[irunat2am]

Hola-

I have a Powerbook G4, and I'm having a little issue. As of yesterday, I noticed that when I unplug my laptop from the power adapter, it just turns off immediately.

Same thing today. It's plugged in right now, but it just keeps saying "Calculating" for the battery display.

I looked on coconutbattery, and it says the battery still has 55% capacity. This is my first mac, so I'm wondering if there is anything I can do in terms of basic testing to make sure that it's just my battery.

Now:


4 months ago:


I thought the battery was dead, but how can it still be at 55% capacity Confused.

Thanks for your time-
Mike

EDIT: Just found this info in the system profiler:

Battery Information:

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 2458
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 0
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 10762
Cycle Count: 176

So..coconut battery shows there is 55% capacity left when there is literally 0? Seems a bit off.

[- - e r i k - -]

It's dead Jim

[irunat2am]

After finding the extra battery info..I concur.

[brassplayersrock²]

when i went to look for a spare battery for my tibook; apple wanted a lot of money for it. enough for me to not want to get one; used even. Hope you can find a good replacement.

Alex

[irunat2am]

Yea. Saw 104.00 and 150.00 so far. Yippeeee

[brassplayersrock²]

i dunno how you feel about ebay:
New Genuine OEM Apple Battery G4 15" Powerbook A1148 - (eBay item 280159419111 end time Oct-10-07 14:30:00 PDT)

[subego]

I gotta ask...

Why do you have a screencap of coconutBattery from four months ago?

[- - e r i k - -]

For recording purposes?

[subego]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

For recording purposes?

Makes sense...

For someone who is way the hell more organized than me.

[- - e r i k - -]

The question is why hasn't she discovered that by hitting space after cmd-shift-4 she can take a screengrab of just the window?

[irunat2am]

Originally Posted by subego 

I gotta ask...

Why do you have a screencap of coconutBattery from four months ago?

It was on my web server from something else I was doing at the time, and taking it down wasn't at the top of my to-do list.

Erik, I actually didn't know that. I like! Thanks for the tip-

-Mike (a non-she).

[Dork.]

You can try resetting the Power Manager, but more likely your battery is hosed.

Laptop batteries are made up of multiple Li-Ion batteries in series that add up to the voltage needed by the laptop. If one or two of the laptop battery cells are about to die, the battery will still technically hold a charge, since the other cells are working. But it takes all the cells to get enough voltage to run the computer, and it will shut off if there isn't enough voltage. (If the cell dies totally, of course, the battery won't do anything.)

This usually manifests itself by a battery the still works, but shuts down when the battery capacity is about 20%, since that's when the wonky cell drops in voltage enough to trigger the sleep circuitry. But I'm willing to bet my hat that something similar is happening to you.

[nonhuman]

Not sure which model you have specifically, but I always get my batteries from OWC: Replacement Battery For Your Apple PowerBook and iBook at OtherWorldComputing.com

They might look a little pricey, but they're very nice batteries and will give you even more capacity than a brand new one from Apple.

[SirCastor]

I'll toss in a vote for OWC batteries too, but make sure you properly charge it all the way the first time, otherwise you'll get a bad battery reading.

[AngelaBaby]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Not sure which model you have specifically, but I always get my batteries from OWC: Replacement Battery For Your Apple PowerBook and iBook at OtherWorldComputing.com

They might look a little pricey, but they're very nice batteries and will give you even more capacity than a brand new one from Apple.

They even have batteries for my ipods! Thanks nonhuman, you saved me LOTS of money!

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by AngelaBaby 

They even have batteries for my ipods! Thanks nonhuman, you saved me LOTS of money!

I'm here to serve.

[CharlesS]

Just don't buy a used battery from besson3c, or it'll be the same thing again.

[irunat2am]

Cool cool. Thanks for all the info, amigos. Hopefully I can get this bad boy replaced soon and be on my way!

Have a good week.

[King Bob On The Cob]

Actually, with the screenshot, I'd say your AC/DC board is borked.

Happened to me and I had exactly the same symptoms. Try someone else's battery before you buy a new one, because If it's still holding a charge, but not charging, it's something else in the computer.

EDIT:

My spelling sucks apparently.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by irunat2am 

It was on my web server from something else I was doing at the time, and taking it down wasn't at the top of my to-do list.

Erik, I actually didn't know that. I like! Thanks for the tip-

-Mike (a non-she).

Sorry Mike. I confused you with shifuimam (or whatever) for a minute there. Don't know why.

[irunat2am]

No problem

Sorry, King Bob..too late!!! Crap Oh well.

Found, bought, and paid for. NEW Genuine Apple 15" Powerbook G4 Original OEM Battery - (eBay item 170156507924 end time Oct-13-07 07:10:21 PDT)

We'll see what happens!

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by King Bob On The Cob 

Actually, with the screenshot, I'd say your AC/DC board is borked.

Happened to me and I had exactly the same symptoms. Try someone else's battery before you buy a new one, because If it's still holding a charge, but not charging, it's something else in the computer.

Could be, but notice how the battery capacity was pretty good a few months ago, but apparently chose this summer to fall off a cliff, dropping by 1400mAh or so. Even if it turns out he needs the AC/DC board replaced too, his battery was probably on its last legs anyway.

[brassplayersrock²]

<s>gee..... your welcome irunat2am.... </s>

nevermind, you got it from a different auction then i linked to

[irunat2am]

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock² 

<s>gee..... your welcome irunat2am.... </s>

nevermind, you got it from a different auction then i linked to

Haha, yes..different auction. But, i wasnt even going to check ebay 'til you linked it. So you still get credit

[irunat2am]

UPDATE: Bought from eBay My World - apple.batt .

Bought Tuesday night. Shipped Wed. Received today (Friday). Awesome price and perfect, brand new battery. MY BATTERY IS ACTUALLY CHARGING! YEY!

Highly recommend this guy if you're going to get a battery for your laptop.

Have a good weekend.