[ctbritt]

I know, this is a recurring problem. But this is ridiculous. I'm on my second battery for a 12-in. PB (RevA) which is about a year old. (I have the 3-year AppleCare) A couple of days ago, my battery stopped telling me how long it had left in it, and only gave me the "Caluculating ... Remaining" message. After about 30 mins, however, it goes to sleep. Dead. I start charging it and it goes to about 10% or so and then zooms up to 100% full. So I think I'm only getting about a 10% charge, but the battery thinks it's 100%. Xbattery shows that on its graphs.

Here's the info, now that it's "fully" charged.

Installed: Yes
Charging: No
Charger: Yes
Battery %: 100
Capacity: 23.837Ah
Charge: 23.837Ah
Voltage 12.061v
Flags: 83886080
Amperage: -1200

Is my battery screwed or what? I suspect it is. I've let it discharge and the charge it, hoping to calibrate it. Reset the PMU, to no avail. Installed Battery update 1.1. I'm running 10.3.3. And this just started happening 2-3 days ago. Anyone have any suggestions?

thanks!

[KidKit]

Something is certainly wrong if your PB is less than 1 year old but you are already on your 2nd battery... Was the first battery replaced by Apple as part of your warranty? IMHO, you might want to call Apple Care up and tell them that your powerbook has been screwing up your batteries, you should get Apple to look at it.

[kenw]

I had the same problem two weeks ago. Also a 12-inch Powerbook Rev. A, about 10 months old, no AppleCare. I called Apple assuming the battery was still under my one-year warranty. The first person I talked to told me that the battery was not covered by the same warranty as the computer, so they wouldn't replace it. This didn't make any sense, so I called back an hour later and a different person told me that the battery was under warranty. But before they could send a replacement, he would have to try to fix it over the phone. If he fixed it, there would be a $50 charge. His attempted fix was simply to reset the PMU, which I had already done. The battery went from being unrecognized to starting to charge. So the fellow at Apple told me to keep an eye on it. If it acted normal, the $50 charge would stand. Otherwise I was to call back and they would send a replacement battery. So after an hour the battery was not recognized once again. I called Apple and spoke to a third person. This person agreed with the first person I talked to and said the battery was not under warranty. Even worse, he said I would still be charged $50 even though they had been unable to fix the battery over the phone. This was too much, so I insisted on talking to a supervisor. After explaining the situation, he immediately agreed to send a replacement battery. It arrived in 48 hours with return postage paid for the dead battery. So the bottom line is I'm very happy with Apple's service, but you might have to be persistent to get the response you are expecting.

[KidKit]

Unfortunately, tech support is pretty much a touch and go thing, even with Apple. Sometimes people come out smiling, and sometimes people feel as though they've just battled through a valley of trolls. AppleCare is not as bad as what it can get over on the *dark side*

Here are a few tricks I learned from ***** (name removed to protect her identity ) who worked customer service in the IT industry.
1.) Be calm and patient. Have a pen and paper ready before any call, and be prepared to take notes!
2.) Always note the date, time and name of the tech support person you are speaking to on the phone, this includes any 'specialist' or supervisor you get referred to.
3.) This is kind of extra, but very important If you are unhappy with the particular call. You can request the call center's location (one company can have call centers across the globe) and the tech support center's reference/log ID to the phone conversation you are having now- so you can always refer back to the persons you spoke to, and what they've told you.
4.) In case of unsatifactory replies, tell the person on the phone *politely* that you do not think they have helped you "to a level which is satisfactory". Ask the person to "escalate" the call to his supervisor or manager. Be patient, you might have to repeat the whole story again.
5.) Did I say be patient? Are you still taking notes?

In the case of PB battery... Apple regards batteries as something which wears out, and so, it is not covered with warranty. But if your battery is *manufactured defective* - resulting in fault or "wearing out" that is beyond normal usage, I believe you are at every right to claim warranty. Look at the iBook logic board lawsuit as precedence if I may draw a comparison, many were pooping out after the warranty period, but the numbers and occurances are beyond what is normal and expected - and therefore indicative of a manufacturer fault.

Anyhoooows... that was an essay, but I hope you don't have to go through any bad experiences. Good luck!

[kcmac]

How do you reset the PMU?

[KidKit]

Kcmac: erm... you can easily find that info by doing a search here or on the apple support site but here it is anyways (the official one)

PowerBook and iBook: Resetting Power Management Unit (PMU)