13" MacBook Pro 2017 randomly shutting down

Question

I bought a new Mac and have had it it for like 1 week now. I noticed it turns itself off at 8% but I wasn't worried. Then it started shutting down on like 17%-20% cca.

When you plug charging cable you can turn it on and it's on the same % as when it turned off. I don't understand why it is shutting down on this much battery charge %.

I also think it's discharging pretty fast. I have no clue and I don't want to wait for a new MBP.

I'm not sure where to begin troubleshooting this and would appreciate any help.

How can I proceed?

Answer 1

Reset the SMC

I would start by resetting the SMC on your MBP. Follow these steps:

1. Shut down your MBP
2. Press and hold the power button for at least 10 seconds
3. Let go of the power button and wait 5 seconds
4. Power up your MBP again

Once you've reset the SMC use your MBP as usual. If you still feel it's shutting down too soon or perhaps not charging as it normally would, then reset the SMC again but with the following steps instead:

1. Shut down your MBP
2. Press and hold the right shift key and the left option and control keys for 7 seconds before then also pressing and holding the power button down for another 7 seconds (i.e. the keys will end up being held down for 14 seconds, the power button for 7 seconds)
3. Let go of all three keys and the power button
4. Wait 5 seconds
5. Power up your MBP again

Also, macOS provides a great deal of information about your power usage. Read on to see how to access this.

Checking your charging status within macOS

Follow these steps:

1. Go to Apple > About This Mac

2. Click on the System Report... button

3. In the left pane under the Hardware heading, select Power (it's about 2/3 of the way down)

4. On the right-hand side, scroll down to view the AC Charger Information

5. This will show you whether it's connected to a charger, the amount of wattage it's receiving, and if it's currently charging or not

Answer 2

To find out why your Mac is turning off, you can look through the logs. The post Determine Shutdown Cause using Terminal has instructions on how to do this and what the codes mean.

However, based on your symptoms, it sounds like your battery is defective (given that's it's a brand new machine)

• Mac shuts down claiming no power with charge at 30% or 40% or more

I bought a new Mac and have had it it for like 1 week now....I don't want to wait for a new MBP.

Return it for a refund or exchange.

You can try an SMC Reset as mentioned in Monomeeth's answer, but the SMC won't prevent your battery from charging and will only shutdown the system when it gets a low power reading from the battery.

So, as it stands, it's either

• a faulty SMC chip which means the logic board needs to be replaced
• a faulty battery which means the top case needs to be replaced.

There's no software or tweak that will fix either condition.

As inconvenient as it may be, this is not something anywhere close to being considered "normal." However, "not normal" doesn't mean that it's unheard of. Pretty much anything on any product can be defective from the factory; this is why you have a warranty and AppleCare.