ibook G4 has bizarre symptoms

[Caprili]

Hi there,

I just found your site in the midst of trying to find info online to explain what is going wrong with my ibook, and how I may be able to fix it.

The machine is an ibook G4, 10.4.11. It is about three and half years since I've been using it (bought it new).

The issues are in two parts:

1. The computer has been crashing when unplugged at battery level 35%. Last night it made a jump to crash at 50% charge. I checked the time, rather than the percentage, in the menu bar at one point and it gave me something like 24 minutes to work on a battery 85% charged. The crash *always* resets the date and time. This has been going on for about a month or so. I can't find any crash specifics on the system log.

2. Just a few days ago, both preview app and mail app stopped working at the same time. I can't get either to open - from the dock, from the application folder, from clicking a document - the icon just bounces once or flashes and then doesn't respond. The system log simply states that the application crashed, like this:
Apr 27 17:13:46 localhost crashdump[132]: crash report written to: /Users/lunarcanoe/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Mail.crash.log

I have tried checking and repairing the HD through safe boot, and fsck. Everything I do turns up the message that the HD appears to be okay.

I have tried dumping preview, and its associated plist, and then reloading it - that did nothing.

I tried removing the most recent huge emails from the mail folders. This also didn't change a thing.

I am out of ideas for the moment and could really use some pointers - I am by no means knowledgible about computers, but what I know is mostly by self-motivated research and I am not afraid to follow a complicated sequence on my own if that's what it takes. I do have access to another ibook (I have toyed with the idea of running disk utility with the firewire cable - but not sure yet if that is a good or worthwhile idea) - and I have the important files backed up.

Thanks for taking the time to check into this for me.

Jaige