Dual USB iBook 500Mhz G3.
What experience do folks have with replacement batteries for these puppies?
Should I just go with the Apple branded replacement, or are other manufacturer replacements equal? It saves a little, but not a lot...seems like about a $20 difference. Not worth it if the battery is inferior.
Thanks, Dan
In article 030320042150027480%NoUCE@redacted.invalid, Dan Becker NoUCE@redacted.invalid wrote:
Dual USB iBook 500Mhz G3.
What experience do folks have with replacement batteries for these puppies?
Should I just go with the Apple branded replacement, or are other manufacturer replacements equal? It saves a little, but not a lot...seems like about a $20 difference. Not worth it if the battery is inferior.
Thanks, Dan
After looking at the alternatives, I just ordered one from Apple two weeks ago. They quoted 2-4 weeks for delivery! Hope that they are fresh....
On 2004-03-05 02:30:45 +0000, germ germinator@redacted.invalid said:
In article 030320042150027480%NoUCE@redacted.invalid, Dan Becker NoUCE@redacted.invalid wrote:
Dual USB iBook 500Mhz G3.
What experience do folks have with replacement batteries for these puppies? Should I just go with the Apple branded replacement, or are other manufacturer replacements equal? It saves a little, but not a lot...seems like about a $20 difference. Not worth it if the battery is inferior.
Thanks, Dan
After looking at the alternatives, I just ordered one from Apple two weeks ago. They quoted 2-4 weeks for delivery! Hope that they are fresh....
I received one from the Apple store about 3 weeks ago. The iBook now gets a respectable 3.5 - 4 hours again, after having dropped to something like 5 minutes on the old battery.
I tried everything - resetting PMI, battery update patches, etc. - but the new battery seems to have done the trick.
C Walters dangbit@redacted.invalid wrote:
I received one from the Apple store about 3 weeks ago. The iBook now gets a respectable 3.5 - 4 hours again, after having dropped to something like 5 minutes on the old battery.
What gets me is: What happened to the good old days when a dialog came up to warn you that the battery was drained and the computer was about to put itself into emergency sleep, so you had a chance to shut down your apps in good order? I was sure surprised last week on the airplane when the screen just went black suddenly. m.
In article 1gaiyk2.1y6f02d86tp34N%matt@redacted.invalid, matt neuburg wrote:
C Walters dangbit@redacted.invalid wrote:
I received one from the Apple store about 3 weeks ago. The iBook now gets a respectable 3.5 - 4 hours again, after having dropped to something like 5 minutes on the old battery.
What gets me is: What happened to the good old days when a dialog came up to warn you that the battery was drained and the computer was about to put itself into emergency sleep, so you had a chance to shut down your apps in good order? I was sure surprised last week on the airplane when the screen just went black suddenly. m.
Unfortunately, when the computer's idea of the battery's capacity is very incorrect, it can think you have 800mAh left, and 5 seconds later it thinks you have 0mAh. So, it may drop from 40% to 0 in an instant. Similarly, when charging, it may jump from 60% to 100% full.
"calibration" "should" fix the computer's idea of the battery's capacity.
Part of what I think may be happening is that when the voltage is very low, the computer goes into coma-sleep. Very low is about 10.700V on my iBook.
Batmon now talks to you when there is a problem, including low voltage. It says things like (feed this to your shell to hear it):
say -v Bad Battery Voltage is very very low.
But there are two problems -- it's no use if your sound is off or there's too much ambient noise, and under some conditions it hangs inside the "say" command. Works fine on my iBook, but on a new PB it sometimes hangs. Not ready for prime time. Sigh.
I wonder if there's an easy way to make an alert message pop up from an applescript?
-- Peter
Peter Renzland phr0206@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article 1gaiyk2.1y6f02d86tp34N%matt@redacted.invalid, matt neuburg wrote:
C Walters dangbit@redacted.invalid wrote:
I received one from the Apple store about 3 weeks ago. The iBook now gets a respectable 3.5 - 4 hours again, after having dropped to something like 5 minutes on the old battery.
What gets me is: What happened to the good old days when a dialog came up to warn you that the battery was drained and the computer was about to put itself into emergency sleep, so you had a chance to shut down your apps in good order? I was sure surprised last week on the airplane when the screen just went black suddenly. m.
Unfortunately, when the computer's idea of the battery's capacity is very incorrect, it can think you have 800mAh left, and 5 seconds later it thinks you have 0mAh. So, it may drop from 40% to 0 in an instant. Similarly, when charging, it may jump from 60% to 100% full.
"calibration" "should" fix the computer's idea of the battery's capacity.
Part of what I think may be happening is that when the voltage is very low, the computer goes into coma-sleep. Very low is about 10.700V on my iBook.
Batmon now talks to you when there is a problem, including low voltage. It says things like (feed this to your shell to hear it):
say -v Bad Battery Voltage is very very low.But there are two problems -- it's no use if your sound is off or there's too much ambient noise, and under some conditions it hangs inside the "say" command. Works fine on my iBook, but on a new PB it sometimes hangs. Not ready for prime time. Sigh.
I wonder if there's an easy way to make an alert message pop up from an applescript?
There is: display dialog "voltage is low". But under OS 9 the system itself used to do this. A dialog would appear saying: Battery voltage is extremely low; the computer will put itself to sleep in a few seconds. Please save all your work. What I was bemoaning was the loss of this dialog. If OS 9 can do it, there's no reason on earth why OS X can't do it. I should not need any third-party utility here.
As for "calibration" - according to the instructions I'm able to find, what happened to me on the plan was calibration (I ran the computer until the battery ran out of juice). m.
In article 1gazhvc.1td1csl1o1e5vkN%matt@redacted.invalid, matt neuburg wrote:
Peter Renzland phr0206@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article 1gaiyk2.1y6f02d86tp34N%matt@redacted.invalid, matt neuburg wrote:
C Walters dangbit@redacted.invalid wrote:
I received one from the Apple store about 3 weeks ago. The iBook now gets a respectable 3.5 - 4 hours again, after having dropped to something like 5 minutes on the old battery.
What gets me is: What happened to the good old days when a dialog came up to warn you that the battery was drained and the computer was about to put itself into emergency sleep, so you had a chance to shut down your apps in good order? I was sure surprised last week on the airplane when the screen just went black suddenly. m.
Unfortunately, when the computer's idea of the battery's capacity is very incorrect, it can think you have 800mAh left, and 5 seconds later it thinks you have 0mAh. So, it may drop from 40% to 0 in an instant. Similarly, when charging, it may jump from 60% to 100% full.
"calibration" "should" fix the computer's idea of the battery's capacity.
Part of what I think may be happening is that when the voltage is very low, the computer goes into coma-sleep. Very low is about 10.700V on my iBook.
Batmon now talks to you when there is a problem, including low voltage. It says things like (feed this to your shell to hear it):
say -v Bad Battery Voltage is very very low.But there are two problems -- it's no use if your sound is off or there's too much ambient noise, and under some conditions it hangs inside the "say" command. Works fine on my iBook, but on a new PB it sometimes hangs. Not ready for prime time. Sigh.
I wonder if there's an easy way to make an alert message pop up from an applescript?
There is: display dialog "voltage is low".
Hm.
$ osascript -e 'display dialog "voltage is low"' 0:31: execution error: No user interaction allowed. (-1713)
Looks like I'm missing something.
But under OS 9 the system itself used to do this. A dialog would appear saying: Battery voltage is extremely low; the computer will put itself to sleep in a few seconds. Please save all your work. What I was bemoaning was the loss of this dialog. If OS 9 can do it, there's no reason on earth why OS X can't do it. I should not need any third-party utility here.
That's exactly what happens in OS X. And, with the same battery, under the same conditions, I would expect the exact same behaviour. It'd be interested in reports to the contrary, though.
The computer did not warn the user, because it believed the untrue report from the battery's firmware, which claimed there was lots of charge left, when there wasn't. The battery's report was incorrect because the battery's idea of it's own capacity (and therefore its remaining charge) was no longer correct. It was in need of calibration. A reality-check. "Sudden coma-sleep is nature's way of telling the user that the battery needs calibrating." :-)
As for "calibration" - according to the instructions I'm able to find, what happened to me on the plan was calibration (I ran the computer until the battery ran out of juice). m.
If you had checked the battery's Capacity before and after, you would have found that the battery was in fact re-calibrated, i.e. the battery's firmware's idea of the battery's capacity was adjusted. (Unfortunately re-calibration is not retroactive. ;-)
So, after charging fully, you would have gotten the warning, under similar conditions, the next day.
BTW, you do know how to check your battery's capacity, or?
If not, there's a nice program called XBattery. There's also a very nicely crafted shell script called battery. And for curious intrepid Unix users, batmon. :-)
Another BTW -- last week I actually watched a battery recalibrating itself as it was discharging. Previously, I had only seen a Capacity adjustment within 3 minutes of being plugged in after coma-sleep.
-- Peter
In article YZi7c.1228$re.117947@redacted.invalid, Peter Renzland wrote:
In article 1gazhvc.1td1csl1o1e5vkN%matt@redacted.invalid, matt neuburg wrote:
Peter Renzland phr0206@redacted.invalid wrote:
I wonder if there's an easy way to make an alert message pop up from an applescript?
There is: display dialog "voltage is low".
Hm.
$ osascript -e 'display dialog "voltage is low"' 0:31: execution error: No user interaction allowed. (-1713)
Looks like I'm missing something.
O.K. I figured it out (-:
osascript -e 'tell app "Finder"'
-e 'activate'
-e 'display dialog "Hello World" with icon STOP giving up after 10 '
-e 'end tell'
cool!
-- Peter
Peter Renzland phr0206@redacted.invalid wrote:
There is: display dialog "voltage is low".
Hm.
$ osascript -e 'display dialog "voltage is low"' 0:31: execution error: No user interaction allowed. (-1713)
Looks like I'm missing something.
Yes, and my book tells you what it is (p. 368). m.