System	Status
Gatekeeper	Enabled
System Integrity Protection	Enabled

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperSandbox.plist

Executable: /Applications/32 Lives.app/Contents/Resources/32 Lives Agent.app/Contents/MacOS/32 Lives Agent mach_service 9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperSandbox

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperSandbox.SL.plist

Executable: /Applications/32 Lives.app/Contents/Resources/32 Lives Agent.app/Contents/MacOS/32 Lives Agent mach_service 9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperSandbox.SL

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperAgent.SL.plist

Executable: /Applications/32 Lives.app/Contents/Resources/32 Lives Agent.app/Contents/MacOS/32 Lives Agent mach_service 9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperAgent.SL

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperAgent.plist

Executable: /Applications/32 Lives.app/Contents/Resources/32 Lives Agent.app/Contents/MacOS/32 Lives Agent mach_service 9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperAgent

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

32-bit Applications:

57 32-bit apps

Kernel Extensions:

/Applications/DAEMON Tools.app

[Not Loaded] DAEMONToolsVirtualSCSIBus.10-9.kext (Disc Soft Ltd, 1.0.2 - SDK 10.13)

/Library/Extensions

[Loaded] SoundGrid.kext (Waves Inc, 9.7.99)

System Launch Agents:

[Not Loaded]	15 Apple tasks
[Loaded]	168 Apple tasks
[Running]	111 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons:

[Not Loaded]	38 Apple tasks
[Loaded]	182 Apple tasks
[Running]	115 Apple tasks

Launch Agents:

[Loaded]	9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperAgent.SL.plist (? 2ff475b9 - installed 2016-02-29)
[Loaded]	9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperSandbox.SL.plist (? 75cd1866 - installed 2016-02-29)
[Loaded]	9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperSandbox.plist (? fc8634a3 - installed 2016-02-29)
[Not Loaded]	com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (? ffb65062 - installed 2018-08-19)
[Loaded]	9ZTHPRB4MV.com.soundradix.TTLWrapperAgent.plist (? 5fd02013 - installed 2016-02-29)
[Running]	com.waves.daemon.SoundGrid.DawNodeService.plist (Waves Inc - installed 2017-05-09)

Launch Daemons:

[Not Loaded]	com.apple.installer.cleanupinstaller.plist (Apple - installed 2018-11-21)
[Loaded]	com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing.plist (Apple - installed 2018-10-26)

User Launch Agents:

[Loaded]	com.dropbox.DropboxMacUpdate.agent.plist (Dropbox, Inc. - installed 2018-11-13)
[Not Loaded]	org.virtualbox.vboxwebsrv.plist (Oracle America, Inc. - installed 2018-10-09)
[Loaded]	com.google.keystone.agent.plist (Google, Inc. - installed 2018-08-08)

User Login Items:

DAEMON Tools.app (Disc Soft Ltd - installed 2018-08-22)

(/Applications/DAEMON Tools.app)

DockerHelper (Docker Inc - installed 2018-07-24)

(/Applications/Docker.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/DockerHelper.app)

Dropbox.app (Dropbox, Inc. - installed 2018-11-13)

(/Applications/Dropbox.app)

SoundGrid Studio.app (? - installed 2018-09-26)

(/Applications/Waves/SoundGrid Studio/SoundGrid Studio.app)

com.adobe.SwitchBoard.monitor.plist (?)

(/etc/mach_init_per_user.d/com.adobe.SwitchBoard.monitor.plist)

iTunesHelper.app (Apple - installed 2018-08-18)

(/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

Internet Plug-ins:

FlashPlayer-10.6: 30.0.0.154 (installed 2018-08-16)

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2018-11-20)

Flash Player: 30.0.0.154 (installed 2018-08-16)

User Internet Plug-ins:

ZoomUsPlugIn: 4.1.31275.0831 (installed 2018-09-17)

3rd Party Preference Panes:

Flash Player (installed 2018-07-28)

Time Machine:

Time Machine Not Configured!

Performance:

System Load: 1.88 (1 min ago) 1.63 (5 min ago) 1.52 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O speed: 1.76 MB/s

File system: 18.21 seconds

Write speed: 899 MB/s

Read speed: 2005 MB/s

CPU Usage:

Type	Overall	Individual cores
System	2 %	6 %	1 %	3 %	0 %	3 %	2 %	3 %	0 %
User	3 %	10 %	0 %	5 %	0 %	5 %	0 %	4 %	0 %
Idle	95 %	84 %	99 %	92 %	99 %	92 %	98 %	93 %	100 %

Top Processes by CPU:

Process (count)	Source	CPU	Location
WindowServer	Apple	13.88 %
EtreCheckPro	Etresoft, Inc.	7.72 %
SGDawNodeService	Waves Inc	3.06 %
kernel_task	Apple	2.92 %
webstorm	JetBrains s.r.o.	2.52 %

Top Processes by Memory:

Process (count)	Source	RAM usage	Location
Google Chrome Helper (15)	Google, Inc.	2.05 GB
kernel_task	Apple	1.26 GB
webstorm	JetBrains s.r.o.	1020 MB
Slack Helper (3)	Slack Technologies, Inc.	823 MB
mdworker (15)	Apple	550 MB

Top Processes by Network Use:

Process	Source	Input	Output	Location
Dropbox	Dropbox, Inc.	244 KB	106 KB
mDNSResponder	Apple	125 KB	110 KB
zoom.us	Zoom Video Communications, Inc.	44 KB	15 KB
netbiosd	Apple	27 KB	11 KB
Slack	Slack Technologies, Inc.	29 KB	6 KB

Virtual Memory Information:

Available RAM	4.57 GB
Free RAM	108 MB
Used RAM	11.43 GB
Cached files	4.47 GB
Swap Used	0 B

Software Installs (past 30 days):

Name	Version	Install Date
Gatekeeper Configuration Data	156	2018-10-30
Safari	12.0.1	2018-11-03
reFX Nexus 1.4.1	1.0	2018-11-06
Sound Radix 32 Lives	1.0	2018-11-06
32 Lives	1.0.10	2018-11-06
Security Update 2018-002	10.13.6	2018-11-20

Diagnostics Information (past 7 days):

2018-11-21 17:13:03 mds_stores Memory

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata .framework/Versions/A/Support/mds_stores

2018-11-21 11:36:51 mds Memory (2 times)

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata .framework/Versions/A/Support/mds

End of report

Reply

MacBook Pro 2015 suddenly turns off and shows low battery screen when turned on

Similar questions