Macbook Pro shuts down when power cord attached

Hello,

I have searched the forums and found similar problems but none that were actually the same, so I am here to ask for help.

I have noticed after much observation two things:

1. Power cord not plugged in:
-If I don't close the lid, it goes in to screen saver mode and sleep like it should. I move the mouse and it wakes up like it should and I can log in with my password.
-If I close the lid, it goes to sleep as it should. One of two things happen when I wake it up: 1. When I wake it up, it goes to my sign in screen and I log in like it should. 2. When I wake it up, it lets me log in, but then a black screen happens at which I cannot do anything for about 30 seconds. Then, it lets me log in again for a second time but it takes a longer time to load all of my programs that were open, almost as if it half way restarted.

2. Power cord plugged in:
-If I don't close the lid, it goes in to screen saver mode and sleep like it should. I move the mouse and it wakes up like it should and I can log in with my password.
-If I close the lid, it goes to sleep as it should. When I open the lid the screen is black, but the little sleep indicator light on the right front of the computer is still going. I move the mouse around, nothing. I hit space bar, nothing. I tap power button and finally my log in screen pops up. I type in my password and it logs out and goes to a gray screen with a progress bar across it and above that is my profile picture. This happens once or twice and finally I can log in once again. Then, the computer pulls up a lot of "autosaved" files that I had open and my chrome browser will have double the tabs open that were "autorecovered."

Any advice on why this happens when power cord attached and I close my lid?


Thanks,

RJ

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Two things you should do before anything else:

1. Reset the PRAM-NVRAM.

2. Reset the SMC.

Let us know if that helps.

Start with resetting the SMC and PRAM like said above. If that does not work, backup and restore OS X, from there I would go with a battery.

Thanks everyone for the quick replies. I will back up again tonight (I do this every weekend) and try to do these tomorrow and report back with how it works.

OK. So I did those two things, in that order. When I tried to reset the PRAM, I followed those instructions. Instead of restarting, it reinstalled Yosemite. It took about 40 minutes to do everything. When it restarted, it did what it did before, went to a gray screen that I had to logon to, and a status bar appeared and it took ~5 minutes to log in. When it logged in, it was as usual. The only difference is: I did not have to log in a second time (usually this screen is a background of my desktop wallpaper with a place to enter my password). This was not here. It logged in without this step.

So, I tried step #2, reset the SMC. I did this as instructed, but no change. Still as above with one log in screen that is gray. I will try to upload a photo to demonstrate as an attachment. Should I just erase the entire computer and reinstall everything? I used time machine to just back it up. Anything else?

Thanks everyone.

I don't think erasing everything and starting over is going to help. It sounds like you have a hardware problem of sorts. Did you check the condition of your battery as was suggested in another reply? Sometimes a bad battery can cause unusual symptoms to occur. Also it appears you did not properly reset the PRAM if the machine wound up reinstalling Yosemite. If your battery checks out OK, the next step would be to take it to an Apple genius bar and let them run diagnostics on it. The diagnostics are free provided you take it to an Apple store genius. An authorized Apple dealer will charge for the diagnostics.

Thanks. How do I check the status of the battery? I bought this computer in December of 2014 and it has been doing this since around February or March. I would hope the battery wouldn't be an issue, but weirder things have happened, I suppose.

I will try the PRAM again and the battery when/if I find out how. If that doesn't work, I will deal with the dreaded "geniuses" if it is a hardware problem that needs fixed.

Your computer is too new to have battery problems since it's a late 2014 model. And because it's the kind of battery that is not user serviceable, Apple would have to check it and replace it if it is defective. It's definitely time to take it to the genius bar. Your machine is under warranty so all repairs should be covered including a battery replacement if necessary. Don't fool with it any more, take it on in to Apple.

Thanks. I have an appointment on Tuesday night. I appreciate all of the advice.

Great, be sure to let us know how it went.

OK. So the "Geniuses" are not really geniuses. They just send it out to Apple. They ran diagnostics on it and decided it needed a new logic board and display. These were replaced under warranty. After I got home, I used the computer without any major problems. Plugged it in, closed the lid. The next morning, I opened the lid and it restarted itself, just as before. Also, it is ridiculously slow. There are major pauses when doing things such as opening apps, Toggling between tabs on google chrome or safari, etc.

I timed the boot up from off until the screen for log in occurs. It was 56 seconds with a 2.9 ghz i7 and 8 gb ram.

Good news: Apple honored their warranty and repaired the computer fairly quickly (Sent in on a Wednesday, returned following Tuesday).

Bad news: Still having problems with an 8 month old macbook pro.

Maybe they should just replace the whole computer.

I haven't seen it mentioned but have you tried starting up from the restore partition?
Boot it up holding the Command and R keys, open Disk Utility from the window that appears and run Repair Disk.