MacBook Air Battery Replacement Problem

[MikeMcCollister]

My sister gave me her MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015) a few months ago. The battery needed to be replaced so I purchased one from Amazon. The replacement was very simple and I have reset the SMC and cycled through the battery 2-3 times. The battery seems to work, but after it goes into what I believe is the macOS equivalent of hibernate (safe sleep?) and I turn on the computer the dead battery icon shows up. If I plug it and allow it to boot, the battery level is fine.

For example, I charged my battery to 100% and I did not do anything to it for a couple of days except to check the battery level. It stayed at 99-100% for a day or so. Then I got the dead battery icon in the middle of a black screen when I woke/powered on the device. After plugging it in, the battery showed 96% and I can work without it being plugged in.

Is there something else that I need to do or do I have a bad battery?

I'm running macOS Monterey version 12.3.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[harleymhs]

Welcome to my world. Check my post out . After 3 clean installs of Mojave, with NO luck, I did a clean install of Big Sur , reset SMC and changed Sleep mode to Hybernate 25 and seems OK now. Lost 1% in 48 hours now. Good Luck took me 2 weeks to sort it out. Not even sure if it will last like this.

 

[MikeMcCollister]

Harleymhs,

Thanks for letting me know the things that you tried. I may try the OS reinstall but I'm not there yet.

However, I am able to reproduce the issue much easier. If I just shutdown the MacBook with a battery level at 95%, it won't come back on unless I plug it in.

Mike

 

[vorkosigan1]

1. Have you conditioned the battery? I.e., run it all the way down (adjust sleep to "never"), and then fully recharged it, maybe 2 times.
2. In addition to resetting the SMC, have you reset the NVRAM? From Macworld:

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Press the power button, and as soon as you power up the laptop, hold down Command-Option-P-R.
3. Keep holding down those keys for about 20 seconds. Then let go and allow your Mac to continue starting normally. If you have an older Mac that chimes at boot, hold down the keys until you hear a second startup chime.
4. Then check the Startup Disk, Display, and Date & Time panes of System Preferences to make sure they’re set the way you want them.

If you hold down Command-Option-P-R at startup and you see nothing but a gray screen that doesn’t change for several minutes—no Apple logo, no progress bar, no second startup chime—don’t panic. The most likely cause is that your Mac isn’t registering the key presses due to wonkiness with a USB device. Disconnect all USB devices (except your keyboard, if it’s a wired keyboard), hold the power button down until the Mac shuts off completely, and then press it again and immediately hold down Command-Option-P-R.


If that doesn’t work and you’re using an external Bluetooth keyboard, try plugging in a USB keyboard instead. If you’re able to reset the NVRAM successfully with the wired keyboard, you can disconnect it and go back to

 

[AudiHeel]

Apple had me hold down for a full minute when 20 seconds didn't work.. just sayin. Which then fixed my issue.

 

[MikeMcCollister]

Thanks. I'll try those.

Mike