This is likely the same problem I saw reported countless times. However, mine comes with a twist, so I wonder if anyone can provide extra insight. Briefly, my laptop randomly shuts down (I think it happens only on battery). It's an early 2011 17" version running the latest macOS.  A few weeks ago I reinstalled the whole macOS after it wouldn't turn on anymore. I thought it might've been a hardware issue as many people suggest replacing the motherboard, but I was still able to boot it in the safe mode, which would suggest it's a software component issue.  Fast-forward and it's started happening again, although only infrequently and I am able to turn it back on very quickly if I have a charger nearby. Now, here are 2 insights I noticed and wonder if anyone can explain futher.  1/ Once the laptop "dies", I usually need to connect it to the charger to start it again. It feels like giving it some juice to power up. The battery level doesn't seem to play a role here (happens on 90% too). Sometimes if I connect the charger, turn it on, remove charger, it dies instantly. As if I had to keep the charger in for a certain amount of time until it feels confident to run without it. Feels like teaching a child ride a bike.  2/ Lately, I developed a new theory that it happens only when discharging AND I have to have the laptop on my lap, bed, or other unstable surface. I am paying attention now if it happens again when I work on desk, I couldn't replicate it so far. It's this point that drives me crazy, wondering what it could be.  Any experience with this issue is welcome. 😸  [UPDATE]: I removed case from the Macbook, dusted it off a bit and since then it's been running without any issues again. I haven't changed any settings or components. Computers are weird.
14959
I have a MacBook Air, 2009, with a recently replaced Apple battery in December 2012. Recently, when power cord comes off, the computer shuts down. Also, it usually will not restart unless power cord is attached.
40459
My laptop battery won't charge anymore, sits at 0%, and the laptop only operates if plugged to the AC adapter (it detects the power cord, but charge remains at 0%) The battery is already 2.5 years old, saw extensive use (at least daily recharge). so I wouldn't be surprised if it is damaged/beyond repair, but could it just be a software issue? I'm running Arch Linux.
53625
Model: MacBook Pro Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015 While I was working, I didn't realize that the battery was low and as a result, my MacBook Pro shut down when the battery had no power. So, then I plugged in the charger and powered it on. This time I noticed something was strange. The battery was stuck in 0% for like around 10 minutes and the date got reset to 1st January 2017. I tried resetting NVRAM. Nothing happened. So, then I ran diagnostics and I got this as a result:  Here's the battery information:  Here's a screenshot from Battery Health:  Now it is pretty obvious that you might ask me to change the battery because the screenshots say so, but I want a final opinion from you guys what to do next. Everything was working fine and all of a sudden this happens. I feel if I plugged the charger in time, I wouldn't have to see all this. And also a new battery isn't exactly affordable for me at the moment. And it is also important to note that while the charger is on, it shows orange LED. So, what should I do?
104929
We have a late 2012 27 inch iMac. It has a 2.9 GHz i5 processor and a 1 TB fusion drive along with 8 GB of RAM. I recently upgraded it to El Capitan.  A couple of months ago it randomly started to not wake up after being asleep. We would have to unplug it and plug it back in to get it back on. It also would just randomly shut off while we were using it. If we had music playing, the screen would go black and the music would stop so it's not a display issue.  I took it in to our local Apple store and talked to them about it and they said the first thing they would do would be to reinstall OS X. So I decided to do that myself but that still did not fix the issue.  I then lugged it back into the Apple store about 2 weeks ago and left it with them for a few days to get to the bottom of it. They repaired OS X and then put it through a battery of tests to see if there were any issues with memory or the hard drive but everything came back fine. They then left it plugged in with a bunch of graphics programs and videos playing and still had no issues.  At this point, I was thinking it was a power issue with the plug we were using. When I brought it home, we left it plugged in and running in our dining room for a few days and did not have any issues. I gradually loaded programs back on and still did not have any issues. I then moved it back upstairs but the other day it started acting up again on my wife. I moved it back to our dining room thinking it was the outlet up there, but it's exhibiting the same behavior there now.  After doing some searching online, I found this post . It seems to describe the issue we are having.  I was able to check the Console and it says the cause for shutdown is 0. I'm pretty sure the Apple store ran the hardware test and memtest while it was there. I have repeatedly reset the SMC, which the Apple store employee informed me is basically what I'm doing every time I have to unplug it and plug it back in.  The only thing I haven't done yet is a PRAM reset.  So, now I'm not sure what to do next. According to that post, his logic board needed to be replaced. The Apple store quoted me $583.32 to replace the logic board if that was what was needed. But I only want to do that if I know definitively that's the issue.  So sorry for the long post, but does anyone have a suggestion on how to  root cause this?
109671
Something is causing suspend crash occasionally. When it does crash, the system freezes with a black screen and stays on, not suspending. This makes me have to hold the power button until the system shuts down.   One setting difference I have from most people is, I don't use the option that lets you suspend when the laptop lid is closed. So opening and closing the laptop lid has no actions. I like to press suspend manually.  Could this preference change be the cause?   How can I start looking for what's causing the crash, since the crash doesn't display errors?
117524
I own a 2016 Macbook (with the USB-C charging) - at the time and in response to all of the reports of poor cables and poor chargers, I bought a meter so I could see what the throughput of my cables/chargers was. However, having run some tests I'm now not sure what to consider normal / what is harmless to the battery.   For all tests I used an original Apple C-C cable - though was able to replicate with two third party cables I own.  I have the original Apple block charging at 14.3 V / 1.99 A and a third party block that charges the same.  Another third party block which advertises USB PD and 3 A is currently charging at 20 V / 1.43 A  I've done some research online but I can't find any articles that indicate what a normal USB PD output is relative to the devices that connect to it and would appreciate any guidance / assistance.   TL;DR: Have Apple charger which charges at one voltage/amperage. Bought several others advertised at PD which are higher voltage, lower amperage. Not sure what is 'safe', or 'fast', or does least overall damage to battery.
45773
A couple days ago I booted up Left 4 Dead, but then heard a pop and my computer turned off. It smelled like dead electronics so I unplugged the computer. I figured it was a power supply failure, so I ordered a new Corsair HX520 and tried to install it today, hoping that was the only thing that needed replacing.  However my computer most emphatically did not work. Case fans turned on, a few motherboard lights and optical drive power lights turned on, but neither my GPU fan or my CPU fan turned on. Also one of my hard drives sprayed a few sparks from its underside and a bit of smoke came from it. I figure that one is dead. There was also no signal to the monitor or beep codes. I quickly turned the computer off to avoid any potential CPU overheating and tried with only 1 stick of RAM and no hard drives and got the same result.  What does this mean? Does the GPU fan not turning on mean the video card is shot? What does the CPU fan not turning on mean? Is the motherboard dead as well, or the CPU, or both? Should I just spring for a new computer at this point?  (edit) Also, can a power supply failure hurt your RAM?
54108
Whenever I shut down my computer, or put it in sleep/hybernate, it turns on after two seconds. It doesn't post, it just powers on and then idles. To actually turn it off, I switch off the psu. The problem is now, whenever I switch the psu on and try to boot, it doesn't always turn on. It takes a good amount of flicking the psu switch on and off before the motherboard lights up.  So far I've determined the things its not:    its not caused by the mouse or network waking up the computer. I've been able to go into hybernate for the past year. And all "wake on X" settings in the bios are diabled.  its not a scheduled task waking up the computer at a given hour, it occurs every single time  its not due to an upgrade or new installation, since I haven't done either in a very long time   I'm sure its a hardware issue. So I'd like to know, is my psu dead, or the motherboard? The psu is an Antec Earthwatts 600w, the motherboard is an Asus P5Q-E, both one year old.
32244
My computer reboots, seemingly completely at random, about once every week to two weeks but has occasionally gone months. It just goes from running fine to the POST with no error messages or anything and doesn't seem to be due to heat or usage as it's happened a couple of times when the computer has booted just a few moments ago and is idling. It's been happening for as long as I've had this computer, almost two years. It's happened in both Vista and Windows7.  I strongly suspect it's a hardware problem. But due to the rareish and random nature of the crashes my normal strategy of just removing hardware until the problem stops isn't really practical. My guess would be Power Supply, Ram, or Motherboard. But I just don't know how to test an issue this random and want to figure out how to confirm which it is before I go replacing things. So is there some software or hardware that can be used to test these sorts of errors? I did run memtest86 for about 8 hours without finding any issues. And the power supply is more than capable of running my system.
66482
My 1.5 year old Dell Studio 15 notebook computer has a battery and I keep it attached to the notebook but 98% of the time I just plug in the power adapter.  Lately when I unplugged the power adapter, the battery was only good for 10 minutes, and a few days ago, when I unplugged the power adapter, the computer simply turned off.  When clicking on the battery icon on Win 7, it says "Plugged in, not charging":    is the battery dead?  Or can Windows 7 have any option to not charge the battery?  It is a Dell Studio 15, I wonder if in such case, it looks like it can be a manufacture's defect, would Dell replace the battery? (if there was a recall, then they probably would, i think).  The notebook is 1.5 year old.
32570
This is not a problem at booting up. For a couple months now I'll be using my laptop when suddenly the screen dims to about 50% of normal. According to the brightness indicator the brightness is all the way up; I can make it dimmer, but not as bright as normal. The dimming isn't super even either, there are small areas of the screen that seem darker/brighter. In the past the problem easily goes away if I close the lid and reopen it... but now it's happening a lot and sometimes going completely black. Is this an easy/cheap fix? I'm traveling and can't do it myself. Is it worth bringing to the Mac store?  Thanks!
8227
I have two mid 2012 MBPs. Sometime last year they both started randomly shutting down and showing the 'please plug me in to power' image when trying to start them up. That would be fine if the batter was at 1% or less but this happens when the battery is at anywhere from 30% to as high as 48% full. The power cycle info says 500 cycles or so. Both of them do this. They are both patched current, always. I asked Apple they suggested NVRAM PRAM and SMC reset, as expected, which had no effect. Any ideas?
60102
When I charge my iPhone 4 on my laptop, it starts charging but then it keeps going on and off charging even though it's not touched. It charges fine with a plug charger or with any computers I use at college.  What things prevent a Mac from charging a connected iPhone so that charging can be resumed?
7513
A few days ago my MacBook Pro slipped out of my hands and fell onto the tile floor. The outside got banged up quite a bit and the Touch Bar no longer lights up but still responds to touches sometimes but not all the time.   Anyway, since then it will randomly restart every once in a while with a kernel panic. I have the log posted below and wanted to know if anyone could tell me what is causing the panic?
37633
Basically, I'm looking for some do's and don'ts. Is it bad to keep my laptop plugged in when I'm not using it (majority of the time)? Is it bad to plug it in once I've finished using it (with it having something like 30% or 70% life left)?     This question comes up often and the answers are usually the same. This post is meant to provide a definitive, canonical answer for this problem. Feel free to edit the answer to add additional details.
42766
I am attempting to boot up my 2009 MacBook Pro, but when it starts it immediately shows a white screen with a 'question mark folder' — it keeps blinking until the computer shuts down (unless I keep it in the charger, then it just goes on).  I have tried to do the start up whilst holding down the option/alt button, and only the arrow comes up. I don't have the startup system disk (or any other) but the system has been updated to OS X Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store.  Before this, there had been other problems: when I deleted things they didn't go in the Trash but instead it looked like it just deleted it completely. After some time it wouldn't save or download, saying there wasn't enough space (even though I deleted items).
12483
The aluminum Macbook Pro gives a mild shock when connected to a wall socket and charging. It only happens when I'm, for example, not wearing shoes or slippers and my feet are resting on the ground (i.e. by body is acting as a conductor). I contacted apple and I was told to perform the following steps:  Shutdown  hold ⇧+ctrl+⌥+power for 10 seconds  wait 30 seconds then hold ⇧+ctrl+⌥+R+power (Let the Mac reboot three times with that apple tone, then let go. The Mac reboots again.)   This did not fix the problem and I was not told what these steps were supposed to do. They have asked me to purchase a three pin version of the adapter and see if that fixes my problem. My last MacBook Pro was giving pretty severe jolts towards end of life. Hence a bit concerned. Question  Has anyone here experienced such a problem?  Is anyone aware of what the above sequence of steps supposed to do?  Also, will this damage the Macbook in some way?