Powerbook G4 Power problems

[BellaSole321]

I have a 1.67 GHz Powerbook G4. This morning it was fine. When I got home from work, it decided that it suddenly no longer wants to stay on when not plugged in. The battery is showing a full charge. The light on the plug is green. But the second I unplug the cord from the laptop, the entire thing shuts down.

Any suggestions on what it might be? Hopefully nothing crazy expensive to fix.

[iSaint]

Download iStat Pro widget, or Coconut Battery and see what they show as the health of the battery.

Have you been following Apple's suggestions for battery care?

[lamina]

Shut down the computer, hold down the power button until the light on the front blinks and you hear the fans spin up really high, and you hear a BOOOOOOOOP sound. Don't be alarmed, you're just resetting the PMU.

[BellaSole321]

Originally Posted by lamina

Shut down the computer, hold down the power button until the light on the front blinks and you hear the fans spin up really high, and you hear a BOOOOOOOOP sound. Don't be alarmed, you're just resetting the PMU.

Is there something I'm supposed to do beyond this? Because I did it twice and I'm still having the same problem. The battery is reading 98% at a full charge. And I have always been really good about draining the battery and then charging, etc.

Any other suggestions?

[shu82]

I would go into open firmware and reset everything. On bootup press command-option + O + F. Then type this hitting enter between every phrase.

set-defaults
reset-nvram
reset-all

Your computer should reboot . That resets the processor on the battery.

[BellaSole321]

Ok, I have done all of this and it still doesn't work.

Also, the date and time, after shutting down, defaults to December 31, 1969.

I read a thread over at http://discussions.apple.com/thread....5798&tstart=15

Other people are having the same problem. No one seems to have a solution. What's happening to the woman's powerbook in the first post is exactly what's happening to mine.

Help I'm going to be on a plane next week and without my laptop I'm essentially deadmeat for the entire flight.

[shu82]

It is normal if the date defaults to that, directly after doing those things in Open firmware. But if it is after you pull the plug or do a normal shutdown, then you may have a bad internal battery. Its a little battery attached to your logic board. It must be so dead it won't even recharge anymore.