Battery Issues w/ 10.3.3 (split from '10.3.3 is officially out')

aquaticaquatic
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
OK I'm going to take the dive! Since my PowerBook G4 12" goes to sleep when it gets to only 85% I figure I don't have much to lose and I really need my battery to work. Here's my post to the Apple thread about it, good to see other people are sharing in my misery at least:

---

Yeah I have this EXACT issue. I knew other people were seeing this and the idiot on the phone @ 800 800 2775 from Edu Apple Care was lying or ignorant when he said no one else was having this problem.



I assume it is software as a I typed in "ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInfo" I got 3426 as Capacity, which is ok for a year old I guess. Isn't the 12" PB 867 supposed to have 4000? Anyway that's around 85% so so be it. HOWEVER: My PB drops to sleep at 85% to and the status light on the battery at that point would be showing 4 or 5 green dots, then all of a sudden to the bottom one flashing. Conversely I watched it closely when it was charging up. It got to around 29% or 30% then shot STRAIGHT up to 100%. Hmm...This can not be normal.



I have reset the PMU, PRAM, etc a lot. I also did one thing one guy on the phone told me: Take the battery out, hit the button, wait 30 seconds, then put it back in, power up, all the way down, then all the way back up, and then all the way back down again. Did this a few times, didn't do anything. Now, my PB sleeps at 85% with the CPU down, drive spindown on, screen off at 1 minute, and all networking, modem, ethernet, AirPort, Bluetooth, turned off. If I pop open GarageBand from 100% my PB goes to sleep in 2 minutes. Ouch. This can not be normal.



There are two reasons for this I am guessing: 10.3.2, or Battery Update 1.1. I am not sure which since they came out so close, and I installed Panther when 10.3.2 came out along with Battery Update 1.1. Since I bought this PB at the end of last Feb right when it came out am I screwed and have to buy a new battery? I really hope this is just software! I would really not be looking forward to paying over a hundred dollars for a new battery. And after I just persuaded a girl in my hall to buy an iBook because Apples have better battery life.



I will see if I can find someone else with a PBG4 12" rev a and stick their battery in and see what happens. The PBG4 12" 867 and 1ghz are interchangeable?

---





However it's important to note that the word "battery" wasn't mentioned in any of the "enhancements." Is it in the "BOM" or whatever that people sometimes post that lists all the changed files? I can't recall how to get to that.



Also another biggy would be SMB. Currently not nearly as much shows up in Connect to...which did in Jaguar. And another thing would be making mounted servers appearing in Finder, so you can unmount them without having to log out or restart.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 48
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    interesting battery command:



    here's after two years. first one is a brand new one.



    "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=4149,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=4112," Voltage"=16656,"Flags"=838860805})





    IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=1942,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=1907," Voltage"=16593,"Flags"=838860805})
  • Reply 2 of 48
    torifiletorifile Posts: 4,024member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    Alcimedes your capacity took a nose dive. It looks like it killed your battery! Have your times dropped significantly or was it previously not reporting right and now is corrected?



    I seem to have the same problem. I wish I would have done the ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInfo command before the update, but I'm pretty sure that I got over 4000 last time I checked. Now it's down to 3612. I'll have to dig up that old thread about the battery update and see for sure.



    edit: I just checked that thread and I got 4256 on Jan 15th. I've "lost" about 1/7th of my capacity in about 2 months. ^2
  • Reply 3 of 48
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    My battery capacity went from 4015 in that thread to 3634 now. No improvement with 10.3.3.
  • Reply 4 of 48
    sonofsylvanussonofsylvanus Posts: 579member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by CosmoNut

    My battery capacity went from 4015 in that thread to 3634 now. No improvement with 10.3.3.



    Cheez, I can't remember what my number was from that thread, but the battery time in the menubar reads ~45mins less than it did 24hours ago on a full charge.



    \
  • Reply 5 of 48
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Yikes! so this update decreases battery life even further! I think I'll wait! You guys are lucky. Mine is down to 3400. And even then...it's about as effective as if it were 400 or something because it conks out at 85%.



    Great to hear about networking finally working though EDS666 and Ebby



    Also: does the PBG4 12" rev a fan still kick in to high gear almost all the time? I never complained about heat and I just want my sounds of silence back. It's embarassing and annoying in class when all I'm doing is typing notes in TextEdit for example and out of nowhere the fan ramps up.
  • Reply 6 of 48
    jeremiah richjeremiah rich Posts: 853member
    On 10.3.2 right now on my iBook G4 800 and decided to run the ioreg battery thing. It reports: Capacity"=4500,"Amperage"=120. I will post here after the update to letcha guys now what it says then.
  • Reply 7 of 48
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    Just did the battery command for the first time on my iBook G4. Battery is 7 weeks old.



    ({"Capacity"=4620,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=1634," Voltage"=11840,"Flags"=838860807})



    4620... could it really be that high?
  • Reply 8 of 48
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by murbot

    4620... could it really be that high?



    Don't look a gift horse in the mouth!
  • Reply 9 of 48
    gabidgabid Posts: 477member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by murbot

    Just did the battery command for the first time on my iBook G4. Battery is 7 weeks old.



    ({"Capacity"=4620,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=1634," Voltage"=11840,"Flags"=838860807})



    4620... could it really be that high?



    Hmmm. Now I'm curious to see what my iBook G4 reports. What specific command I need to punch into Terminal?
  • Reply 10 of 48
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    ha ha ha... ok guys. I'll keep it. For now.



    Funny, I looked on the calendar to get that 7 weeks timetable, and couldn't believe it. It honestly feels like 7 months.



    Gabid, type this into the Terminal to get it:



    ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInfo
  • Reply 11 of 48
    gabidgabid Posts: 477member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by murbot

    ha ha ha... ok guys. I'll keep it. For now.



    Funny, I looked on the calendar to get that 7 weeks timetable, and couldn't believe it. It honestly feels like 7 months.



    Gabid, type this into the Terminal to get it:



    ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInfo



    Much obliged. For comparison, I get:



    Quote:

    "Capacity"=4400,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=4358,"Vo ltage"=12550,"Flags"=838860805



    This is on an almost 4 month old iBook G4.
  • Reply 12 of 48
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    O jeez you're just making it worse!!! Gaah my poor battery.
  • Reply 13 of 48
    666666 Posts: 134member
    well i'm getting for a battery test;

    capacity=3613

    amperage=1200

    current=3594

    voltage=12489



    my pbook 1.25g is about 6 months old, is this relatively normal for capacity? seems a bit low..
  • Reply 14 of 48
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    Well MY capacity is 3280. I just did a battery drain from the disk selector when you startup holding option down. They said that was the best way. It rose, but what does that really matter, it's just reporting better, not actually giving me better battery life they said.



    So think I'll be able to get a new battery when I send in my powerbook for white spot repairs? (I keep telling myself I'm going to have to do this soon)
  • Reply 15 of 48
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    My 4 week old iBook G4 reports 4400 for Capacity too.
  • Reply 16 of 48
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member


    "IOBatteryInfo" = ({

    "Capacity"=1538,

    "Amperage"=1125,

    "Current"=1532,

    "Voltage"=16281,

    "Flags"=838860805})





    667 DVI PB 10.3.3 with applecare



    purchased "refreshed" from RF Apple Store in late August of 2002 (Jaguar day) (roughly 20 months old)....
  • Reply 17 of 48
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    4001 from my 1.25 g4 pbook



    edit: what does this number mean exactly? like, 4001 whats? joules? watt hours?
  • Reply 18 of 48
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Thanks for making me feel a little better Paul.



    Still how the hell am I going to fix this 85% thing? It's all over the apple discussions but Apple is officially pretending the problem doesn't exist. I'm out of warranty. Looks like all us 85% to sleep people are SOL too!
  • Reply 19 of 48
    dviantdviant Posts: 483member
    "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=4235,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=4216," Voltage"=12462,"Flags"=1090519045})



    This is on a one month old 15" AlBook 1ghz running 10.3.3. Not had what I'd call extensive battery usage, but I have run it pretty low about a half dozen times.
  • Reply 20 of 48
    jonathanjonathan Posts: 312member
    [PowerBook-G4:~] jonathan% ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInfo

    | | | | "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=5957,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=5533," Voltage"=16668,"Flags"=838860807})



    pbg4 667 dvi.



    i dunno why it's so high. i've been having big problems lately with it going to sleep without any warning with 40% indicated left...
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