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daaaarla · May 19, 2004, 02:35 PM

Okay, I aplogize already for this being long.

I bought a g3 iBook from a friend of mine in August after he had it for a couple months and hated being on a Mac. So, between August in December everything on this iBook was completely fine and I was incredibly satisfied with it. In those 5 months I usually kept it plugged in, although a couple times a week I would bring it around or unplug it and let the battery get down to around 40%, then charge it up again.

Anyway, one day in December I was using the iBook (it was plugged in) and all of a sudden it shut off. The green light on the plug also went out. So, I tried turning it on a few times and nothing worked. Then I unplugged it, plugged it back in, turned it on and I could faintly see my desktop in the background, but it wasn't bright enough for me to anything with it (I even put the brightness up all the way.)

I go to the Mac store and they tell me to try a new power adapter. I do that, and it works, but only plugged in. There is an X over the battery icon on my desktop, so I can no longer use it without it being plugged in. Then, I'd say in February, I noticed that if the screen wasn't pushed all the way back, or all the way forward (to where I coudn't view the screen) that it was black. Ever since then I've been using it plugged in, and having to put the screen all the way back. Then a month ago or so I open up my iBook and saw that the X was no longer covering the battery icon and it was charging (the light on the adapter was orange.) It charged, and it was fine for a day or so. Then, it went back to being an X over the battery icon.

Any ideas on what I can do?

Applefreak01 · May 19, 2004, 04:13 PM

Sounds like you have a logic board issue with having to put the screen all the way back and a dead battery. Do you know if you still have Apple Care on the iBook? If you do I would take it back to an Apple Store and tell them what's been going on and get them to fix it for you. If you don't have Apple Care they can still fix it but it's going to cost more to do so.

discotronic · May 19, 2004, 04:42 PM

If you don't have Applecare and it is a logic board issue you can get it replaced for free. Check here to see if the iBook falls within the serial number range:

http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/

Also, can you give us more infomation about your iBook? What processor is it running, how much RAM, what version OS and etc?

daaaarla · May 19, 2004, 04:46 PM

Sorry about that, yeah!

iBook G3
800mhz
128mb of RAM (initially) ..I literally just bought 512 more mb's but wanna wait to try and fix my problem before I start installing new hardware just incase that violates some Apple rule or something
Running 10.2.8

daaaarla · May 19, 2004, 04:51 PM

I see my serial number is UV251...

This seems to fall inbetween the numbers listed on the website. Should I call Apple and talk to them or try and bring it to the Mac store here?

Thanks, again.

discotronic · May 19, 2004, 05:12 PM

Originally posted by daaaarla:
I see my serial number is UV251...

This seems to fall inbetween the numbers listed on the website. Should I call Apple and talk to them or try and bring it to the Mac store here?

Thanks, again.

Best thing to do is call Apple and see what they can tell you. Also, if it turns out to be your logic board, you might want to raise the question about the power supply that you purchased. If it wasn't the power supply the first time you had the problem you wasted your money. It looks like the problem has been there for some time. Let us know what Apple tells you.

Also, if the iBook is less than a year old it is still covered under the initial 1 year warranty. If it is coming up on a year you should call asap. When you call Apple they should be able to give you the date that it was purchased. Good luck.

daaaarla · May 20, 2004, 10:10 PM

Thanks!

I haven't had a chance to call Apple yet but I plan on it tomorrow.

I thought this was a little weird though. I just installed Panther and there is no longer an X on my battery icon, and it says it's fully charged. I'm really confused, but hopefully Apple can explain everything to me.