Apple MacBook Pro Dead Battery Problem

If you’re having a problem where your MacBook Pro seems to randomly shut down when you’re running from battery, then you may have hit some dead cells and lowered the capacity of your battery. I had this problem a few months ago and got to chat to one of the Apple Geniuses (Geni-i?) about it. The problem manifested itself by just shutting down my laptop before it gave me a low power warning or anything at all. The way to tell if you have the same problem as me is:

  1. Click the Apple Menu
  2. Click “About This Mac”
  3. Click “More Info”
  4. Select “Power” in the left pane
  5. Under “Battery Information” look for “Full Charge Capacity (mAh)

Apparently this number should be up over 5000 on a healthy battery. When mine died, that number was around 3000 from memory. Currently mine is at 5440. If your battery has a low full charge capacity, then it’s likely it failed, and if you take it back to Apple they will (hopefully, as they did for me) replace it with a brand new one, free of charge.

Hope that helps someone.

  1. Beau Lebens said:

    My buddy Evan had a similar problem and Apple replaced his battery as well, so it seems that they're aware of it, and willing to do something about it.

  2. CDO said:

    My 6 month old MBP battery suddenly died. Cycle count:40, Full charge capacity (mAh) 0

    Shocking really as we have 3 desktop Macs and chose to splurge and finally get what we thought would be the most reliable laptop. I had even bought an older Apple Lombard laptop that has had better battery life.

    Apple is quickly repacinging my MBP battery, but it makes me wonder how long it will last.

  3. Beau Lebens said:

    I was told that it was just a manufacturing error in a specific batch of batteries, so hopefully they've fixed the problem and it won't happen on future models. At least they've been good about replacing them. I've heard of at least a couple of other people who had similar problems and have had theirs replaced without any issues.

    • Steve Tsai said:

      I replaced the MBP battery from Apple already last year, but I still get the following power information right now. Apple does not fix the problem.

      Charge Information:
      Charge remaining (mAh):548
      Fully charged:No
      Charging:Yes
      Full charge capacity (mAh):945
      Health Information:
      Cycle count:19
      Condition:Check battery

      • Beau Lebens said:

        Do you have AppleCare? Those numbers would seem to indicate that you should get hardly any battery life at all. Obviously not much good for you. I'd suggest just buying a new battery, but if you've already replaced it once, then I wonder if that will even fix anything?

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