MacBook Battery continually charging, stays at 97%

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I had promised, as I always do, after updating Big Sur to 11.6, that if I found something unusual happening, I was going to report back here. Now something  unusual has happened, a couple of weeks after updating to 11.6, a something that might or might not have to do with this update.

Normally, I keep the Mac hooked to the mains via a charger. I have two Apple chargers, one in the living room, where I also use the Mac when working in my “Home Office”, the other in my bedroom.

Also normally, this keeps the battery fully charged and the small tell-tale light on the plug glowing green. Tonight I noticed that it had been glowing  amber, meaning that it was charging, at least for an hour, when it usually it will charge to 100% in minutes and then the light will turn green. Also, looking in the System Preferences/Battery panel,  I could see that it showed the battery was charged at 97%, therefore still charging, as the amber glowing telltale confirmed this.

I  shutdown the Mac, left it still connected to the charger, and one hour later it was still charging (light still glowing amber) and when I turned the Mac on once more and logged into it, starting a new session, the battery panel informed me that the charge was, still, 97%.

I did this using first the living room’s charger, then the bedroom’s: same result.

Power nap has never been enabled in all of the more than 4.5 years I have had the Mac, a MacBook Pro ca. mid 2015, that I bought new in 2017, one year before it went out of production at Apple.

Another strange thing: the information available by clicking on the ? at the lower right corner of the battery panel says that there should be several settings in the battery panel that are not, in fact there, including a check of the battery health. You can see what is there and, therefore, what is not, in the attached picture.

Any practical suggestions as to what might be the cause of this anomaly, I will really appreciate a lot.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I have no experience with Big Sur and I’ve never noticed the behaviour you describe on my Air, but I have observed it on a handful of laptops that run either Win 7, Win 8.1, or Linux Mint.

My ‘daily driver’ Dell Inspiron that dual boots Win 7 and Mint will display a battery charging light roughly once a month even though the computer is plugged in 24/7. When the light goes on the battery status typically says it’s somewhere between 95 and 98% charged and in the process of charging. Usually in an hour or two the charging light goes off and the reading is 100%.

I think this is part of normal battery charging/maintenance. The battery is allowed to discharge slightly and then fully recharged in an attempt, I think, to avoid “memory effects” in the Li ion battery. There has been some discussion of this in forums here at AskWoody.

Long story short: I doubt you have anything to be concerned about.

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DrBonzo: The problem is not that the battery will start charging and do so for a while, until the light turns green again, because that is normal, but that it has been charging non-stop, continuously, for several hours, going by the light permanently staying amber, with the reading in the battery panel permanently saying it is at 97%  of full charge.

Finally, the Activity Monitor has shown the total CPU as 98 – 99% free every time I have looked, including just now.

Also, if someone running Big Sur 11.6 could do me a favor and look in the battery panel: do you see the same things as in mine (attached picture in my previous comment) or do you see these plus others, one of them reading, for example, “battery health”?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Could be your battery is starting to wear out. I have a 12 year old HP laptop that is constantly plugged in that never gets above 71%. It started doing that a few years ago. I checked the battery voltage and it reads about 30% less than the rated voltage. It still runs fine whether or not it’s plugged in to the charger, and in fact runs fine when plugged into the charger with the battery removed.

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DrBonzo, I hope is not the battery, but that is what I really fear, because in Mac laptops the battery is glued inside the box and cannot be removed and changed just like that. So, at the moment, I am holding to the hope, in the first place, that it is  a software issue. My second place hope is that, as in your case, it is the battery, but it still has a few more years of life ahead of it even with this continuously-charging-but-not-really issue it has appeared just now.

Having to get another computer, now that Macs are evolving rapidly into something perhaps not very compatible with my stuff in the Mac now, so moving to a new machine with a different chipset and geared, inevitably, to software designed to run on this chipset, while the old software is still supported, but with not all that much enthusiasm, perhaps the same also being true of several of the file formats I use … Well …

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Have you check your battery health ?

“Your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 1000 complete charge cycles.”

Determine battery cycle count for Mac notebooks

1 user thanked author for this post.

DrBonzo

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I cannot check the battery health because the way this is supposed to be done is not available to me in Big Sur.

Please look at a previously posted comment of mine, a few up from here, from last night, where I have included a picture of the options in the Battery panel. It is supposed, according to those who consider themselves well informed, but apparently are not, to have several things not there, including a “battery health” button to do just that.

And that butonesless, my friends, is definitely on Big Sur.

As to what is my computer like? It is 4.75 years old, since I bought fresh from Apple. The rest you can read in the signature panel below this message.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Did you get that picture from clicking on the battery icon in the upper right of the screen (what I call the menu bar- maybe Apple does too)?

OR, did you get it by going to Apple icon in upper left and then to System Information, Hardware, Battery, where at least in Catalina, you get something that looks completely different than what you posted above, and you’ll get all sorts of info like voltage, current, general battery condition, number of charge cycles and a bunch more, mostly in tabular format. The link alex5723 posted above “Determine Battery Cycle Count for Mac Notebooks” gives the complete instructions.

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DrBonzo: I did it both ways, with the same result.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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[Bob99]

But, the page at the last link posted by Alex says to:

1. Hold the Option key and click the Apple  menu. Choose System Information.

The only thing that doesn’t show up in the quote above is the actual “Apple” symbol that’s in between the words “Apple” and “menu” on the original page I quoted from.

From what’s shown on that page, once you select System Information from the choices that are supposed to show up, you’ll then see a laundry list of items listed under the word “Hardware”, one of them being “Power” which you then click to get your battery’s current status. If that doesn’t happen, then it’s time to ask Apple just what’s going on and just how you’re supposed to check the full technical details of your battery’s current health, not just pay attention to a green-colored icon.

It sounds as if you have possibly not tried that exact step referred to above by Apple, of holding down the Option key while clicking the Apple menu item on the screen.

I DO believe you, though, that you’ve tried it the way you’ve described and the way DrB describes. BUT, neither sounds like the way Apple describes it.

No offense of any kind intended towards anyone, and my sincere, honest apologies if any has been taken.

Oscar, for a bit of self education (since I’m a Windows user not a Mac user), I’m going to stop by a nearby Apple store and see for myself on one of their MacBooks if the sequence described on their own support page works as shown or if it brings up the screen in your earlier post. If it works as shown on their support page, I’ll then ask which version of their OS is installed on the machine. Either way, I’ll report back here in this thread with the results.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Bob99. Reason: Added final paragraph

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Bob99: Thank yo so very much!

I have looked into “Power” following the instructions you have outlined, and the relevant part of what I get about the Mac’s battery and its current status reads:

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Manufacturer: SMP
Device Name: bq20z451
Pack Lot Code: 0
PCB Lot Code: 0
Firmware Version: 702
Hardware Revision: 1
Cell Revision: 3241

Charge Information:
Fully Charged: No
Charging: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 7042
State of Charge (%): 97
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 98
Condition: Normal

Notice that, although the charger is connected and the light on the jack is glowing amber continuously, meaning it is “charging” all the time, the system state shows the battery is at 97% of full charge (as now, apparently it is all the time) and “not charging.” That might be true, but if it is not charging, while I have had the Mac up and running for several hours already, then it ought to be discharging. And yet, the charge remains constant, according to the two indicators I have found so far: the one using your suggestion and from the Battery panel.

As I already explained, I have the same situation using either of my two Apple chargers, so I doubt this is the problem with the light being amber because the charger is malfunctioning, as it is so with both, whichever I use.

So this does not seem to make sense. Because something is wrong somewhere.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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[Bob99]

I’m back from the Apple Store expedition and getting some of the highest priced gasoline in the U.S. due to the region I live in.

GREAT to hear that you were finally able to access the system info, Oscar!

On my expedition, I did notice a difference in the menu if you just clicked the Apple versus clicking it while holding down the Options key. And that difference is that just clicking on the Apple produces a menu whose first choice is the “About” item, whereas clicking the Apple with the Options button held down produces a menu with “System Information” for its first choice. This display unit had Big Sur on it when I asked a store employee “Which version of the OS is on the Macbook Pro over here?”

Just for comparison, the unit on display in the store already had a battery cycle count of 34! I’ll admit that, although the display was a 16″ display, some of the data on the Power info page was hard to read without glasses. However, I knew to look for the number of cycles so I did and found it had 34 listed as the number of cycles.

Oscar, as far as your individual unit goes, after reading your entire post, I wonder if, while plugged in with the unit in active use, the charger only supplies enough current to run the unit but not simultaneously charge the battery for some reason. Perhaps there have been issues with chargers overheating and so Apple decided to change the power profile within the OS to eliminate charging the battery with the unit in active use if it’s over a certain amount of charge already.

Or, perhaps they may have been taking certain other things into consideration as well that have recently been presented or discussed in other threads here on AskWoody, such as with the unit in active use only charging the battery up to 80%, and not charging it unless its charge drops to 40% while in active use to help reduce the number of charging cycles it experiences.

Just a couple of thoughts of why you’re seeing what you see with your battery’s charge.

To test this theory, try using the Macbook on battery until the charge level drops to just below 40%, like, say, 39% or 38%, and then plug in the charger to see what happens after a bit. If the battery doesn’t start charging, open up a new thread about the problem and hopefully someone will be able to help.

BTW, I think it’s fantastic that your battery only has 98 cycles on it after 4½ (or perhaps 5½ since we’re in 2021) years of use, especially since the store’s fairly new (or so I would like to think) unit had 34 cycles on it.

EDIT: One final thing: Perhaps the amber light on the Macbook has a dual purpose: one to indicate that the battery is charging if you’re not using it and it’s turned off, two to indicate that the unit is on AC power if it’s in active use, no matter if the battery is charging or not.

R/

Bob99

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Bob99.

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Hi:

I have been sending spam email to spam@uce.gov  and its coming back mailer demon.  Is there a new email address to forward spam?

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No:

To report deceptive or suspicious spam to the Federal Trade Commission, forward it to spam@uce.gov.

https://www.ftc.net/faqs/reporting-spam/

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.1778 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

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@bob99 – NOI. I was a bit loose with my directions. Should have put “Power” just before Battery

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Bob99 : Your suggestions are plausible, and I thank you for taking the trouble to investigate this further going to the Apple store.

In my case the situation I have been writing about never happened before in all the time I have been using this computer: If the charge was low, while connected to the charger it has always charged up to 100%, with the light in the charger then going from amber to green; it did not stop charging at less than 100% with the light remaining in amber. And this anomaly started happening just today, without my having installed any system or any application’s update in the computer for more than two weeks.

Now I am discharging the battery with the charger disconnected, until it gets down to 70%, when I am going to connect to the charger again and see if: (a) it starts to charge at all, and (b) if it goes only as high as 97%, as previously, or if not there, where it does stop charging.

If it charges back to 97% or even higher, then I am going to run the battery down to 40%, as you mentioned, then connect the computer to the charger again, and see how that goes.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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As I explained in my previous comment that was going to do, I first discharged the battery until went down to 69% (70% was the plan, so close enough) and then let it recharge, connecting the charger back to the computer.

This time it went back to 100% in about 15 minutes and the charger light went from amber (charging) back to green (fully charged).

So things seem to be back to normal, and if this happens again I’ll know what to try to do first to see if I can solve the problem.

Although I hope this does not happen again for, at the very least, never again.

But still this does not explain why all those options that are supposed to be available in the Battery panel are, in fact, not available, at least in my Mac (see picture appended to a previous comment of mine in this thread.) The macOS version is 11.6. What Mac model, etc., see my signature panel below this (and every) comment of mine.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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To Bob99, DrBonzo, Alex and Anonymous, my thanks for your helpful observations.

For the time being a sort of empirical patch for this problem has been found: discharging the Mac’s battery and then letting it recharge at its own pace. Although I do not think this is completely resolved, as it is recurring at the moment, with the amber light on and the battery at 98% but not charging according to the Mac’s own indicators. If it gets worse, or the patch no longer works, then I’ll be back to describe what is happening, in case by then there might be some better ideas for solving it permanently, assuming this is possible.

So thanks again and I hope you never have this unsettling problem as well.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Just a casual observation….
The battery can still be replaced by the Apple Store people, since the laptop is not considered “obsolete” in Apple terms. Batteries do not last forever.

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PK, Thanks. I am not sure the problem is the battery. I would need to know more about this before I start replacing parts. And at 4.75 years of age, with 98 cycles on it, this looks rather early for a battery replacement, or even for it not fully charging anymore — the latter being something, I believe, that is expected to happen after 1,000 cycles, according to Apple, as I seem to recall reading somewhere. Of course, while this may be unlikely, is not impossible, especially with my kind of luck …

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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As an observation based on something that came to mind some hours ago: it is possible that the problem is not with the battery, by with the mechanism, in hardware and, or software, that opens the gates, so to speak, for external power to come in and recharge the battery. Going with this, the mechanism gets stuck when the battery is only slightly discharged and, while signaling with the amber light that, in consequence the battery should be charging, it is not actually letting this happen, it is not opening the gates. Only when the level of discharge is large enough will this happen. This has not been the case until two days ago, and I have not updated the software in weeks, so there is now either a new and probably small permanent malfunction I can live with, or there is now one in progress towards becoming a serious problem.

Whether this is the case or not, I might find out eventually. Again, if anyone that reads this has a better idea of what is going on, I’ll be very interested to know about it.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I received some advice on something to try by someone I know: to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) that, among other things, takes care of the charging of the battery (as I understand it). The instructions for resetting the SMC are here, with different instructions for different Mac models:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

I did as it says there in my MacBook Pro ca. mid-2015, and it seems to have fixed the problem.

If something new comes up, I’ll be back to let those who might want to know about this, know about this.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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