more bizarre battery behaviour on ibooks
recently bought second hand clamshell ibook, got the guy to install os x on it before he sent it and i forgot that problem with 10.2 and the battery might crop up.
it did to my horror, was hoping i might be a lucky one who didn't.
tried running it down a few times and got a measly 30 mins both times.
was really upset as i'd just got my first mac (and laptop) and looked at the prospect of paying a further quoted £180 for a new apple battery for it ontop of the ok-ish deal i'd gotten on the clamshell (425).
---incidentally there are for some reason tons of these old clamshell ibooks flodding ebay in the uk right now - might be caused by the new g5's i think.----
anyway i hoped i might be able to convince the battery to work normally by recalibrating it, though that was really a bit of a tenous idea.
but i realised you're meant to leave it to forcibly shut down after the warning of low battery before you actually reconnect to charge.
so i did this, after 30 mins the percentage went from 80 - 30 and it said i was low.
so didn't turn off. left it running thinking the reserve power might last 10 mins if i was lucky til it shut down.
only it didn't - not for another 1hr 45mins (inc. 1/2 hour when i had several programs open). all the while i supposedly had 0% battery.
i don't know whats going on. i'm glad it works for over 2hrs, meaning i'm not getting a new battery.
yet its really bizarre, don't care so much about it not showing the right 0% of battery less (though i'd like to fix that if i can) but its weird. as far as i knew 10.2 (10.2.4 more mainly) just caused batteries to die before meant to and not to retain charge - instead of confusing itself over how much is left like it has on mine.
ofcourse maybe in this case it isn't the 10.2 update problem but something else. any ideas in that case?
it did to my horror, was hoping i might be a lucky one who didn't.
tried running it down a few times and got a measly 30 mins both times.
was really upset as i'd just got my first mac (and laptop) and looked at the prospect of paying a further quoted £180 for a new apple battery for it ontop of the ok-ish deal i'd gotten on the clamshell (425).
---incidentally there are for some reason tons of these old clamshell ibooks flodding ebay in the uk right now - might be caused by the new g5's i think.----
anyway i hoped i might be able to convince the battery to work normally by recalibrating it, though that was really a bit of a tenous idea.
but i realised you're meant to leave it to forcibly shut down after the warning of low battery before you actually reconnect to charge.
so i did this, after 30 mins the percentage went from 80 - 30 and it said i was low.
so didn't turn off. left it running thinking the reserve power might last 10 mins if i was lucky til it shut down.
only it didn't - not for another 1hr 45mins (inc. 1/2 hour when i had several programs open). all the while i supposedly had 0% battery.
i don't know whats going on. i'm glad it works for over 2hrs, meaning i'm not getting a new battery.
yet its really bizarre, don't care so much about it not showing the right 0% of battery less (though i'd like to fix that if i can) but its weird. as far as i knew 10.2 (10.2.4 more mainly) just caused batteries to die before meant to and not to retain charge - instead of confusing itself over how much is left like it has on mine.
ofcourse maybe in this case it isn't the 10.2 update problem but something else. any ideas in that case?
Comments
[I read this tip a Macintouch.com and it has worked for several people, including one who had an iBook]
Boot into the openfirmware by starting and holding down:
option-command-o-f
It should take only a few seconds until you are greeted by a gray screen with bit of writing.
Next type:
reset-nvram
then press return
Followed by:
reset-all
and then press return
After this the machine reboots by itself
The problem may be fixed or at least alleviated following this. Good luck
Also, I don't know what OS your running but I am assuming OS X, try booting into OS 9 and do some work there, thus cycling the battery from there. It's likely that the PMU is a bit ****ed up.
If you don't believe me check out the Macintouch.com report from Jul 10 and 11, the tip is further toward the bottom.
yeah, am running both 9 and x. but it does it in 9 too.
luckily after recalibrating the battery two times more, it now tells me the percentage reliably. but goes down about 1% a min. lasts 2 hrs roughly. not too bad for an old battery, is half the life it should have but its better than the original 30 mins i was experiencing. don't think it will get any better than 2hrs tho.
i'll never be sure if it was the battery (assuming the guy i bought it off was lying about its good condition) or if os x install confused it that much.