Brand new 15" G4 powerbook refuses to charge

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raulduke

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Yesterday I went and got my first mac, a 15" powerbook and I love it! It's the latest generation, with a 1.67ghz laptop, superdrive, and a gig of memory. I would love it even more if the battery would actually hold a charge! I know the ring on the power plug is supposed to glow orange untill it's charged- when it changes to green. For some reason, my laptop went from orange to green during the inital laptop setup process; in about.... oh two minutes out of the box. The power meter says it's going to take 171 hours to fully charge the battery. :mad:

The only "modification" I made to the machine was to install a 512mb memory module before I turned it on. Then I plugged it in and followed all the instructions and it COMPLETELY set itself up- which may I add shocked the shit out of me coming from a windows environment.

I left the laptop on for about an hour or so while I used it, and it did not charge at all- the ring never went to orange. I actually discovered the problem when I unplugged the laptop when I mistakenly thought it might have a charge. I plugged it back in and the light was STILL green.

So last night before I went to bed I powered it off, plugged it in and left it. The PB charged for approximately 10-12 hours and the battery recieved ZERO additional charge in this time. Now I'm really concerned. So I downloaded a program called "coconutbattery" to see the actual numbers the battery was giving back to the laptop itself. In about an hour and a half of use this morning (including time spent typing this) The battery has charged 25mAh out of 4647mAh!!! That's not right! First off, the battery is charging rediculously slow. Secondly and the most concerning part of my problem, the battery will not charge if the laptop is not powered on!

I've read about the re-callibration process, but that involves letting the battery use up it's existing charge- which I have none of. There's not enough charge for me to callibrate the battery, and without doing that it charges at like 1% a day. Catch 22 anyone?

So I don't know whether there's something software I can use to "re-initialize" the battery, whether I should call the apple support line first, or just take the powerbook back to the store I bought it from. Maybe I'm being a little selfish, but if I spend $2000 on a computer I expect it to work without me having to jump through flaming hoops and sacrifice a virgin. Thanks in advance for any help guys!
 
Sorry, unfortuanately it sounds like you have a dud battery. Return it as soon as possible for a replacement.
 
Don't be sorry, you answered my question! I'm not looking forward to going back to the mall the day after thanksgiving, but at least I'll get a new battery! Should I bring the whole box that the laptop came in, or do you think it's enough to bring the powerbook and a power adapter?
 
Or where are you? You could call Apple, and mention all you have done.
They can evaluate if it will be enough to get a new battery to you, or what would be the best alternative.

There is a small change that resetting the PRAM and PMU and recalibrating the battery could fix it - you could give it a try anyway. Then at least you can tell you tried, and it had no effect if that would be the case.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449
 
Actually, I've read that Apple has acknowledged that some of the new PowerBooks have this problem, and I'd guess you've got one of those. So bringing it back is the right thing to do...
 
fryke said:
Actually, I've read that Apple has acknowledged that some of the new PowerBooks have this problem, and I'd guess you've got one of those. So bringing it back is the right thing to do...
Click to expand...

Wow that's crazy. I'd love to be able to read this and maybe bring a copy of this to the apple store to have some ammo to argue against them with. I'm going to try those two links (resetting pram/nvram and the pmu) because I'd much rather fix this here than have to deal with the mass of humanity at the mall tommorow.

EDIT: Neither of those options worked. I have to go to apple tommorow :(
 
raulduke said:
Wow that's crazy. I'd love to be able to read this and maybe bring a copy of this to the apple store to have some ammo to argue against them with. I'm going to try those two links (resetting pram/nvram and the pmu) because I'd much rather fix this here than have to deal with the mass of humanity at the mall tommorow.

EDIT: Neither of those options worked. I have to go to apple tommorow :(
Click to expand...
You won't have to argue with Apple. If you take it into the store where you bought it and tell them the problem, they'll fix it. For 15 days you have the option of returning the machine for a refund (minus a $99 restock fee, I believe), so they are going to try and make you happy. I had a dead pixel after about a week. Just one, but dead all the same. They completely replaced the machine and gave me a new one, with a new purchase date too. If you don't get anywhere with one of the Geniuses, or someone working the floor, ask to speak to the manager. I doubt you will have any issues though.
 
I'm experiencing exactly the same problem on my powerbook G4 1.67. I opened it yesterday and have 0 charge. How did you resolve this issue. I ask because I live in Honduras and bought it online through amazon.com. If it isn't a hardware problem, I would hate to have to send it back and incurr all the shipping charges.
 
>>I had a dead pixel after about a week. Just one, but dead all the same. They completely replaced the machine and gave me a new one, with a new purchase date too.<<

Is this the general policy of Apple. January this year I bought a 12" iBook for my girlfriend in Bangkok. When we got home I noticed a dead pixel after a few hours playing with the thing. Next day we went back and the manager of the store called Apple. Result: Apple told him they only consider replacing laptops when having at least 3 (or 5 I don't exactly remember) dead pixels.
 
Apple normally won't replace a screen or machine because of one dead pixel. Consider yourself lucky.
 
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