Hi,
I have a brand new 15" Powerbook (less than 1 month old) and it is already exhibiting massive battery problems. Everything was pretty cool at around 4-5 hours of battery life, but now all of a sudden, its down to 25 minutes!!! Here is the output from the ioreg command to show the battery capacity:
pdutta:~ pdutta$ ioreg -w0 -l|grep Capacity | | | "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=518,"Amperage"=0,"Cycle Count"=6,"Current"=518,"Voltage"=12542,"Flags"=1090519045,"AbsoluteMaxCapacity"=4400}) | | | | | | | "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=518,"Amperage"=0,"Cycle Count"=6,"Current"=518,"Voltage"=12542,"Flags"=1090519045,"AbsoluteMaxCapacity"=4400})
Do I have a toast battery already or is there something else I can do to resurrect this machine?
Partha Dutta
Entity partha.dutta@redacted.invalid spoke thus:
I have a brand new 15" Powerbook (less than 1 month old) and it is already exhibiting massive battery problems. Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284
-- Gnarlie echo ngraoliduo@redacted.invalid |sed 's/(.)(.)/\2\1/g'
That doesn't work either. I tried it several times. Now, this is what the battery capacity is down to:
"IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=410,"Amperage"=800,"Cycle Count"=6,"Current"=157,"Voltage"=12534,"Flags"=1090519047,"AbsoluteMaxCapacity"=4400})
Assuming that you have properly calibrated your battery, have you checked to see if you have one of the bad batteries that Apple has a recall on.
Failing that, you need to examine what you have in terms of warranty coverage.
partha.dutta@redacted.invalid wrote in message news:1132936710.135209.299840@redacted.invalid
That doesn't work either. I tried it several times. Now, this is what the battery capacity is down to:
"IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=410,"Amperage"=800,"Cycle
Count"=6,"Current"=157,"Voltage"=12534,"Flags"=1090519047,"AbsoluteMaxCapaci ty"=4400})
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups ----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
In article 1132936710.135209.299840@redacted.invalid, partha.dutta@redacted.invalid wrote:
That doesn't work either. I tried it several times. Now, this is what the battery capacity is down to:
Partha-
No, you can't leave a PowerBook asleep for several weeks with no appreciable battery drain. Even when turned off there is a slight drain that will eventually run the battery down, although it will take a lot longer than when asleep. My G4 PowerBook battery gets down to about 70% after a month of not being used or charged.
How long does it take your batery to run down while asleep? I've never tried it but expect it would last no more than a week without being plugged-in.
Fred
In article 1132936710.135209.299840@redacted.invalid, partha.dutta@redacted.invalid wrote:
That doesn't work either. I tried it several times. Now, this is what the battery capacity is down to:
I just realized I responded to the wrong battery thread. Sorry for the mixup!
Fred
Hey Partha... I bought a new 15" PowerBook about a month ago, and experienced the exact same issue you have. After about a week of normal usage with great battery life (4-5 hours), all of a sudden the time reported to be remaining was around 20 minutes even at a full charge. I tried the battery calibration mentioned on Apple's website, but to no avail.
When I took it in to an Apple store to have their tech geniuses look at it, after about 10 minutes of looking at it and testing different things, they replaced the whole computer with a PowerBook right out of a new box. The tech said that he was pretty sure it wasn't the battery, or he would have replaced just the battery with a new one. So perhaps Apple knows something about this issue.
Well, that was a few weeks ago, and things have been going great with my new PowerBook...until right now. I had been using it earlier tonight and plugged it in to charge during dinner. When i just opened it up, the battery life was reporting 12 minutes left at something like 45%. Crap, here we go again. I'm gonna take it in again asap.
I've done a bunch of google searches trying to find something out, and this thread is the first I've come across with someone else having the same issue, so there must be something to it.
Let me know if anything comes of your problem.
...Joe Golike
I just got my battery replaced last night at the Apple store. The lead tech there said this is a known issue that involves a certain series of batteries. Mine fell within the affected serial numbers, so they swapped it out with a new one. It seems like they know the problem is happening, and that it's happening to a certain group of batteries, but they don't know what causes it yet.
It looks like when they replaced my first PowerBook with this problem that they replaced the whole thing and not just the battery because it was within the first 14 days of the purchase, and they didn't have a new battery on hand, so they declared mine DOA or something. Anyway, hope that helps the rest of you having this problem!
...Joe