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PowerBook G4 battery thinks its empty at 50%
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: The decaying ruins of Old New York
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I have a used PowerBook G4 that, when i bought it, came with an almost-new battery. CoconutBattery shows about 240 load cycles and only 200 mAh less capacity than it originally had. This is an Apple battery; not a third-party replacement.
For some reason, when it gets to about 50%, the laptop goes into standby and won't turn on until I plug it in. At that point, if I turn it back on, CoconutBattery shows 0% capacity on the battery and two and a half hours to charge.
I've reset the PRAM multiple times. Is this a PMU thing? Is it a defective battery? I don't have the original purchase receipt so I can't exchange it under warranty...
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Moderator  Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Polwaristan
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You mentioned resetting pram, but have you reset pmu? That has resolved power/sleep/wake issues on other PPC Macs before for me, but I've never had the specific problem you describe.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: UK
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You could try a recalibration but the chances are its knackered. Apple haven't sold a G4 battery (outside California) in at least two years, sometimes age kills them before they wear out. Chances are one of the internal cells is dead.
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MacBook 2.0GHz CD; MacBook Pro 15" 2.4GHz Late '08; PowerMac G4 MDD Dual 1GHz; 3x Xserve G4 1GHz; Mac Mini 2GHz; Big pile of broken and working bits;
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Where Airbus babies hatch
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Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 
You could try a recalibration but the chances are its knackered. Apple haven't sold a G4 battery (outside California) in at least two years
Batteries are still available for the 12" Powerbook and the 12" iBook.
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Moderator  Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
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I've seen this behavior before, the battery is dead. Even if you reset the PMU, I doubt it'll do much good. Perhaps it'll buy you a few extra minutes, but that's about it.
Batteries age even if they haven'd seen many charge cycles. My boss' PowerBook G4 basically had a dead battery even though it has never left his desk and was always tethered to a power brick.
I reckon the battery is simply old and doesn't work properly anymore. You have to judge whether it's worth replacing with a third-party battery or not. A colleague of mine got one for his trusty 12" PowerBook G4 for something like 30 € from ebay if memory serves me right.
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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: UK
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Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot
Batteries are still available for the 12" Powerbook and the 12" iBook.
Really? From Apple?
They stop selling spare parts after three years (except in california) so I just assumed....
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MacBook 2.0GHz CD; MacBook Pro 15" 2.4GHz Late '08; PowerMac G4 MDD Dual 1GHz; 3x Xserve G4 1GHz; Mac Mini 2GHz; Big pile of broken and working bits;
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