PowerBook Titanium Battery Problem

Now I am down to less than 1 hour. Is there anything I can do?
Claus Atzenbeck wrote on :

Hi!

My PowerBook Titanium 667 MHz (MacOS 10.3.2) used to run over 3 hours with one full battery. Now I am down to less than 1 hour. Is there anything I can do? Any reset of the battery?

Thanks for any hint!

Claus

John Johnson replied on :

In article btm08c$m1k$1@redacted.invalid, Claus Atzenbeck claus.atzenbeck@redacted.invalid wrote:

Hi!

My PowerBook Titanium 667 MHz (MacOS 10.3.2) used to run over 3 hours with one full battery. Now I am down to less than 1 hour. Is there anything I can do? Any reset of the battery?

Thanks for any hint!

Claus

Suggestions:

  1. search the group's archives. this question comes up quite often.
  2. my standard position (you'll see if you search) is that this sort of issue is most likely the battery wearing out. It is quite difficult to do anything more than guess from the far side of Usenet, though. ;-) If your battery is at least 2 years old, and/or has seen many discharge/recharge cycles (My Pismo battery was rated for 500, IIRC, I've never seen a Li-ion battery rated for more than 1000, but then I've been busy with other things recently), likely your diminished capacity is the battery being old. If this is the case, replacement is the only option.
  3. There is no way to recondition the physical cells in a Li-ion battery (this is possible with Nickel-chemistry batteries). You may get results by attempting the 'reconditioning' procedures that you will undoubtedly find when you search the archives. Most of them are aimed at getting the computer to accurately recognize the capacity of the battery.
  4. Ask questions here, and provide more details (age of the battery, etc.) if you do.

HTH

Claus Atzenbeck replied on :

John Johnson wrote:

Thanks a lot for your answer!

  1. search the group's archives. this question comes up quite often.

I did this before I wrote my message.

  1. my standard position (you'll see if you search) is that this sort of issue is most likely the battery wearing out. It is quite difficult to do anything more than guess from the far side of Usenet, though. ;-) If your battery is at least 2 years old, and/or has seen many discharge/recharge cycles (My Pismo battery was rated for 500, IIRC,

I guess that this might be the problem: The battery is about 1.5 years old and I have used my computer a lot. I guess that the charging rating is quite high.

My PowerBook is also my main computer, even if I am working in my office. Would it be the best solution to put out the battery when I have the possibility to use a power plug?

Greetings, Claus

John Johnson replied on :

In article btmhrj$4l2$1@redacted.invalid, Claus Atzenbeck claus.atzenbeck@redacted.invalid wrote:

John Johnson wrote:

Thanks a lot for your answer!

  1. search the group's archives. this question comes up quite often.

I did this before I wrote my message.

Ok, good. It would be quite helpful to all of us if you (not especially you, but we get new people asking questions often, and this advice will hopefully be useful to many people) tell us what you've done so far: looked in the archives, called someone, whatever. That way we don't waste your time telling someone to do things that they've already done. Enough of that.

Did you find anything useful or relevant? What different information are you looking for?

  1. my standard position (you'll see if you search) is that this sort of issue is most likely the battery wearing out. It is quite difficult to do anything more than guess from the far side of Usenet, though. ;-) If your battery is at least 2 years old, and/or has seen many discharge/recharge cycles (My Pismo battery was rated for 500, IIRC,

I guess that this might be the problem: The battery is about 1.5 years old and I have used my computer a lot. I guess that the charging rating is quite high.

Remember that it's not time in use, but the number of times that you've (more or less) completely drained and recharged your battery. Partial discharges count as fractions (again, more or less).

My PowerBook is also my main computer, even if I am working in my office. Would it be the best solution to put out the battery when I have the possibility to use a power plug?

I don't believe so. I never did so with my Pismo, and my first battery lasted 2.5 years before I got down to 1-1.5 hrs life. IIRC, the Tibook and Albook batteries are rather more difficult to remove. IMO, the marginal extension in battery life isn't worth the extra effort. I bought my computer so I could work the way that I want to, not so I could go through all sorts of contortions to wring every last bit of life out of it.

As I understand it, the most significant reason for removing the battery is to prevent it from being exposed to heat. Unless your environment is unusually warm, this isn't a big deal. Make sure that your computer is on a hard surface with good airflow around it, and it shouldn't be a problem.

Should you look for replacement batteries, IIRC NewerTech has a replacement with greater capacity (it's been discussed here recently). Apple should still carry your battery, and I believe that BTI makes one as well.