[irunat2am]

My powerbook ac adapter is plugged in, and has been charging for a while. I just downloaded coconutBattery, and it shows that my charger is not plugged in, and my battery is not charging.

My battery is only @ 95% charged so it should still be charging. Just wondering if it reads your power adapter properly? Also, since I installed coconutBattery, my battery indicator at the top just stays on "calculating" and never gives me the time left til charge. (even when coconutBattery is closed)

I'm new with macs and although it isn't a huge deal, I'm just a little confused. I'm on a powerbook g4.

Thanks-

[JKT]

Thing to know - Li-ion batteries constantly lose charge, even with the charger plugged in. If your battery was allowed to reach 100% charge it would constantly cycle between a 100% and 99.9(recurring)% state. Unless something was done to prevent this, it would drastically reduce the life span of your battery as constant charge/discharge cycles can lead to the formation of salt crystals in the battery.

Once your Powerbook battery reaches 100%, it stops charging completely and will not start again until your battery dips below a certain threshold (which is 95%). I would guess that what has happened in your case is that either:

a) you have already charged to 100% and it has slowly discharged down to 95%, but because it hasn't yet gone below 95% it is not yet charging back to 100% again, or

b) your battery needs calibrating. Run your Powerbook from its battery only until it goes to sleep due to lack of charge capacity (you will get a warning at about 5% charge remaining that this will happen soon - just ignore and dismiss the warning - you want it to go to sleep because of a lack of charge... do save your work if you are doing any, though). When the Powerbook has gone to sleep because of a lack of charge, plug-in the adaptor and charge it fully, and in one go, back up to 100%. Your battery will then be calibrated and the Calculating... message should disappear.

[irunat2am]

Great. I'll give it a shot. I really appreciate you taking the time to give me some advice Thanks!

[patrix]

(a) from JKT sounds about right - it's in the manual, too, that the battery won't charge up if it's at least 95% charged.

For battery calibration there's a howto in the Apple website, giving you a rough idea of how many hours the battery has to stay uncharged etc, for proper calibration. (I believe it's charge fully, wait 2 hours while still plugged in, then discharge completely and wait 5 hours before recharging fully - at least in the case of macbook/mb pro. Refer to the Apple website for your PowerBook).

Patrix.