Help--New Powerbook Battery not working!

relenamor

Registered
Hey all,

I am having some problems with my 12" Powerbook G4 (my main computer and my baby!) that are making me freak out. I've had this laptop for almost two years now, and it's treated me very well until quite recently. Of course, this means that I am out of a warranty because I didn't buy the Apple Extended Care at the time I purchased my laptop. Apparently, this also means that I can't receive technical support over the phone anymore unless I want to pay $50. Whatever, that's another issue.

Anyways, ever since the end of summer, I've been having problems with battery power. My battery started lasting less and less, until I couldn't even have my laptop on for 10 minutes without the AC adapter. I finally gave in and bought a new battery yesterday, which I thought would answer my problems. The battery charged beautifully, and I lasted almost 3 hours on the first charge. However, I noticed that one time when I moved my laptop and I couldn't wake it up from sleep. It had turned off! I had to power it back on and when it did reboot it gave me this message saying that my date had been set back to before March 2001, which would cause some of my applications to behave erratically. I went and checked that date and it was fine, and the laptop worked fine until all of a sudden it did it again!

I don't really know exactly what triggers it, but it just randomly shuts off without warning. I'm thinking maybe the battery isn't fitting well or something, but I don't know why that would be since I never had that problem with the old (identical) battery. And then just a few minutes ago, I was having problems getting the battery to charge at all---it seems to be that maybe the battery isn't connecting well somewhere. I don't really know much about that, so I don't know where to begin or what to do.

What can I do? Does anyone have any ideas on what might be going on?

Thanks,
Rita.
 
The first thing I'd do is make sure the contacts for the battery are nice and clean. I'd use lighter fluid, the old fashioned kind (naptha) on a cotton swab or tissue paper and polish up the contacts on the battery and inside the computer.

But if the date is resetting maybe the Pram battery is dead or dying. It's a separate little battery on the inside and not easy for a user to change.
 
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