M1 MacBook Pro Won't Start Without Power Cycling

Hello! A few years ago I purchased an M1 MacBook Pro with more or less top-of-the-line specs. Recently, it started acting funny when turning on. It would:


  1. Completely shut down after a period of non-use (or if it was closed at all), which was atypical.
  2. When I went to power on the laptop, I would get the startup-synth-chord sound and the apple logo would appear with the bar below it. It would then load to about 1/5 of the full bar's width then the screen would go completely black.
  3. IF I began charging the MacBook after this happened, the screen would turn on instantly to my lock screen. The background would move as it normally would, and the cursor in the password box would blink, so I know it wasn't outright frozen. This would be it though, I couldn't type in my password, nor could I use the mouse pad to move the cursor or click. The mouse pad wouldn't "respond" via the haptic click that it does normally.
  4. I would then have to hold the power button to shut it down then turn it back on again in hopes of it working on the next power up. If I didn't plug the charger in, then I would still do all of this just without ever seeing the lock screen.


This has persisted as described above, but with every time it happens I have to do more and more power cycles before it actually powers into a usable state. Just before typing this I had to continually turn it on then off and back on again for almost 25 minutes.


Due to the nature of this issue, I cannot boot into safe mode while it is broken since the keyboard and mouse are entirely unresponsive in these states.


I have so far wiped clean the SSD, reinstalled MacOS, updated to Tahoe, and run first aid in the startup utility on every partition of my drive twice.


I am at a loss as to what to do, and I don't want to shell out for a new MacBook since it operates perfectly once the lock screen loads in operational. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 26.1

Posted on Nov 13, 2025 12:57 PM

Reply
1 reply

Nov 13, 2025 2:30 PM in response to 1dogwood1

Hi,

I think you MacBook Pro has hardware related trouble, you should try to run Apple Diagnostics if it reports anything errors.

Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac – Apple Support (AU)


If it reports something error, you'd better take your MacBook Pro to your local retail AppleStore, Genius Bar or Apple Authorized Service Provider to check your MacBook Pro there by tech staffs.

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

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M1 MacBook Pro Won't Start Without Power Cycling

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