[Kitschy]

Hi,

I have a 1.2 Ghz iBook. Over the past few days my iBook has begun to do something it hasn't ever done.

In the past when the battery was low, the battery icon in the upper right corner would turn red and finally I would get a warning message telling me that I had 10 minutes before it would finally just go to sleep.

Now what happens is the battery icon will still turn red, but then it just dies.

When I start back up, the time and date are reset. The battery still holds a good 2-3 hour charge. I've tried resetting the PRAM, the Power Management Unit, and I've trashed some energy preferences. After each one I would run my battery down and hope it would go to sleep...to no avail. It still just dies. So I'm having to plug it in when it gets to about 30 minutes.

Any tips? Thanks.

[jsruok]

I have similar issue at hand so I need to ask if you have found a solution for this problem?

[SSharon]

When my ibook battery started to die, it would turn off less than a minute after the red icon showed up and I got the low battery warning. I ended up getting a new battery since the old one was so trashed. I was getting 1.5 hours out of it and it went down every day and would die on me in class.

How many cycles are on your battery?

[d_oob]

This is still happening with my MacBook. Only you guys are more lucky, at least you get the low-battery warning window. I don't so and so it just shuts off. My ONLY indicator is that when it gets to around 20% battery capacity, that's when it shuts off. Brought it in to Apple store and tried to explain. I made it a point to run the battery down a bit down to 30% so that when I got to the genius bar I could open it up and show them what is happening. Only thing is when I get there and open up the laptop the capacity is down to 5%. And I couldn't accurately recreate what was happening. The genius then explains that the battery icon and percentage reading is not accurate and that "other processes" are more of a priority than the percentage reading so therefore that is why it is inaccurate.

I then explain that I don't even get a low-battery warning, which is what my Pismo would tell me, which is what my girlfriend's iBook tells her. And he then tells me, "Oh it's a software issue and I'm sure they will have an update for it soon." Wuh? His first assessment made no sense at all. Why would the OS be off by as much as 20% in telling me what my current battery charge is at? And then his second reason made even less sense. Why, if it is a software (OS) issue, aren't more people having this problem?

Or are there? This is a first I've heard it happening on iBooks. Any Powerbook and MacBook Pro users having this same problem?

[rjt1000]

Originally Posted by d_oob 

Any Powerbook and MacBook Pro users having this same problem?

Hi,

I have a 12 inch PB 1.33. I mostly use it plugged in and I thought the original battery was fine. Then just before I received the replacement battery (the original was subject to the recent recall), I used the PB on an airplane flight and was working on some important documents when it just suddenly died without warning or going to sleep. Plugged it back in when I got home and it charged up. But then I tried it again on battery power and once again it just died at 20 percent or so without warning or going to sleep. A few days later I received my replacement battery and after calibrating it, I tried it out and now my PB gives the low battery warning and goes to sleep as its supposed to. So I guess I convinced myself that the dying without going to sleep problem was a relatively early sign of the original battery failing.

If you have a friend or colleague with a known good battery, I would borrow it and test it out. If your laptop gives the low power warning and goes to sleep as its supposed to with the known good battery, it would be a strong indication that your original battery is dying or faulty and needs replacement.

[jsruok]

Originally Posted by SSharon 

How many cycles are on your battery?

Code:
% ioreg -w0 -l | grep Capacity
    | | |   "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=1006,"Amperage"=0,"Cycle Count"=217,"Current"=1005,"Voltage"=12468,"Flags"=838860805,"AbsoluteMaxCapacity"=4400})

So I guess that would make 217 cycles.

Basically, 20 minutes after unplugging the power cord my battery icon shows 30%-40% charge, then everything just dies. I don't have much experience with laptop batteries; is this normal for a 2 year old battery?

[Aurelio]

Hi !

i have a PB alu 1.67 and have the same problem: shuts down and lose the memory just 5 min before normal sleep. Battery has 322 cycles.
I get the -110 error in the console log file.

apple says my mac has 14 month, so no warranty.


i tryied to empty the battery with a 12V amp, unsuccessful.

any other pist ?

Aurelio