[skyman]

I have had my PISMO now for almost two years. When the batts were new I could get 8+ hours of use. But now I can only get about 5 to 6 hours of use.

Any ideas what I can do to "recondition" the batts?

Thanks!

[scarab]

8 hours? Wow!

Anyway, try running iTunes visuals full screen with your brightness set to the maximum and leave it there even after the OS tells you that the batteries are low and that it will be going to sleep.

[seanyepez]

I find Quake is more effective at doing this. Power management is all but disabled when you run Quake.

Then again, your battery, like all physical things, is wearing out. Mine are too. I used to get a good seven hours off two batteries (running full brightness and playing Quake or doing something processor intensive), but now I find my computer only lasting about five. It's not terrible. I don't travel with this PowerBook anyway; it's my home machine for surfing on the couch and various other places. It's usable.

[scarab]

That's a good idea. Whatever you do to drain your batts, leave them alone when you are charging them.

[silverghost]

Originally posted by skyman:
<STRONG>I have had my PISMO now for almost two years. When the batts were new I could get 8+ hours of use. But now I can only get about 5 to 6 hours of use.

Any ideas what I can do to "recondition" the batts?

Thanks!</STRONG>

as for me im only getting roughly 2hours per battery full brightness 1hr30min..does reconditioning battery really work?


aloha

[SMacSteve]

Originally posted by scarab:
<STRONG>8 hours? Wow!

Anyway, try running iTunes visuals full screen with your brightness set to the maximum and leave it there even after the OS tells you that the batteries are low and that it will be going to sleep.</STRONG>

I think he's referring to Pismos using dual battery setup. Notice the plural in "batteries" Even Apples claims of 5 hours for a single battery were a little on the wild side.

[skyman]

Originally posted by SMacSteve:
<STRONG>

I think he's referring to Pismos using dual battery setup. Notice the plural in "batteries" Even Apples claims of 5 hours for a single battery were a little on the wild side.</STRONG>

You are correct grasshopper!

Any way...thanks everyone for all the suggestions!!

[msykes]

I'm down to 2 hours per battery on my Lombard:-( (2.5 years old). A friend with a Dell is down to 15 MINUTES per battery (only 1.5 years old), so it could be worse. Apparently he's hunted around and discovered that you are supposed to deep cycle your batteries every 2 weeks (ie drain them with the aforementioned techniques), and put them in the freezer when you are not using them.

msykes

[cdhostage]

I once got 4.5 hours on a single battery on my Pismo. Running SimpleText. On lowest brightness. With proc cycling on.

I can't honsetly say whether it's gotten worse or better. Pismo seems to work just as well as it did when i irst got it.

[seanyepez]

Freezing your battery is on the excessive side, but a recondition every now and then (every few months for me) isn't too compulsive.

[OldManMac]

Battery life is about two years on laptops. I sell Macs, and two years is when people start replacing the batteries.

[scadboy]

anyone know where to pickup some pismo batteries on the cheap? All I've been able to find is in the $130 range, which seems to be about $30 more than what Apple was selling them for when I bought this thing. I haven't noticed a marked decrease in battery life yet, but it does spend most of its time chained to my desk anyway. I am going to be doing the 1000 mile dash back home for the holidays in a week, so I should probably see about doing that "reconditioning" thing this weekend so I can atleast watch a dvd or two on the plane ride tuesday.

On the upside, I will get to check out the Apple Store in Buffalo! Woo-hoo, maybe they'll have some batteries in stock?

If not, I guess I'll just have to settle for an iPod.

ciao,

michael

[SMacSteve]

Originally posted by scadboy:
<STRONG>anyone know where to pickup some pismo batteries on the cheap? All I've been able to find is in the $130 range, which seems to be about $30 more than what Apple was selling them for when I bought this thing. I haven't noticed a marked decrease in battery life yet, but it does spend most of its time chained to my desk anyway. I am going to be doing the 1000 mile dash back home for the holidays in a week, so I should probably see about doing that "reconditioning" thing this weekend so I can atleast watch a dvd or two on the plane ride tuesday.

On the upside, I will get to check out the Apple Store in Buffalo! Woo-hoo, maybe they'll have some batteries in stock?

If not, I guess I'll just have to settle for an iPod.

ciao,

michael</STRONG>

Apple sold them for $129, so naturally a new one now that it isn't the current model would be more expensive. The best place to get a good deal would be e-bay. But of course it's usually a buyer beware. If you want a brand new one at a reasonable price check out www.smartdisk.com they sell them for $139 for a new one. Also www.pbguy.com sells new Apple batteries at $159. I just bought a new one on e-bay for $125!

[SMacSteve]

Originally posted by KarlG:
<STRONG>Battery life is about two years on laptops. I sell Macs, and two years is when people start replacing the batteries.</STRONG>

This is largely dependent on whether they are using the AC charger when using the PB. You could get more than 2 years easily if you have your PB connected to the AC power regularly.

[mattmarshall]

i, too, am looking to purchase a pismo battery.....i've only got the one, and would to be able to get 8 hours on one charge!

who knows the cheapest place to get batteries?

also, are there different kinds? i thought i've heard of certain, more expensive batteries that work longer. true?

i looked all over apple.com and didn't come up with any place to buy the battery.....

thanks
-matt

[waffffffle]

I just picked up a second battery for my Pismo off a dead lombard that I company I work for is getting rid of. It definitely lasts a lot longer than my old battery, which now gives me about 90 minutes in OS X. However 2 batteries is great to have.

I also took the DVD drive from that lombard since my Pismo's drive is dead. It works like a charm and saves me the $500 that Apple wanted for a new one. I plan on using the old sled for those burners that some guy found on ebay which work in the pismo/lombard if you attach it to the sled from the dvd drive. There are combo drives too by those are more than twice the price.

[SMacSteve]

I just received my "new" battery and I'm getting about 3 hours with the brightness about halfway in OS X. With my older battery I was getting about 2hrs 45min. I thought I'd get more like 4 hrs on my "new" one. It isn't new looking as it has several scuffs. He advertised it as "brand new" and only in a PB once to be charged. It's obviously not new and I've requested a refund. I can buy a brand new one through PB Guy for $159 with warrenty. I'd rather pay the extra for the legit "new" battery. Wouldn't you?

[tinrib]

There is no memory effect with Li+ Batteries, only with NiMH and NiCad batteries.

You can download an OSX app which will tell you the capacity of your batteries: http://www.versiontracker.com/redir....battery060.sit

The capacities of my batteries are 2365 (?1yr old) and 4078(?2 months old) - what that is measured in I don't know.

If you download http://www.versiontracker.com/redir....amnesia152.sit for OS 9 you can drain your battery fully so that the blinking light doesn't even come on when you press it. However, it says in the documentation that this won't help Li+ batteries. And indeed it hasn't. I checked my battery capacity before I ran it, and I have had an improvement of 11 on the old one from 2354 but a decrease in capacity of 80 in the new one from 4158.

I don't know how exact the figures are but it is obvious that there is no real memory effect with Li+ batteries (or if there is there is nothing you can do about it).

It would be interesting to know what other people's readings were for battery capacity.

[atomium]

Originally posted by tinrib:
<STRONG>
The capacities of my batteries are 2365 (?1yr old) and 4078(?2 months old) - what that is measured in I don't know.
</STRONG>

My Pismo battery was down to 1.5 hours on a full charge. Since I bought my machine 2 weeks before the announcement of the Ti, I'm still actually under warranty. Took it in to my Apple store last week and had the most amazing stroke of luck. It chose that exact moment to completely fail. Went from 85% charge to reserve power and deep sleep right in front of everyone at the genius bar over the course of about 60 seconds. I was as surprised as they were.

Long story short, brand new battery, less than a week old. XBattery 0.6 shows a capacity of 4800. Full charge gives me about 3 hours regular light computing at half brightness. Very dim screen and nothing but BBEdit gives me 3.5 to 3.75 hours. DVD at full screen and full brightness will let me get through a normal length movie without dying, and a little bit of juice left over.

-atomium

[mattmarshall]

tinrib:
can you define "memory effect"? i don't understand what it refers to...

thanks
-matt

[vmarks]

Originally posted by mattmarshall:
<STRONG>tinrib:
can you define "memory effect"? i don't understand what it refers to...

thanks
-matt</STRONG>

Memory effect is the gradual reduction in some types of batteries to return to full power, caused by repeated partial charge and drain cycles. Periodically draining and fully recharging the battery can often dramatically reduce this effect. Many manufacturers of battery-powered equipment, especially portable computers, recommend or even require the user to perform this procedure periodically; check your notebook's user guide to see if the manufacturer recommends it.

[msykes]

Originally posted by tinrib:
<STRONG>
The capacities of my batteries are 2365 (?1yr old) and 4078(?2 months old) </STRONG>

My Left battery has a capacity of 3163, and my Right battery 2757. Not too shabby considering those are both 2.5 years old.

msykes

[Dan Szwarc]

Hmmmm...
4502 and 4165 for one one year-old battery and one 3 month old.

[lucylawless]

Originally posted by SMacSteve:
<STRONG>

This is largely dependent on whether they are using the AC charger when using the PB. You could get more than 2 years easily if you have your PB connected to the AC power regularly.</STRONG>

On the other hand, there's me. My pismo is 18 months old, and it's spent maybe a week total off the ac adapater. You know how long my battery lasted? 15 months. It did that same thing that atomium's did. I was on the plane, fully charged, then right in front of my eyes the battery meter dropped to almost nill, the warning came up, then 15 seconds later, deep sleep.

[tinrib]

Am now pissed off about my weak battery. Grrr... why didn't you all LIE for my benefit.

Any Ti owners test their capacity? Would be interesting to compare. Mind you with this thread title I guess we are all pismo owners.

[SMacSteve]

I down loaded the XBattery application and it is a great utility. However I'm not sure how to read the battery capacity figure. Does the higher number mean longer life? The new one reads 3770 and the older (the one that came with my Pismo) says 4098, but the interesting thing is that the one that reads 3770 gives me about 30 min better life. And what's this "flags" thing in the Info dialog box?
If anybody is using this program that has some thoughts I'd appreciate the info.

[atomium]

Originally posted by SMacSteve:
<STRONG>I'm not sure how to read the battery capacity figure. Does the higher number mean longer life? The new one reads 3770 and the older (the one that came with my Pismo) says 4098, but the interesting thing is that the one that reads 3770 gives me about 30 min better life.</STRONG>

I was looking at a catalog last night that had PowerBook batteries listed. They had a spec for "mAH" that looked like it could be the mystery number. It ranged from 1200 mAH or so for old-school Books and 4000 mAH for pre Firewire G3 books. Anyone know what this mAH is? Could this be what XBattery is measuring? Anyone know what this means in real world terms of usage and life?

-atomium

[tinrib]

heh. since my last post on this thread, the capacity of my older battery has increased to 2488 from a low of 2354, although my newer battery remains at 4078. I'll email the guy who wrote the app and try and get some info.

[fithian]

I purchased my Pismo 500 in Feb 2000. The batteries (2) are down to a total of 2 hours 15 minutes. Sounds like time for new batteries, right? After an extensive search for batteries, it appears that there are none to be had. Smartdisk is the only company that makes Pismo batteries. They are sold through the yahoo store for $140 each
http://store.yahoo.com/smartdiskstore/liionbatfor2.html

It appears that they may have some in March 2002.

Apple will sell you some (if they ever get any) for $168 each.

Anyone have a dead Pismo battery they would like to contribute to research on replacing the Li-ion batteries? Allied Electronics lists about every kind of Li-ion battery ever made, so it is a simple matter of opening (fun!) and seeing what's inside, ordering the replacement cells, installing, and re-sealing the case.

I would do this on one of mine when it finally dies, but they are both still marginally alive.

Eph
[email protected]