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gorickey · Apr 3, 2003, 05:06 PM

I have a first generation "ice" Book (crystal white?) that has a dead battery...or at least, it won't last anything longer then 10 minutes. It was never conditioned right to begin with, and so I've always had it plugged in to the wall. Is there any hope in fixing a dead battery like this or should I just bite the bullet and pay the $100+ to get a new one? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

jokell82 · Apr 3, 2003, 09:37 PM

If you bought Applecare, they'll replace it. If not, you'll have to buy a new one...

gorickey · Apr 3, 2003, 10:33 PM

Originally posted by jokell82:
If you bought Applecare, they'll replace it. If not, you'll have to buy a new one...

Okay, thanks. I'm glad I didn't buy $300+ AppleCare for a $100 battery, it's the only thing I've had "gone bad"...

iceaxe23 · Apr 4, 2003, 01:00 AM

maybe if there is a way to discharge the battery...it could just be that the battterys memory is at 10 minutes....I used to use CB type radios in the military and before we charged them we had to discharge them then put them in the charger (whe had a special discharger thing) they should make one for laptop batteries as this is a common problem. I think the ibook shuts off even though there is still juice in your battery. Maybe if you made something that could drain it totaly and then did a fresh charge it could be fixed (I know for a fact that for those japanese airsoft guns they thay do this with the rechargeable batteries. maybe something like this click here I know the simple way is to take two wires and a little light bulb and conect it to the battery and let it drain over night untill compleatly dead
here is one for sale on ebay but you could make it so easy here

I am going to try this too once I start having problems

bartman00 · Apr 4, 2003, 05:13 AM

DO NOT do that to a lith-ion battery! Fully discharging it like that is BAD! The reason you had to do discharge your other battery packs like that is because they are Ni-cad. Li-ion dosn't get the memory affect like ni-cad does and fully draining them will kill them. I used to race RC cars. They use fast discharge ni-cad packs like the one in your picture. They are highly sensitive to not being cycled almost DAILY. If you dont cycle them at least every other day they'll start to develop memory fast. Li-Ion dosn't have this problem, but you can't use a li-ion pack in a RC car because the pack woulden't tolerate being discharged so rapidly(fully charged to full discharge in 5-10min)

Bart