MacBook Pro Battery issues...

[{tpc}]

Awhile back I picked up a older used MacBook Pro. I mainly just wanted something for surfing the net, chatting with you guys here, etc. The guy I got it from said he had replaced the battery pretty recently. But I am having trouble with the battery jumping from like 50% to 7% in a matter of minutes. I tried the whole "let it die" wait 5 hours and charge it up routine, but it didn't seem to help. For the most part I can run it off the cord, but once in awhile I'd rather not deal with it. Also when it gets to 7% or in the "red" things decide not to work as well as they did before, I am guessing because it is shutting down processes to conserve battery.

To be honest, I don't believe in the whole wait 5 hours thing after the battery dies. Doesn't make any sense. Once what is ever regulating the power inside from the battery hits the critical spot, its just going to turn off regardless. And when its off the battery isn't draining anymore. In fact it might actually be rebounding some, which is the exact opposite effect your trying to have in this case.

I also tried resetting the SMC controller as they say, but I don't think it did anything at all. Anybody have any ideas? Its a 2011 model.

 

[Pugman1943]

Well, three thoughts. What the guy said about his replacement doesn't mean shit if he didn't show you proof. Second, life by the cord, consider it permanent unless you are will to afford a new battery replacement ( and I would look for recommendations, places and costs even by Apple etc. ). Its a a new girlfriend, you just don't where she's been. Almost forgot about the new battery packs available ( at least for phones ). Possibly something to look into. I just looked for you, check out Google, they are available. Wish you success.

 

[BlindedByScience]

I'd question the quality of the replacement. No offense but I'd question if the battery got replaced at all...... If the battery was replaced, and if it's good quality, resetting the controller "should" have taken care of any issues....

 

[{tpc}]

Thanks guys. I'm guessing that this isn't a quality replacement. I just looked and right now I am currently at 3 cycles and a about 6200 mah capacity, so its likely that the original wasn't working well, and he just went online and bought the cheapest one, and here we are today. My plan is to kind of just "spruce" this one up a bit, just to see if I like being on the apple ecosystem. It doesn't have a SSD (yet), and apparently I will need to suffer with this battery issue for awhile.

Other than that, it works pretty well, even though the highest OS I can put on it is High Sierra. I know there are "ways" of getting Mojave or Catalina on it, but from what I read, not all the hardware plays nice on the older stuff with the newer OS's. I'd rather it just work good.

The only other issues I've seen is that chrome makes it run hot, so I got rid of that. Firefox seems to run warm but not hot like chrome did, and of course safari seems to work well enough that I am currently trying to just use it exclusively now. I watched a tv show on it through iTunes and it didn't get excessively hot either.

 

[{tpc}]

I think I had an issue when doing the SMC reset. Like I said, I didn't think it did anything at all. However, I did it when the MacBook was reading 7%. I shut it down, did the procedure, and turned it back on. The issue being my own, in that I mistakenly thought it would magically fix it, and it would boot right up and show 50% or somewhere close to that. It did not, so I figured nothing had happened at all. I plugged it in and let it charge to 100%, and then unplugged it.

Before, when I got to around 56% is when it just dropped like a rock to 7%. This wasn't the first time I had seen that, which led me to performing the battery calibration procedure, prior to it happening again today, just prior to my morning post.

I have been using it all day lightly surfing on and off, and I am currently sitting at 38%. Its decline to that number has been a steady drop, so thats good. Hopefully it continues that way. I really don't have a need to use it, but this is kinda the only way to test out that its behavior is normal.

If this works, the only other thing I can think of to test is exactly what happened before. It was fully charged, I used it one night for a couple hours or so, and it got to about 60% and I shut it down, until this morning when I tried to use it again and it dropped like a stone. Maybe there is an issue there as well, where it isn't turning completely off and somehow draining while sitting in the bag. I could see that if I just let it "sleep" but for a full shutdown it would seem strange.

Anyways, just thought I would report back. Seems like operator error. LOL

 

[{tpc}]

I knew after I typed that things would change. It is a interesting change to note, to me anyways. So I am surfing away and it drops from like 33% to 22%. I thought, well, maybe it wasn't sudden, maybe it was just the normal decline and I didn't notice. I continue on, to look up again and see 7%. Its still there now, and it seems as if I am still connected and able to post, so nothing major has switched off. Funny thing is, its been at 7% for like 10 min. Maybe its figuring its shit out, I dunno.

 

[kann]

My MacBook Pro is from 2014. I don't have a dying battery issue, but I do have the bloating battery. I have checked with Apple and with local places, and apparently my particular model is not able to be replaced. Both Apple and the local places tell me I'm SOL on it. I just need to get a new laptop. :/

 

[{tpc}]

Bloating battery? What’s that? I can’t believe it can’t be replaced, have you googled it? Wish you lived closer, if it’s just a soldering issue I’m sure I could tackle that.

 

[kann]

Bloating battery? What’s that? I can’t believe it can’t be replaced, have you googled it? Wish you lived closer, if it’s just a soldering issue I’m sure I could tackle that.

Yup, it's a MacBook thing. I'm not sure why some do it and some don't, but basically it's the gases expanding and inside the battery and not having a way to vent. Eventually the battery will split... and then the real fun begins. Google it. Mac has been replacing many of them even when it's out of warranty, but for some reason my particular model (2014 13" w/retina display) is unable to be replaced. I've looked around and it's the same story from local places, Apple, and online searches.