So, as I was leaving the office this afternoon to go to the Apple Store, Colin pointed out to me that he had seen a Macintouch article on powerbook batteries. I told him “but then I wouldn’t have an excuse to go to the Apple Store!”
However, at the Apple Store, I didn’t get so much help. My consultant concluded that I had a defective battery. However, they didn’t have any “known-good” batteries, and there were quite a few other people waiting for help. So, I agreed to wait for a bit to see if the battery would act up while he helped some other people. That’s when I got on the wireless network and made my earlier post.
I also checked my email, and saw that Colin had sent me that URL. So I looked it over, and the symptoms people reported sounded a lot like mine. So I followed the instructions:
Shutdown (you can’t get into open-firmware restarting)
While booting, hold down option, apple, ‘O’, and ‘F’
At the open-firmware prompt, enter
reset-nvram You should see OK and a new prompt.Now type
reset-all This causes the Mac to reboot.You have now reset the non-volatile RAM, which holds settings for the Power Manager software, which apparently can go south and make your battery look like it’s hosed. Interestingly, I also had to reset the NVRAM a few months ago when the SuperDrive disappeared. Anyway, I’ve been working from the battery for quite a while tonight with no problems, so I’m treating it as fixed.
I guess it’s not surprising, but it’s interesting to see how two apparent hardware failures have been traced back to software problems.
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This sounds like the old Wallstreet issue with batteries. Apple released battery fixer that would reset the batteries and in most cases ridded you of the X and restored full battery time. I’ve had a few batteries where this didn’t work.. but I also had a battery that would only hold a charge for 10 minutes. After reseting it with battery fixer it now holds 3 hours.
I don’t know if the binary will run or work on iBooks.. but you might want to try!
Well, for what it’s worth, yesterday I finally got Apple to simply give me a replacement battery. The “geniuses” at the Apple Store never mentioned the battery fixer, so either it doesn’t apply to the latest PowerBooks, or they aren’t so genius.
I’m just a little irritated that on my first three trips they kept telling me I’d need to leave the machine with them for testing, and then yesterday the guy I got just gave me the battery, no questions asked.
Anyway, it works, that’s the important part.
Well…. That was exactly IŽm having.
Today I went to the nearly apple store of my city, asking for battery prices… I have a TiBook (titanium powerbook g4) and the prices were so high that I have return down.
Wondering when IŽll have to spent 140$ for a battery, suddenly I decide to put on my googleŽs window: recharging powerbook battery, and Bingo! this page cames out from the nothing !. what a solution, I Thought.
BUT,… I did reset my nvram opening the Ofirmware of my MacOs 10.2.6, and guess what? NOTHING HAPPENED, not getting so far, I couldnŽt improve my battery life, so, if anybody could write me a couple of lines with a solution, I`ll appreciated very much….
A simple macaddict.
karl, obviously you feel strongly strongly strongly about this. try pressing the reset button found under the keyboard (toward the right) of your ti to reset the power manager, remove the keyboard using the tabs at the top (instructions are in the manual). Also try removing and replacing battery. Also update the OS. If all that fails, call Apple.
OK, well this entry has turned into a horrible spam magnet, so I’m going to close off the comments…
My powerbook will be fine until about 60 percent where it starts to sleep, due to batter loss, but then one day i decided to see how long it’d be until it is totally dead. it took about a week and a half, i really would appreaciate some help…thanks in advance
Hi, I’m Joe too. Anyway, recently my powerbook g4, after I installed leopard up from 10.3.9, has showed no batteries available for about a month. I finally got a newer tech battery yesterday, and it showed 19% for about 5 minutes, but then reverted back to X no battery. Help anyone?