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wertwert · Dec 6, 2003, 09:28 AM

Well i just got my iBook G4 a week ago and calibrated it exactly as Apple told me too and now i only get 3 hours of battery life on reduced processor mode, 4 bars brightness and half volume while running iTunes and Safari.

I used to get close to four hours on my iBook G3 800mhz and was looking forward to much longer uptime on my ibook G4. So i called Apple Singapore and tell them about my problem, who then give me a support number and get me to go down to an apple reseller who also does support for apple computers. When i explain my problem to them the !$!@%@^ salesman tells me that the battery life i'm getting is normal and he says that he usually tells customers to only expect one to two hours of battery life so he won't service my ibook. I mean like WTF?? I switched because of the long batt life of the ibooks, if not i would have gone for the centrino thinkpads! And one to two hours normal on reduced mode?! What about highest performance then? Half a friggin hour?!!

I'm currently slow draining the ibook now..i have reset the pram and pmu and still no change..hope slow drain helps.

The capacity of my ibook batt is 4601 so my battery isn't dead..i think? Can anybody help me with this batt problem? Please?? Haiz..

Snowster · Dec 6, 2003, 02:16 PM

I can't really tell you what the problem here is, but the quoted 1 to 2 hours battery life is not acceptable. I get well over 2 hours with an iBook 500 which is over two years old.

However I will post a follow up later next week when I receive my iBook G4 (800Mhz) and will report my experiences in battery life.

Also I would call Apple directly again if I were you and tell them about your bad retail experience. If the advertised specs say that battery life is ~5 hours then it should give you at least 3 hours in normal use.

-Snowster

deathvole · Dec 6, 2003, 04:59 PM

Running iTunes and Safari.... iTunes is spinning the drive the entire time. Maybe the newer drives devour more power. Are you using the "Maximize Battery Life" setting, or just "Reduced Processor" custom setting?

I get 4+ hours of battery life on my 800Mhz G4 iBook when I'm mainly editing text/source code/etc, building projects in Xcode and similar. (Airport Extreme off.) When I activate Aiport Extreme and/or run iTunes in the background however, that drops down to around 3 hours. Fire up UT and it's all over. ;-)

How much RAM do you have in it? More RAM can lower the drive hits for repeatedly used data (OS X does that automagically, right folks?), but doesn't help when your playing your library o' tunes.

Cheers,

-DV

wertwert · Dec 6, 2003, 09:14 PM

i'm on maximise battery life mode, and i'm using 640mb of ram...

the thing is apple singapore is of no help to me as they'll tell me to go to their resellers again, who are obviously of no help.

sniffer · 10:06 PM

I would not have given up on this. Have you talked to Apple support directly about the response from the reseller? Perhaps they can help you. Anyway, check if there isn't any stuck application running in the background hogging at 100% cpu, as that could drain the battery. Open terminal and type "top -u" and push enter. Press "q" to end top.
I hope you'll get the support you deserve.

wertwert · Dec 6, 2003, 10:33 PM

hmm..thanks guys

tried top..itunes shows only 7% cpu utilisation, there's nothing else being run.

Would reinstalling panther help?

dracoleb · Dec 7, 2003, 03:02 AM

Try going into terminal and typing ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInf
or just copy paste it. Post the results here, this will tell you the capacity of the battery, for example mine says
"IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=4573,"Amperage"=952,"Current"=3000,"V oltage"=11377,"Flags"=4})

"Capacity" is the number you want to look as as the others may vary. See how it compares to mine.

wertwert · Dec 7, 2003, 04:05 AM

i got 4601 as i said in the first post, but after the slow drain i got 4646 so i find it weird that i'm still getting the same battery life

"IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=4646,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=4630," Voltage"=12563,"Flags"$

edit: added battery info

calm · Dec 7, 2003, 10:53 AM

I get okay performance from my iBook g4, sometimes I get an est. of 7 hours (but thats when running just preview reading long pdfs :-) ), try running the computer with out iTunes, does the est. go up?

Sorry you are not too happy :-(

wertwert · Dec 7, 2003, 11:08 AM

haha..hey it's not the ibook i'm unhappy about, it's just the level of support mac users seem to get here. It feels kinda crappy when you read about people getting new batteries and support easily without the service tech telling you shite stuff about your hardware when they obviously know nuts about it.

Well i reinstalled panther and now i get around an estimated four hours of batt life, livable though not what i expected from my ibook G4 considering the longer batt life i got from my ibook G3.

Think i'll try calling apple again on monday and complaining about the idiot at their apple centre and see whether they can do anything about my battery life.

calm · Dec 7, 2003, 12:44 PM

Good Luck :-)

bleee · Dec 7, 2003, 01:48 PM

Are you relying on Apple's power gauge to tell you how much time you have or actually timing it? I find that the power gauge is very inaccurate, with in 5 minutes my gauge has reported 3 different results 3:40, 4:00, 4:02, and 3:59 I've reset my PMU twice since. My battery is less than 2 months old because I just got it replaced, for the most part I am satisfied with the battery life of my iBook but again my battery is less than 2 months old.

Here's my battery info

"IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=4480,"Amperage"=1035,"Current"=4096," Voltage"=12019,"Flags"=4})

Oh and if you are using iTunes it really drains the juice quickly because of the HD spinning/decoding of audio files.

ccsccs7 · Dec 7, 2003, 02:04 PM

Originally posted by bleee:
...
Oh and if you are using iTunes it really drains the juice quickly because of the HD spinning/decoding of audio files.

I'd think the visualizer would be a bit draining too (if used), especially with the G4. The G4 altivec unit might be more in use which could be resulting in more battery usage (or just the fact that the G4 plain uses more power anyway).

sniffer · 06:05 PM

Bought my battery this fall.

"IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=4043,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=3955," Voltage"=12494,"Flags"=838860805})

What does it mean? Less means more? I had five hours life spam just surfing with full brightness as my record a bit earlier. Haven't had my iBook off the cord for some weeks now. Is my number good or bad??

wertwert · Dec 7, 2003, 08:08 PM

argh sniffer you lucky bastard haha..

Well when i use itunes it's usually in the background without the visualiser turned on.

dracoleb · Dec 7, 2003, 10:59 PM

The larger the capacity number the longer your battery life is, in theory. Mine seems to last forever compared to my old 2hr. Dell. wertwert, try posting your capacity so we can see if it's a battery problem or something to do with the iBook. I have heard of people getting a replacement battery by proving that the capacity of the battery is too low, not the life you get out of it.

wertwert · Dec 7, 2003, 11:28 PM

erm...draco i've posted my capacity twice above haha...

well its 4646 which is rather normal imo, it's just that it doesn't translate into longer batt life for me

dracoleb · Dec 8, 2003, 12:37 AM

whops, sorry, must have missed that post. My bad. That does seem odd, well I hope you find an answer to your quandary, it sucks to be stuck like that.

sniffer · Dec 8, 2003, 01:27 AM

Originally posted by wertwert:
argh sniffer you lucky bastard haha..

Got lucky on my second battery so it seems.
The old battery only lasted an hour half the period I used it. And wasn't especially good to begin with.

BTW: I have an old ice iBook.

iKwak · Dec 8, 2003, 01:38 AM

How can I go to my terminal to check the battery life?

sniffer · Dec 8, 2003, 04:16 AM

It's in your Application -> Utilities folder.

wertwert · Dec 9, 2003, 09:46 AM

okay guys i've got a question. Should i send my ibook in or live with the three to four hour batt life cos i've got it the way i like it and it's gonna take one week to get back to me.

So should i send it in for servicing? And what are they gonna do with it anyway?

RMXO · Dec 9, 2003, 02:02 PM

Originally posted by wertwert:
okay guys i've got a question. Should i send my ibook in or live with the three to four hour batt life cos i've got it the way i like it and it's gonna take one week to get back to me.

So should i send it in for servicing? And what are they gonna do with it anyway?

just ask for a new battery. how many times did u calibrate your batteries? i did mine about 3-4 times.

wertwert · Dec 9, 2003, 11:03 PM

well the thing is singapore is so small that they can have you go down to their applecentre quite easily so they won't send me a new battery.

And i've easily calibrated my battery over ten time including three slow drains.

garetjax · Dec 10, 2003, 03:00 PM

That guy who told you ibook batteries only last 1-2 hrs doesn't know what he's talking about.

I had problems with both my G3 ibook batteries but they were from faulty charging. When they were only running for 30min I sent them in for new batteries, which is covered under warranty.

In your case, I'm not sure if Apple will replace the battery since 3-4 hrs during moderate use is not that bad and probably average for most ibook users. I only get 3.5 hrs tops on my G3 700mhz ibook.

Don't know if this would help but, try to download and run X-charge to see if your battery draining and charging is smooth without hiccups. If there's a big drop in the curve, it may portend battery problems in the near future. You can download xcharge free at macupdate.com or versiontracker

GJ

moep · Dec 10, 2003, 03:39 PM

Yup, something HAS to be wrong with this iBook. I've got a G4 800/12"/640MB/30GB baby and almost hit 6 hours the last seminar - batt settings: auto, display-brightness just one bar, idling and typing some stuff with textedit.

i'd say keep nagging them till you get your new batt or ibook... good luck.