I have had a problem with my powerbook of late. I am running under 10.2.8 and the powerbook is about a year old and has been mostly run on a powersupply and rarely on the battery.
The problem is that lately when running under battery when I get down to a reading of about 50% without warning the computer goes to sleep and the battery lights read as dead. No warning that power is getting low no nothing.
I calibrated the battery when I first got it, and when it was new wouldnt give me a warning until under 25% and sleep just before a 0% reading.
I am suspecting the battery but wanted to ask if anyone has had a simular issue, before jumping to a conclusion.
Has anyone out there tried a aftermarket battery for their G4 12" and what luck have you? I haven't looked into any aftermarket like LIND and the like yet.
Any helpfull comments would be greatly appreciated.
Don.
I had to buy a new battery for my iBook 12" 2USB. I have read that 10.2.3 can ruin a battery and I was using it. After 2.5 Y I thought it was quick.
So something on the battery: It a LiIon pack. These batteries have a limited life. The limit is mostly caused by the charge cycles. The end is around the 500 cycles. So, intense use of the battery will shortens its life. Strange things will hapen when the battery is at the end of life so what you describe looks like a (near) dead battery.
Casper
On 2004-08-22 22:49:44 +0200, ctseeker@redacted.invalid (CT Seeker) said:
I have had a problem with my powerbook of late. I am running under 10.2.8 and the powerbook is about a year old and has been mostly run on a powersupply and rarely on the battery. The problem is that lately when running under battery when I get down to a reading of about 50% without warning the computer goes to sleep and the battery lights read as dead. No warning that power is getting low no nothing. I calibrated the battery when I first got it, and when it was new wouldnt give me a warning until under 25% and sleep just before a 0% reading. I am suspecting the battery but wanted to ask if anyone has had a simular issue, before jumping to a conclusion. Has anyone out there tried a aftermarket battery for their G4 12" and what luck have you? I haven't looked into any aftermarket like LIND and the like yet.
Any helpfull comments would be greatly appreciated.
Don.
When in doubt -- calibrate. Do it under minimal load.
The reason you don't get a warning is because when the battery is miscalibrated the SW thinks it's 55% charged but it's really only 5% charged. If the SW gives a warning at 10%, it never gets a chance to warn you because it never gets to 10%. The battery hardware triggers a "RAW LOW" condition before the software sees a "WARN LOW" condition.
Recalibrate. From full charge, set PM to no sleep, disk spin down,
sudo pmset -b spindown 1 dim 1 reduce 1 sleep 0
display off, airport off, unplug everything. no Apps. leave it alone until it coma-sleeps. Then plug it in.
If you're curious, run x-Battery or x-Charge to monitor it. Measure your capacity before & after. On Calibration (and on 0-full charge) you should see a mostly straight line. If you see a vertical jump, your calibration is still off. Another calibration may move the jumps (always 2 corresponding ones) to the ends until they disappear.
Trickle calibration may give you a few (maybe quite a few) bonus minutes on "empty" (i.e. a horisontal bottom line). This is good. It will recalibrate your battery capacity up.
Advice: when using your iBook on battery, minumize power load -- avoid optical drive, turn airport off when not in use, keep display at minimum. power load surges may trigger unexpected battery depletion. X-Battery monitors load, capacity, etc.
-- Peter
On 2004-09-06, Casper bilcaweghalen.niet@redacted.invalid wrote:
I had to buy a new battery for my iBook 12" 2USB. I have read that 10.2.3 can ruin a battery and I was using it. After 2.5 Y I thought it was quick.
So something on the battery: It a LiIon pack. These batteries have a limited life. The limit is mostly caused by the charge cycles. The end is around the 500 cycles. So, intense use of the battery will shortens its life. Strange things will hapen when the battery is at the end of life so what you describe looks like a (near) dead battery.
Casper
On 2004-08-22 22:49:44 +0200, ctseeker@redacted.invalid (CT Seeker) said:
I have had a problem with my powerbook of late. I am running under 10.2.8 and the powerbook is about a year old and has been mostly run on a powersupply and rarely on the battery. The problem is that lately when running under battery when I get down to a reading of about 50% without warning the computer goes to sleep and the battery lights read as dead. No warning that power is getting low no nothing. I calibrated the battery when I first got it, and when it was new wouldnt give me a warning until under 25% and sleep just before a 0% reading. I am suspecting the battery but wanted to ask if anyone has had a simular issue, before jumping to a conclusion. Has anyone out there tried a aftermarket battery for their G4 12" and what luck have you? I haven't looked into any aftermarket like LIND and the like yet.
Any helpfull comments would be greatly appreciated.
Don.
Peter wrote:
Recalibrate. From full charge, set PM to no sleep, disk spin down,
sudo pmset -b spindown 1 dim 1 reduce 1 sleep 0
display off, airport off, unplug everything. no Apps. leave it alone until it coma-sleeps. Then plug it in.
Thanks for the tips, Peter. Question: what do you mean by "display off?" Dim the screen until it goes dark?