Powerbook G4 battery

S

skoggis

member
Hi

I have an Powerbook G4 400Mhz with 512 Megs RAM and MacOS X 10.2.4.

The problem is that I can only use my powerbook with AC. Computer recognizes the battery, but refuses to run or startup with battery only. The word "portable" really looses it's meaning:(

Battery is also not charging at all. Motherboard has been changed three(!) times by Apple, but it didn't help. I have also tried it with different batteries, doesn't help. Have resetted PMU and PRAM and formatted and reinstalled the whole system. Didn't help...

Do you guys know anything that might help. I'm getting really desperate here:(

I apologise for my bad english;)

Tnx
 
So the mainboard has been exchanged due to this particular problem? Or is it a new problem? In the latter case, I would call AppleCare and ask for a solution.
 
Motherboard has been changed due to this particular problem.

CD/DVD-drive has been changed also because it destroyed a couple of discs.

I don't have any extended warranty, and Apple did those previous "fixes" for free, but it really didn't help. And now the battery is slowly discharging. I'm on 69% now. Any Ideas what's gonna happen when it goes to zero...

I was hoping to find some kind of hardware resetting that I wasn't aware of.

Tnx again:)
 
skoggis, please excuse me should this be too obvious, I'm just trying to be helpful. See the following links:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88077
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86212

In case this won't help:
Even if they already helped you for free, nothing speaks against it that they will do it again, regardless if you have extended warranty or not. Maybe you should visit your Apple Store and show them the effect, it should be easy to demonstrate it. Then I would ask if they could try a spare battery in your PowerBook. If the problem persists it should be obvious that there is a problem.

Apple says that they have resolved some battery issues with OSX 10.2.4. But beware, it incorporates a new problem:
http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29946

To avoid that you should umount the battery prior to installing the 10.2.4 update. I also read that only the 10.2.4 combo update causes this problem, not the incremental update, so you could consider to install the latter.
 
I did check those links the very first time I got the problem. That's not the case:). Neither it is a 10.2.4 related problem. I had the problem prior 10.2. Just found out about this forum and gave it a try...

I have tried different battery and different power adapter, but it doesn't help.

Jaguar sees the battery ok (the icon changes in upper right corner when I take the battery of and put it back again) but it doesn't do anything to it.

It's really great that I get quick responses in this forum:) :)
 
Hi skoggis :)
Welcome

does that happen after 10.2.4 upgrade? that other thread here (and http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30574 as well) show one (other?) issue with the batteries .. in my case, the ibook goes to forced sleep - or it gets switched off without any notice before doing so, when the battery goes to somewhere around 77 - 55 %. And once the charge is around 40 % it tells the battery is 100 % full.

As you already have the 10.2.4, reformatting and updating to 10.2.3 only will likely not solve it - as the battery starts behaving like on the other thread, it behaves like that. (supposing it is that) ...

X-Charge (freeware) could be interesting ... use that while using (as far as you can) the battery - it will show the graphics of the battery behaviour (see the other threads) - a good graph will show a lot. :)
 
Downloaded XBattery...

On the info box:

installed: Yes
Charging: No
Charger: Yes
Battery %: 69
Capacity: 3.067Ah
Charge: 2.117Ah
Voltage: 15.310v
Amperage: -1200

Current battery level is -1.200A. And status: Trickle.
Is that normal?

I had this problem before osX. Rebooting to os9 doesn't do any difference...
 
Originally posted by skoggis
Hi

I have an Powerbook G4 400Mhz with 512 Megs RAM and MacOS X 10.2.4.

The problem is that I can only use my powerbook with AC. Computer recognizes the battery, but refuses to run or startup with battery only. The word "portable" really looses it's meaning:(

Battery is also not charging at all. Motherboard has been changed three(!) times by Apple, but it didn't help. I have also tried it with different batteries, doesn't help. Have resetted PMU and PRAM and formatted and reinstalled the whole system. Didn't help...

Do you guys know anything that might help. I'm getting really desperate here:(

I apologise for my bad english;)

Tnx
Click to expand...

This will sound stupid but I had a similar problem. It didn't recognize the AC nor did it charge SIMPLY BECAUSE the AC adaptor wasn't all the way in. I kept wondering why my battery wasn't charging, then I realized the AC adaptor wasn't tightly in.

Try that. The AC will turn green even if it isn't totally in the computer.

Andre
 
No, it's not that.

I read about that from Apple's site. And believe me, I have checked that propably a thousand times.

And my adapter is that older model which doesn't have any lights.

Tnx anyway:)
 
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