Just got a 1.5GHz powerbook G4 in which isnt charging its battery. I did notice a very slight flicker once on the first LED plugging it in but havent seen it since. Records seem to show that it has had a battery replacement but I dont know the details. Computer seems to work fine apart from that (and it wont pick up an IP, though I cant imagine that has anything to do with the battery problem: The airport card can see networks and it seems to be able to log onto them but keeps picking up a spoofed IP on every local network??)
Control option shift power doesnt seem to do the trick, nor does reset- defaults or reset-nvram in O. F.
Turning off and on the power in the top ribbon bar doesnt seem to do anything, though to be fair BATTERY IS NOT CHARGING and POWER SOURCE POWER ADAPTER is greyed out
The only other symptoms are that the unit doesnt bong on start up, though I can hear repeated HDD activity on CMD-OPT P R as if it IS bonging and it loses its date and time on shut-off even when the adapter isnt unplugged (after I have tried to reset the PMU unit)
Is there anything left to reset? I cant believe that the internal battery is dead on a unit which isnt all that old, there isnt anything particularly suspicious in INFO and the cycle count is zero. I suspect that this computer has been on a desktop for most of its life
In article a3f6260f-c8a2-41bd-807a-562b9a22ef3b@redacted.invalid, DManzaluni dmanzaluni@redacted.invalid wrote:
Is there anything left to reset?
DM-
I assume the ring around the power plug at the PB end, is lighted green, as if your battery is already charged.
Did you reset the Power Management Unit (PMU)? There was an Apple article number 14449, that told how for each of several models. I just found it again at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431?viewlocale=en_US
Fred
DManzaluni dmanzaluni@redacted.invalid wrote:
Just got a 1.5GHz powerbook G4 in which isnt charging its battery. I did notice a very slight flicker once on the first LED plugging it in but havent seen it since. Records seem to show that it has had a battery replacement but I dont know the details. Computer seems to work fine apart from that (and it wont pick up an IP, though I cant imagine that has anything to do with the battery problem: The airport card can see networks and it seems to be able to log onto them but keeps picking up a spoofed IP on every local network??)
Control option shift power doesnt seem to do the trick, nor does reset- defaults or reset-nvram in O. F.
Turning off and on the power in the top ribbon bar doesnt seem to do anything, though to be fair BATTERY IS NOT CHARGING and POWER SOURCE POWER ADAPTER is greyed out
The only other symptoms are that the unit doesnt bong on start up, though I can hear repeated HDD activity on CMD-OPT P R as if it IS bonging and it loses its date and time on shut-off even when the adapter isnt unplugged (after I have tried to reset the PMU unit)
Is there anything left to reset? I cant believe that the internal battery is dead on a unit which isnt all that old, there isnt anything particularly suspicious in INFO and the cycle count is zero. I suspect that this computer has been on a desktop for most of its life
One unwelcome possibility is that the charger itself is dud.
I lately bought one (via ebay) that turned out to be a pirate copy. Very plausible indeed, even when laid side-by-side with a known genuine article. But it simply stopped working after about a month. The specially annoying feature is that it looks like it's working - the ring lights up in the right ways, it just doesn't actually deliver juice to the Mac.
So if your PB is secondhand, it might also be worth trying a different charger.
G.
Yes, I said that I had performed the Shift-Control-Option-Power procedure to reset the PMU and the ring does still register green (only green). (I suspect it was that which reset the date to 1969: I hope it doesnt reset the cycle count as well!). And the 'battery is not charging" and 'power source: power Adapter' lines in the power menu on the top ribbon bar ARE still grayed out. It is as if there is no electrical connection between the battery and the computer As well as it not knowing that there is a power adapter plugged in. If I remove the plug for even a half-second, the whole unit dies completely.
In addition I might have mentioned that the unit does have a slightly long start-up time for a computer with a Gig of RAM. 20 seconds beofre the screen lights. About a minute before the screen goes blue. another minute for password entry. About five minutes before the white screen goes blue and a further three or four before the Leopard wallpaper comes up. Then three to four before the password comes up
(Disk utility shows nothing amiss)
On Mar 6, 12:48=A0pm, Fred McKenzie fm...@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article a3f6260f-c8a2-41bd-807a-562b9a22e...@redacted.invalid,
=A0DManzaluni dmanzal...@redacted.invalid wrote:
Is there anything left to reset?
DM-
I assume the ring around the power plug at the PB end, is lighted green, as if your battery is already charged.
Did you reset the Power Management Unit (PMU)? =A0There was an Apple article number 14449, that told how for each of several models. =A0I just found it again at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431?viewlocale=3Den_US
Fred
On 06/03/2009 20:44, in article e01c7b09-0434-4284-987e-0fec8b9e7ba5@redacted.invalid, "DManzaluni" dmanzaluni@redacted.invalid wrote:
Yes, I said that I had performed the Shift-Control-Option-Power procedure to reset the PMU and the ring does still register green (only green). (I suspect it was that which reset the date to 1969: I hope it doesnt reset the cycle count as well!). And the 'battery is not charging" and 'power source: power Adapter' lines in the power menu on the top ribbon bar ARE still grayed out. It is as if there is no electrical connection between the battery and the computer As well as it not knowing that there is a power adapter plugged in. If I remove the plug for even a half-second, the whole unit dies completely.
In addition I might have mentioned that the unit does have a slightly long start-up time for a computer with a Gig of RAM. 20 seconds beofre the screen lights. About a minute before the screen goes blue. another minute for password entry. About five minutes before the white screen goes blue and a further three or four before the Leopard wallpaper comes up. Then three to four before the password comes up
(Disk utility shows nothing amiss)
On Mar 6, 12:48 pm, Fred McKenzie fm...@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article a3f6260f-c8a2-41bd-807a-562b9a22e...@redacted.invalid,
DManzaluni dmanzal...@redacted.invalid wrote:
Is there anything left to reset?
DM-
I assume the ring around the power plug at the PB end, is lighted green, as if your battery is already charged.
Did you reset the Power Management Unit (PMU)? There was an Apple article number 14449, that told how for each of several models. I just found it again at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431?viewlocale=en_US
Fred
I think that's it caused by a dud charger... But even though I used to have the 1.67ghz G4 and that used to take a while to fire up... Not as bad as my win tel box at work.... That takes litterally 10 minutes to boot
On Mar 6, 4:56=A0pm, Hungry Huge hugeon...@redacted.invalid wrote:
On 06/03/2009 20:44, in article e01c7b09-0434-4284-987e-0fec8b9e7...@redacted.invalid,
"DManzaluni" dmanzal...@redacted.invalid wrote:
Yes, I said that I had performed the Shift-Control-Option-Power procedure to reset the PMU and the ring does still register green (only green). =A0(I suspect it was that which reset the date to 1969: I hope it doesnt reset the cycle count as well!). =A0And the 'battery is not charging" and 'power source: power Adapter' lines in the power menu on the top ribbon bar ARE still grayed out. It is as if there is no electrical connection between the battery and the computer As well as it not knowing that there is a power adapter plugged in. =A0If I remove the plug for even a half-second, the whole unit dies completely.
In addition I might have mentioned that the unit does have a slightly long start-up time for a computer with a Gig of RAM. 20 seconds beofre the screen lights. About a minute before the screen goes blue. another minute for password entry. =A0About five minutes before the white screen goes blue and a further three or four before the Leopard wallpaper comes up. =A0 Then three to four before the password comes up
(Disk utility shows nothing amiss)
On Mar 6, 12:48=A0pm, Fred McKenzie fm...@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article a3f6260f-c8a2-41bd-807a-562b9a22e...@redacted.invalid,
=A0DManzaluni dmanzal...@redacted.invalid wrote:
Is there anything left to reset?
DM-
I assume the ring around the power plug at the PB end, is lighted gree= n, as if your battery is already charged.
Did you reset the Power Management Unit (PMU)? =A0There was an Apple article number 14449, that told how for each of several models. =A0I j= ust found it again at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431?viewlocale=3Den_US
Fred
I think that's it caused by a dud charger... But even though I used to ha= ve the 1.67ghz G4 and that used to take a while to fire up... Not as bad as = my win tel box at work.... That takes litterally 10 minutes to boot- Hide qu= oted text -
- Show quoted text -
I have numerous Win boxes and that sort of problem is always cured by a combination of running Spybot, adaware anh pretty careful checking in MSCONFIG. I usually have to get rid of Norton anti-anything and completely expunge anything to do with AOL from the computer but if you are using the computer at work, that is unlikely to be an issue. In any event I have also tried a G4 iBook charger which seems to do much the same thing. There again I am running the software update at the moment and it indicates a 377 Meg download on the OS alone so I wonder what will be better when it is downloaded. (I suppose it is too much to think this unit never had its battery firmware update)
BTW I was exaggerating when I said that the cycle count was zero: I was looking in the wrong place: It is actually 92.
In article 0a34109c-80df-406e-a110-18f737b33430@redacted.invalid, DManzaluni dmanzaluni@redacted.invalid wrote:
In you first post, you mentioned a lack of sound. Try headphones. Sometimes the "switch" in the headphone socket that disables the speaker gets stuck.
Together with your charging weirdness, it points to dirty contacts. Is there any chance this machine became coffee-soaked in its earlier life?
Make with the isopropyl alcohol spraycan and copious Kleenex.
I dont think that is it, all the contacts look very clean and new: But this is becoming a bit mystifying: The computer had a smashed screen which I just replaced:You cant just take off the casing on this, you have to take the top of the casing apart On replacement I did get a very slight blip out of the first green light on the battery: When I plugged in my G4 iBook charger into it (I think it is a 45 watt?), suddenly the ring glowed orange for about five minutes! Not sure it charged the battery yet but when I tried plugging in the Powerbook charger, it wouldnt charge it. Plugged the iBook in again and again it glowed orange again. Might be a problem with the charger but I am not sure as the orange glow didnt stay on for more than about 5 minutes and now everything glows green again, though curiously plugging the Powerbook charger into the iBook wont charge it!
(Plus when I started up, I got three beeps as opposed to the no bong. And the light on the fron keeps flashing thee times quite brightly. Curiously when I opened up the computer I discovered that this 1GHz RAM computer actually ALSO had a 256 Meg chip in the lower slot! now I will have to figure out which slot isnt working or which chip is bad!)
On Mar 6, 5:41=A0pm, Elliott Roper nos...@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article 0a34109c-80df-406e-a110-18f737b33...@redacted.invalid,
DManzaluni dmanzal...@redacted.invalid wrote:
In you first post, you mentioned a lack of sound. Try headphones. Sometimes the "switch" in the headphone socket that disables the speaker gets stuck.
Together with your charging weirdness, it points to dirty contacts. Is there any chance this machine became coffee-soaked in its earlier life?
Make with the isopropyl alcohol spraycan and copious Kleenex.
-- To de-mung my e-mail address:- fsnospam$elliott$$ PGP Fingerprint: 1A96 3CF7 637F 896B C810 =A0E199 7E5C A9E4 8E59 E248
Just came across this in an ad (Re: a MacBook): "apple has diagnosed it with an issue, the power connector might need to be replaced but i'm not sure they just said it might be either or, meaning the laptop only works when the adapter is on but the battery wont be detected or charged, this is a good deal for those who have laptops but dont often take them out."
Does anyone recognise what is going on as these symptoms look a whole lot like mine??
Not sure if this is the place for hardware issues or if there is a more appropriate NG?
DManzaluni dmanzaluni@redacted.invalid wrote:
I dont think that is it, all the contacts look very clean and new:
What is it?
Please don't top post to uk.comp.sys.mac. It makes it impossible to understand what you're on about, without reading the bottom then trekking back to the top, and it's deprecated in the charter for good reason.