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vvedge · Sep 24, 2003, 01:45 AM

Oy, this again...

Anyway, after I installed 10.2.8 two days ago, my battery estimate have been pretty bad. I was getting 3.5 hours per charge, and now it only says 2 hours.

I'd be more infuriated if that were true though. Looking at the real percentage drops over time, it seems to be still around 3 hours. In fact, it read "2 hours left" for a good 90 minutes before it started going down.

I've tried calibrating the battery (discharging and recharging), and still the same.

I can see why they pulled the update, anyone else?

Scooterboy · Sep 24, 2003, 01:55 AM

Currently "14 minutes estimate on 34%". I'm gonna run it down all the way and recalibrate it.

Interestingly when I checked the Energy Saver it was set to "Highest Performance" when on battery. I can't remember if I set it that way, or if the Update did it.

Scooterboy · Sep 24, 2003, 02:03 AM

Well my last post was about 5 or 6 minutes ago and in that time my battery drained to 0% and the iBook went to sleep. That's 34% gone in 5 minutes!

I'll unplug after it fully charges and check it again. Incidently, I'm on the original battery.

ed phelan · Sep 24, 2003, 01:12 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by vvedge:
[B]Oy, this again...

Anyway, after I installed 10.2.8 two days ago, my battery estimate have been pretty bad. I was getting 3.5 hours per charge, and now it only says 2 hours.

��snip��

I agree. I was getting close to 3.5 hours and after installing 10.2.8 yesterday (23rd) I'm down to around 2 hours. My battery was replaced by Apple (thanks Apple Care) about six months ago and was doing great until I improvidently decided to go with the update.

Scooterboy · Sep 24, 2003, 08:23 PM

Well, I just unplugged the iBook after an overnight charge from empty, and after calculating, the estimate is 23 minutes on a full carge. Wait... now it's 25 minutes...

Either my battery is toast or the PMU is screwed up.

I'll try resetting the PMU next.

Scooterboy · Sep 24, 2003, 08:42 PM

I reset the nvram through open firmware and the iBook battery zeroed out during reboot. The 'book went to sleep, and I had to plug it into AC power to complete the reboot.

[edit]: This was only after 5 minutes on the battery from a full charge.

Next, I'll try resetting the PMU. Before 10.2.8, my iBook was getting around 2 hours on a full charge. It's the original battery.

arnette · Sep 24, 2003, 09:14 PM

I'm having the same problem. I used to have around 3 1/2 hrs of juice in my battery after being charged, now my fully-charged 900mhz 12" is around 2 hrs.

I don't know if this is actual or just the power gauge is messed up, but either way I don't like it. I've been using it mainly on A/C since I installed 10.2.8

And it seems my ibook is running hotter than usual. Most of the time I never notice the heat of the hard drive or even the fan turning on, but for the past day I definitely have. Anyone else a hotter ibook??

orry_main · Sep 24, 2003, 09:43 PM

The consensus seems to be that Apple goofed with the measuring of the battery but that the actual battery remains unaffected. I've been reading a lot of reports that people are getting the same battery time despite what their gages are telling them. This has been my experience as well. Hopefully Apple will be quick with getting out a fix for this, since they've pulled the update, obviously admitting to their goof.

Scooterboy · Sep 25, 2003, 04:42 PM

I've reset the PMU according to instructions from Apple. The battery situation is unchanged. 24 minutes on full charge according to the battery meter. I'll leave the book on until the battery empties to see what the actual time is. I have Energy Saver set to "Automatic".

This does kind of suck, and I certainly will be less trusting of Software Update in the future.
I hope Apple corrects this soon.

Scooterboy · Sep 25, 2003, 05:04 PM

13 minutes! 13 minutes! That's all I can get on a "full charge". Thank you 10.2.8!

It wasn't enough to have Centrinos blowing past us with battery life, now a Desktop PC with a water cooled Athlon gets close (only 13 minutes less than my iBook).

I need my iBook to run on battery. I hope Apple posts the new update soon, and I hope it works. I may try the kext solution if Apple doesn't address this issue and soon.

I've gotten very complacent with Software Update, as it has worked so well, and have bragged to my Windows friends about how reliable Apple Software Updates are. I'm eating crow now I can tell you!

NYCFarmboy · Sep 26, 2003, 09:43 AM

I did the upgrade on my ibook.. and the battery indicator lost about 1/3 of its life..went from just under 3 hours to an hour and a half.

BUT..it actually will run for almost 3 hours.

So I think it might just be a kink in the battery display time?

pknoll · Sep 26, 2003, 03:57 PM

It may not matter - if the reported power level invokes a force-sleep (and it sounds like in some cases that it is), it is irrelevant how much juice is actually left in your battery.

I'm guessing the discharge rate isn't that badly affected, but that the PMU misreporting the remaining charge is causing the run time fluctuations.

(I'm new to Apple hardware, but not to laptops; feel free to disabuse me of my speculative notions. =)

Scooterboy · Sep 26, 2003, 05:27 PM

I have reset the PMU and re-calibrated the battery. From 100% the battery indicator says I have 23 minutes. But actually, the iBook is forced into sleep within 13 minutes. I expected Apple to have a solution posted by now.

I have a full back-up on CD-RW, so I'll go through that to see if I have the old 10.2.6 kext. What a pain! I hope this gets resolved soon. I can borrow my friend's Vaio with Windows XP, but that would be embarassing when I tell her why.

miket3315 · Sep 26, 2003, 09:45 PM

My battery power went down to when I updated. I read somewhere about reinstalling 10.2.6. I found this link and I was wondering if anyone has tried it or done it before. My battery time does seem to be getting better.

Scooterboy · Sep 26, 2003, 11:56 PM

I read that and that's what I am doing tonight. 10.2.6 will feel like an upgrade twice. Just remember if your hd is close to full, you'll need to make room for an archive and install.

vvedge · Sep 27, 2003, 01:23 AM

Originally posted by Scooterboy:
I read that and that's what I am doing tonight. 10.2.6 will feel like an upgrade twice. Just remember if your hd is close to full, you'll need to make room for an archive and install.

It's Apple's responsibility not ours.

If they're not hard at work fixing it, they're nearing on 5 business days since the update was released. That't a lot of time for small businesses depending on these machines to work.

Not to start the whole debate about apple's bug record, but you have to consider how small of a test community they have. The update was probably circulated internally a few days before public release, and the type of machines owned by apple employees aren't as diverse as the actual mac community...

But it's apple for gosh' sake.. they're better than this... (optimism is all I have left, I just reinstalled 3 weeks ago..grr)

Scooterboy · Sep 27, 2003, 09:26 AM

I agree, Apple should have at least kept us informed, and made some sort of statement regarding this. Quietly pulling the update that probably a majority of Jaguar users installed instead of providing some confirmation or work around was not cool. Sure we can peruse Apple Support, but instead of Apple providing the links to the relevent documents that helped (10.2 Archive and Install), it was members at this forum who did. The MacNN community can be really helpful and saved me a lot of aggravation. Apple could have done more here. I hope they address this early next week. As for the 10.3 Upgrade, I think I'll pass until my next hardware upgrade, just to be safe.

SciFrog · Oct 1, 2003, 12:57 PM

Just to clear things up there seem to be two very distinc problems:

1) wrong reporting of time left with real battery life unchanged

2) battery hosed by 10.2.8

The 2) is not new, I had battery hosed by a 10.2.5 upgrade... Apple had a bad batch of batteries but the problem showed up only after.

Anyway my experience is the the real life of these batteries is about one year if you use you laptop unplugged almost daily...

Scooterboy · Oct 2, 2003, 10:30 AM

My battery is surely hosed now. I had 2 hours before the update, and now, I get the low battery warning almost immediately upon unplugging. This was very frustrating yesterday because I needed to use my iBook on battery and it kept shutting down (I was trouble-shooting a cable Internet and Airport Extreme installation. Not fun I can tell you.

It's Thursday now and still no fix from Apple. I'm afraid to buy a new battery now 'cause I don't want it hosed too. Am I safe now with 10.2.6 Archive and Install, or should I do a full re-format first? I don't know if that will help. If the battery firmware was flashed by the 10.2.8 Update, will a new battery be ok now that I'm on 10.2.6?

vvedge · Oct 3, 2003, 05:39 PM

Who's daring enough to get the new 10.2.8 update?

I'm developing a fear of early adoption... so somoene else try it first!

I Me Mine · Oct 4, 2003, 09:12 AM

I just downloaded it (iBook 800)

Gives battery life as 100%=3 hours 5 mins.

Nawus · Oct 4, 2003, 11:38 AM

after installation, my battery time indicator show some improvement but usage is worst then before

vvedge · Oct 4, 2003, 11:43 AM

My battery estimates are actually better than they were before the update. I get the feeling it's overshooting it.

Scooterboy · Oct 4, 2003, 01:41 PM

I am waiting this time. I did install it on my eMac with no problems. But I depend on my iBook and with a new battery and 10.2.6, it's running stable and long. Maybe in a few weeks after lots of reports come in. I already did my part as a software tester.

polendo · Oct 6, 2003, 09:28 AM

My battery still indicates a wrong reading after the new 500k patch. It goes to sleep at 80%, and indicates 20:12 remaining. It's is totally screwed up.

regards

polendo · Oct 12, 2003, 08:36 PM

Originally posted by polendo:
My battery still indicates a wrong reading after the new 500k patch. It goes to sleep at 80%, and indicates 20:12 remaining. It's is totally screwed up.

regards

Well boys, I think it is official.. the first 10.2.8 screwed up my battery.

I did a fresh install to 10.2.1 and the battery meter is still dead wrong. Bad day today.

lewdvig · Oct 12, 2003, 11:36 PM

Is there any way to fix this?

I have the same problem. 100% charged, used to last 3 hours, now goes to sleep after it drops below 90%. Won't wake without AC power. Then shows battery almost fully drained.

Whats this about a battery firmware?

ccsccs7 · Oct 13, 2003, 03:46 AM

I had an odd problem the other day. My battery wasn't being recognized (my iBook still thought that it was on AC power and the battery as having a 0% charge). The menus were very slow as well. I tried to logout, but it didn't quite make it--I had to do a forced restart. Things seem fine now.

Scooterboy · Oct 14, 2003, 02:16 AM

I decided to try the new 10.2.8 Update over my archive and install of 10.2.6 and my battery problems are nowhere to be seen. I replaced the old battery with a new one, and in 10.2.6 I was getting an estimated 3.5 hours, with actual times of around 4 hours or less. I'm now on 10.2.8, and I've been online on Airport for around a half hour, and my estimated time now reads 5:24 hours. It's night so I have the screen set to lowest brightness, and the energy saver set to "longest battery life".
I can't stay up so late to see how long it takes to run down, but when I do I'll post the results.