[aaaltomare]

This is an ongoing struggle for me...
my powerbook will no longer charge a battery while plugged in. When my
pb was plugged into the wall it would show the charging icon at and say
"calculating time until full" eternally. I took the PB apart down to
the logic board to see if the power jack was loose, damaged, etc...
Lodged inside the jack was the tip of a charger (you know, the gold
prong that looks like an 1/8th inch). The wierd part about that is
neither of my chargers are missing the tip (but i did buy it used heh).
So i reassembled, plugged it in and the thing booted! my battery icon
said 0% charging. It will run for about 5 minutes but then put itself
to sleep. You can turn it back on for a few minutes but it does the
same thing. I'm wondering if anyone else has had smimilar power
experiences with their machines?

also, the computer will not run plugged into the wall and without a
battery. The color of the powerplug is an amber color, not green,
always.

[ibook_steve]

I'd say either your battery, charger, or charging circuit are toast. The first thing I'd try is another battery. With a 500 MHz machine, that battery is probably at least 4 or 5 years old. If another battery doesn't help, a new charger is in order. And if that doesn't work, well, it might be time for a new machine, because the repair cost would probably not be worth it.

Steve