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Target machine: MacBook Air, 13-inch, early 2014, MacOS Sierra 10.12.6, used for 4 years very carefully without any problems.

Battery has only 70 cycles, condition reported as "Normal", and still works good on long flights.

However, yesterday I faced a problem, when the battery was about 50%, system just performed hard shutdown. I tried to turn it on twice, it kept shutting down after 2-3 seconds after the system boot. After plugging in power it works without any problems.

I doubt if I can reproduce the problem, it means I should work from the battery in the moment of shutdown (and lose work results)

Does anyone met the problem? How to detect the reason, is it hardware or software, or just system settings (I believe, it should be warning and regular shut down, never drained the battery before)?

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    when was it last time you did reset the SMC (that is responsible for battery control). Also take deeper look in to battery condition in About this Mac.
    – Ruskes
    Oct 25, 2018 at 4:48
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    it can be tricky to do, so watch the magsafe light must flicker to know you did it right.
    – Ruskes
    Oct 25, 2018 at 5:37
  • Did both SMC and PRAM reset. I think it's really time to change the battery
    – user307582
    Oct 25, 2018 at 6:18

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Judging from the symptoms I highly suspect it's an issue with the battery. I recently had my late 2013 Macbook Retina serviced because it experienced exactly the same issue: Immediate shutdown when the battery was drained to 60%. It would instantly turn back on if connected to power. My battery was 5 years old and had about 240 cycles. The apple engineer told me that the battery needs to be replaced because it was so old and coulndn't hold a charge.

What does the System Information (Click on Apple Logo while holding down option to access it) report about your battery? system information

Can you check what coconut battery reports about the remaining actual charge? It would be really interesting to see what the actual fully charged capacity of your battery is and the designed capacity. If it's less than 80% of the designed capacity when the battery is fully charged then I would recommend replacing the battery regardless of its cycle count.

coconutbattery

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  • Yeah, you are right, 78% of designed capacity
    – user307582
    Oct 25, 2018 at 6:04
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Only 70 cycles in 4 Years.

I bet you leave your system plugged in most of the time.

What is happening here is SMC thinks the power level is below the set threshold so it needs to power down the system into deep sleep mode. So how to fix?

It's quite simple you need to do a SMC reset and cycle the battery a few times by fully discharging it and recharging it. That way the setpoint is memorized correctly.

Some examples .. this is old battery ... needs replacement. Notice the Fully Charged Capacity has dropped from new at ~8000 to old at ~2600.

enter image description here

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I tried to calibrate the battery in my MacBook along with the help of battery status apps like Coconut Battery Mac app. The tip is reset SMC and to charge your MacBook fully to 100% and leave it for a few hours at that state. If you don't then the battery won't calibrate correctly. This guide mentions this. Also you have to do this a few times for the battery to calibrate properly.

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