Random Shutdown

I've been a Mac user for about a year and I've recently been having a problem that I'm hoping someone can provide some feedback on. I have a MacBook Pro version 10.4.11 and it works flawlessly while connected to a power source, however, while running on battery it randomly shuts off when the battery gets to around 80%. After this occurs, it will not restart until connected to the power source. There was a recent battery update and I'm wondering if this has anything to do with it but I've been unable to find information on this problem. Has anyone else experienced this and if so your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for you time and help.

It could be that your battery is not holding charge anymore -- in which case you can't rely on the batter meter readings.

I've only switched to Macs recently myself so I can't really say if this is true for MB/MBP batteries, but when I had my first laptop a loong looong time ago, I didn't really know how to take care of the battery (you should be almost discharging it before you charge it to full as opposed to having it plugged in all the time), but battery life on that thing went from good to ok to holds-no-charge in about a year. It wouldn't even hold enough charge to fully boot up XP.

My suggestion now is to borrow a friend's MBP battery and try it on yours to see if what I mentioned above might be the case.

Welcome to Mac-Forums, papgibbs. A year-old MacBook Pro should not be having problems with its battery as you describe it.

Did you try Resetting MacBook and MacBook Pro System Management Controller (SMC)?

Also have you kept your OS software up-to-date? Just asking because there was a battery update released a few months ago: MacBook and MacBook Pro Battery Update 1.2.

And lastly... There has been a battery recall issued for MacBook Pros so you might want to compare your serial number with the recalled units:
15-inch MacBook Pro - Battery Exchange Program.

Good luck! Let us know how this goes.

Even if your serial number is not on the recall list, they will replace it if it is under 300 cycles and less than 2 years old. I just got back from the Apple store and they replaced my battery no questions asked.

The same thing has been happening to my macbook. It's been happening for almost two weeks now. My computer screen just goes black and won't tur back on until I plug in the power adapter. Before this probably started when my battery started to run low, a little box popped up and said that the computer will go to sleep because the battery was low, but this does not happen anymore.