Some Powerbook Battery help needed!

[BahrainLad]

Does anyone have experience of working with the new Aluminium versions of the Apple Powerboook?

I've just purchased a new 15" model (lovely machine) but the battery is behaving very strangely.

In a nutshell, the battery won't charge unless it's completely drained first. So now it's sitting at 85% as I type, but it's not charging (the icon is a battery with a plug inside, rather than a battery with a flash inside). If I unplug it, let it drain a bit, then plug in again it won't increase the charge.

However, if I drain the battery down to about 2% (i.e. in reserve power), then it charges fine up to full power. But then the situation above repeats.

I've resetted the Power Management Unit (from the Apple website) but it's still behaving funny.

The dealer reckons a suspect battery: any PPruNers care to offer an alternative solution before I can get a replacement (if it is the battery - seems to be the charger - i.e. the machine - that's the problem though).

[StevenPJ]

Have you checked out the forums at Apple's own website (under support) and any other sites such as Macfixit or MacinTouch? I am sure that there have been some problems with these. You don't say what system you are using but as its an aluminium book I assume its OS X.

That may be part of your problem.

[Rupert S]

I just bought a Powerbook 15" like yours and was experiencing similar problems. Although there was also something wrong with my battery and I had to have it replaced. Firstly, make sure, assuming you are running panther, that you upgrade the system software to system 10.3.2. Apple released a 'battery' upgrade with this verison of Mac OS so make sure you also have that. Both should come up in software update or are on the apple website. Having done that, completely reset your computer not just the power management unit by booting into open firmware (start up the computer while holding down Command(apple key)-Shift-O-F. Once in type in "reset-nvram" and press return then type "reset-all" followed by return
having done this the computer should restart and boot normally into Mac os (the date and clock will be reset). If it doesn't restart type in "shut-down" and the then boto up as normal. After having done this, fully charge the batter to 100% and recalibrate it. This is done by fully charging the batter and then letting it fully drain until the powerbook is forced into sleep mode. This can actually alter the battery life and so it's best to do this as slowly as possible to gain the maximim battery capacity. Do this by first fully charging the battery to 100%, go into the system preferences and into the energy saver preference pane, set the computer so that under batter power it will run under REDUCED processor performance, set it so that it will not sleep and so that the screen will not dim. Then close all network ports (unplug any ethernet cables, TURN AIRPORT OFF) and finally unplug any mice, external drives etc so that nothing is connected to the powerbook, also turn the volume to mute. Unplug the power then, making sure the screen saver is not set to come on, dim the screen right down to black and leave the computer until it goes into sleep. It should take between 6 and 7 hours for it to do this. This should actually be repeated every month. This should sort out the problem. It's worth nothing that mac OS doesn's always let the battery fully charge for some odd reason (to protect the battery agaist power surges or something). If you want, you can check the battery capacity by going into the terminal and typing "ioreg -l | grep IOBatteryInf" it should be about 4400, any lower that 3200 and you should consider contacting apple to have it replaced. If you need any more help, feel free to drop me a PM or an email.

Regards

Rupert

RE: Steven,

Apple has had a lot of trouble with it's quality control lately and it was reported, unofficially, that 3 in 10 of the new powerbooks would have a defect on arrival and that 1 in 50 would be dead on arrival - i just consider myself lucky :D

[BahrainLad]

Thanks for some very useful advice which I'll keep on file for future reference - very new to these Mac thingy's but very please with them.

The upshot of the whole affair was that the dealership and I took a collective decision to send the machine back to Apple on Dec. 17th as it was within the 2-week "dead on arrival" period. They looked it over, decided that it was the battery at fault and not the machine, replaced the battery and shipped it back. I got it on Dec. 29th.

Now to me, bearing in mind the time of year, that's f____ing impressive service by anyone's standards.

Thanks again for the advice.

[Rupert S]

BL - since it is a new battery, do calibrate using the method I said above, it will improve it's life by about 1/2 an hour if you do it properly.