[davidlloyd]

Hello,

I've searched the forums here, and I cannot find any post which is similar to mine...

My 12' PowerBook battery lasts only a few minutes at best these days.

The battery indicator initially shows as full, then without warning the indicator shows a thin red bar only after a few minutes then a minute or two later my PowerBook goes to sleep without further warning - and so my battery is now fully drained (or so it appears).

I've tried to fully drain then recharge, etc. in an to attempt to rejuvenate it.

Also, running the coconutBattery utility yielded this battery info (at this time of typing)...

-----

Current Battery Charge: 313
Maximum Battery Charge: 65528

Current Battery Capacity: 65528
Original Battery Capacity: 4200

Battery Load Cycles: 427
Age of Mac:27 months

-----

... so those big numbers look really abnormally wrong.

So really my question is - is my battery expired and do I need a new replacement, or is it my computer playing up? I'd just like to know before I buy and try a new battery.

Many thanks if anyone can help.

[toneloco28]

Judging by the number of cycles, and age of your powerbook considering it's the original battery(?) I'd say your battery is finished. I have had similar experiences where one day my battery seems to be fine, then the next it won't last for 10 minutes. Those erroneous readings for the capacity are probably just a result of your battery being on the outs.

[mduell]

Heh, that's actually an integer underflow; a small negative signed number will appear as a positive number just under 65536 when interpreted as unsigned. CoconutBattery is just misinterpreting the number reported to it.

Yea, your battery is toast.

[davidlloyd]

Thanks for the feedback, it's pretty much what I expected I guess - I'llgo out and buy a new battery this coming week.

Many thanks...