[Flagheimer]

My first and only Apple product, my PowerBook G4 loses battery life really fast... I turned it on, plugged in the outlet, the battery was at 86%, I unplugged it, went to go gallivanting wirelessly around my house and in 3 minutes, the battery went down to 0% and went into hibernation/sleep mode.

I bought the PowerBook in early 2004, and have never changed the battery. I noticed, if i'm at the library, after a full night's charge, I turn on the PB, and the time of battery power under one hour.

Now it's Mac Books and Mac Book Pros, do Apple stores or other vendors still sell batteries for my PowerBook G4? (12" 1GHz)

[mduell]

Download coconutbattery and see how many cycles you have.

If you have less than 250, try calibrating your battery (directions are available in the Apple knowledgebase). If you have more than 250, I'd just go buy a new battery. Apple Stores (online and probably retail) have them, as well as some third parties like OWC.

[Flagheimer]

Thanks for your reply, but Coconutbattery doesn't work on my PB as I don't have Tiger. The battery, while plugged in usually stays at 98% sometimes 100%, but as soon as I disconnect it, after a few minutes it'll be around 60% and gets progressively lower as time passes. I would say 20 minutes or less is the maximum amount of time I can stay on, without the power adapter being used.

[JKT]

I think you have answered your own question - your battery is reaching its end of life. Apple will still sell them for your Powerbook, but NewerTech (via e.g. OWC) sell higher capacity versions for most Powerbook's so you might want to consider getting one of theirs instead.