Macbook Pro shutting off at 5% battery life

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SolitaryHowl

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I recently upgraded my Macbook Pro (was bought in 2006) with a bigger hard-drive, more RAM, and installed Snow Leopard. (10.6.8)

I also got a new battery because my old one was only holding 40 minutes of charge (while computer is idling) which is not enough for my uses.

Before I go on, here are my system specs:

Macbook Pro (late 2006)
Mac OSX 10.6.8
2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
ATI Radeon X1600


My computer shuts down when the remaining battery level is at 5% exactly. It happened with the old battery as well and before I installed all of the upgrades.

I have tried numerous solutions, including resetting the SMC and PRAM. For both batteries I recalibrate them properly every 1-2 months. The new one only has 6 cycles on it (just installed it a couple of days ago.) and I still have this problem.

It gives the 'low battery warning' at 10% like it should, but then it just shuts down at 5% and does not go into its special sleep mode. When it shuts down, I try to reboot it but it does not turn on -- almost like the battery is completely depleted. When I plug in the power adapter to start charging it, only then can it boot-up. But, even then, none of my work is saved like it would have been in the 'safe sleep mode'.

Again, I already tried resetting the SMC and PRAM, but that did not work for either batteries. Please provide me with other solutions. (Oh, and obviously my Mac is out of warranty considering I bought it 5 years ago.)

Thank you.
 
My question is why do you need to run it down to 5% ? If you are doing this to maintain battery life it's redundant as your recalibrating externally every month or so. If your having problems at 5% why not change at 10% ! Also remember that the battery figures at best are an approximation and should be used as a guide. From your description it sound as if the battery is totally depleted,that's why you have to start with the charger.
 
Open the System Profiler, under "Power", and check the "cycle count" of your battery. If it's anything close to 300 or 400 or more, your battery has pretty much exhausted its usable life and should be replaced. A battery with this many cycles will exhibit behavior similar to what you're describing -- sudden shutdowns, inability to charge, "unusable" battery life below a certain percentage, etc.

Newer MacBook Pros have batteries that should last 800 to 1,000 cycles or more, but the older ones start doing funny things around 300 to 400 cycles.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
Open the System Profiler, under "Power", and check the "cycle count" of your battery. If it's anything close to 300 or 400 or more, your battery has pretty much exhausted its usable life and should be replaced. A battery with this many cycles will exhibit behavior similar to what you're describing -- sudden shutdowns, inability to charge, "unusable" battery life below a certain percentage, etc.

Newer MacBook Pros have batteries that should last 800 to 1,000 cycles or more, but the older ones start doing funny things around 300 to 400 cycles.
Click to expand...

Again, this also happens with my new battery (health is at 100% and only 8 cycles on the new one.) so I don't think it is a battery issue. And my 'old' battery (nearing 5 years old now with a little less than 300 cycles) is at 79% health.
 
Here's a post that purports (and then refutes) that "Secure Virtual Memory" being enabled may be a culprit:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1825417?start=0&tstart=0

Also mentions that batteries with certain revisions of firmware may be more prone to doing this than others.

Other than that, maybe you just got two bum batteries in a row -- since the new one is so underused so far, maybe it would help to demonstrate this to an Apple Store employee (at the Genius Bar, preferably) and show them that a brand-new battery, when discharged, always shuts down instead of safe-sleeping at 5%. The battery itself should still be under warranty, and you can request an exchange.

If the new, new battery does it, well, we may be closer to eliminating the battery as the culprit. Sure, it's not a definitive answer, but it's closer than we are now.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
Here's a post that purports (and then refutes) that "Secure Virtual Memory" being enabled may be a culprit:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1825417?start=0&tstart=0

Also mentions that batteries with certain revisions of firmware may be more prone to doing this than others.

Other than that, maybe you just got two bum batteries in a row -- since the new one is so underused so far, maybe it would help to demonstrate this to an Apple Store employee (at the Genius Bar, preferably) and show them that a brand-new battery, when discharged, always shuts down instead of safe-sleeping at 5%. The battery itself should still be under warranty, and you can request an exchange.

If the new, new battery does it, well, we may be closer to eliminating the battery as the culprit. Sure, it's not a definitive answer, but it's closer than we are now.
Click to expand...

Hey - thanks! I'll check out that link.

The only problem, is that the new battery I bought is a third party battery. It's from a high-quality company (not one of those cheap batteries made in Asia) ; it's only cheaper because the Apple brand logo isn't slapped on. I've bought batteries from them before.
 
While I have all the faith in the world in certain 3rd-party batteries, unfortunately, the market is flooded with ones that are utter crap. Also, and equally unfortunately, is that Apple probably isn't going to give you the time of day as long as you're using a non-Apple-branded battery.

The first troubleshooting step that Apple (and I) would recommend is putting an Apple-branded battery in the machine. It is entirely possible that your machine will miraculously start behaving normally... it's a shot in the dark, but it's the first thing Apple's going to make you do, and I do believe it's worth a try.

Do you have an Apple-branded battery for that machine that has not exceeded the recommended cycle count (<300) that you can try?
 
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