[Mac] Battery Troubles


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About two days ago I was using my powerbook (17" G4) on battery and noticed there was an 'X' in the little battery icon in the menu bar.

I clicked on it and it said "No batteries available", but I was clearly running on battery power for a good hour. I got home and plugged it in, and the battery icon changed to 'charging' but stayed at zero percent for a while...then it went back to the 'X'.

Today I tossed the laptop in my bookbag, went to class, then opened it up during my lunch break. It wouldn't come out of sleep. In fact, it appeared to have turned off. And it wouldn't turn on. I plugged it in and it turned on fine. As soon as I unplugged it again, it read 0% battery and turned off.

Could I have a defunct battery on my hands? I bought the computer in May of 2003 so it should still be under warranty, correct? No, I didn't get the AppleCare plan :(

Has this happened to anyone else w/ a powerbook?

The only thing I've done to my computer recently is upgrade to Safari 1.2 and Java 1.4.2. And the powerbook's been running fine before this happened. I had an uptime of something like 17 days.

Any help would be appreciated.

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Question 10: My PowerBook will not start off battery at all. Should I just buy a new battery, or is there something else I can do?

Answer: Generally when a PowerBook battery goes bad, it provides less operating life over a period of time. If your PowerBook suddenly will not work with its battery at all, this could be an issue with the battery itself, or the logic board of your PowerBook. If possible, try your battery with another PowerBook, or try a verified-good battery in your PowerBook to help isolate the issue.

If you are not in a position to try a known good battery or verify your own battery with another PowerBook, there are still some steps you can take. First, reset the power manager of your PowerBook. Instructions for resetting the power manager on various model PowerBook computers are available in this document or at the online Knowledge Base. Use the search string "power manager and reset" to locate the article "PowerBook: Resetting Power Manager." Charge the battery overnight following this reset.

If your PowerBook still will no longer work with its battery after this process, you should seek service. Contact your local Apple-authorized service provider, or call 800-767-2775 for further assistance.

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PowerBook G4 (12-inch), PowerBook G4 (12-inch DVI), PowerBook G4 (15-inch FW 800), PowerBook G4 (17-inch) and PowerBook G4 (17-inch 1.33GHz)

1. If the computer is on, turn it off.

2. Reset the power manager by simultaneously pressing and then releasing Shift-Control-Option-power on the keyboard. Do not press the fn (Function) key while using this combination of keystrokes.

3. Wait 5 seconds.

4. Press the power button to restart the computer.

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The four steps you provided suntzu, are those the steps for resetting the power manager?

Also, thanks a lot for the info. I couldn't have asked for a more thorough explanation of my problem :D

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Yeah, I was going to suggest reseting the PMU with Shift+Ctrl+Option being held when powering up.

Edit: Jack, just power off, then powerup holding those keys. That will reset it.

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Is this something I can do, and then go about using my computer as normal?

If I need to let it recharge fully or something after doing this, then I'll have to wait until tonight.

ps - is that avatar necessary timdorr? i think i feel a seizure coming on :p

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ps - is that avatar necessary timdorr? i think i feel a seizure coming on :p

[offtopic] You might want to just disable sigs and avatars. I have and this board looks so much nicer without everyone's dire need of computer explanations or flaunting of pornography leeching through every topic. It's a very nice, clean look, especially with the 'small font' skin. [/offtopic]

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