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tramahound · Nov 21, 2003, 04:31 PM

I recently did a clean install of Panther on my tibook 400mhz/30gig/384mb and the battery life is horrendous! I used to get at least 2 hours on a full charge doing my normal thing of surfing the net, checking email via airport and other light things, but now i'll be lucky to get 45 minutes! I tried re-conditioning the battery by running it down all the way and then charging it all the way, and I tried resetting the power management by pressing the small button next to the vga output, but no improvement has been made. I tried searching this forum for others with my problem and didn't really see any. What can I do to fix this? My once mobile laptop is now permanently tethered to my desk, please help!

Scarpa · Nov 21, 2003, 04:51 PM

Does it actually shut down or put itself to sleep in 45 min? My powerbook will signal for me to plug in or go to sleep within an hour, but I can get another hour of use out of it easy. I haven't bothered to recalibrate.

todrain · Nov 21, 2003, 05:29 PM

I don't think that my battery life has changed... if it has, then it's very minimal.

You may want to check you power settings. are they different than before?

tramahound · Nov 22, 2003, 09:15 AM

My settings haven't really changed, but even if I made them more power friendly it would only mean that if it sits around the screen would go dark or go to sleep sooner. If I'm using the computer for the 45 minutes it won't really make a difference will it?
after 45 minutes of use I'll get the running on reserve power warning and soon after that it will go into sleep state. It's always done that when it got low on power, but it used to be after a lot longer use.

cenutrio · Nov 23, 2003, 09:33 PM

I own a TiPB 400 384 MMBB//40 GB 5,400 travelstar. I've been using Panther for 2 weeks. So far, extremely happy. Battery life around 1:45 with power cord settings and about 2:15 when reducing processor speed and screen light.

No complains for an almost 3 years old batttery.

neilw · Nov 24, 2003, 09:45 AM

I'm getting similarly crappy performance out of my battery right now (Ti550) but I don't know if it started when I installed Panther.

From the terminal, run the following command:

Code:
ioreg -l | grep Battery

See what it reports for "Capacity". New batteries are showing capacity of something in the range 3000-5000; I'm now showing a measly 930, and dropping by the day, which means that either my battery died naturally or Panther killed it, or something. Or maybe it was killed by 10.2.8, I dunno.

In any case, I'm off to get a new battery unless someone can help me revive this one (I have also recalibrated the battery and reset the power manager, to no effect.)

tramahound · Nov 24, 2003, 10:22 AM

How much is a new battery anyway? I'm at work so i'll try the terminal capacity test later and report back. even 2:15 wouldn't be as good as mine was before panther though. that's just it, i could understand if it slowly got to this point, but it's been fine up until installing panther. that's why i thought it was to blame and thought there would be tons of topics about the issue on this forum. i was surprised to find none.

neilw · Nov 24, 2003, 11:24 AM

New battery is $130, plus or minus.

My problem is I run on battery very seldom, so I started having battery life issues one day recently, but it could have been something that was lurking there for a while but I never noticed because I was always on AC. Hmmph.

tramahound · Nov 24, 2003, 04:17 PM

well i usually run mine on battery. it's rare that i'd sit at my desk with it. i'm usually watching tv checking email and surfing. it's pretty frustrating to have it die so quicky when it used to run like a champ...