Powerbook Battery/Charger Issue

[cypher]

Currently have a 4 year old 12" 1.5Ghz Powerbook with a 1.5 year old battery. I was getting upto 1 hour 35 mins on a single charge with wifi use and bluetooth off. After switching to Leopard the battery life droppped to 1 hour and now the charge only lasts for 35 mins. Also when I switched to leopard my power adapter shorted out and so I purchased a third party power adapter. I thought I was buying a 65W but turned out to be an older 45W one. Could this be the problem? One of my friends seeme to be quite sure that its the adapter and to rectofy the situation i would beed to replace the afapter as well as the battery now as the inferior adapter would have ruied the battery as well...
Thoughts?

[deadpixels]

i don't think a 45w adapter will destroy the battery, it'll just take forever to charge it fully or not charge it fully at all. but how did your original adapter shorted? was it the cable? when the cable is shorted it can short also the battery at the same time and that will definitely damage your battery. you could check in profiler to see if your battery health decreased.

[cypher]

I think shorted is not the right word. The cord frayed was frayed near the connector and would not charge anymore. Here is my battery information from profiler....

AC Charger Information:

AC Charger (Watts): 45
Connected: Yes
Charging: Yes

Battery Information:

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 678
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 805
Health Information:
Cycle count: 178
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 510
Voltage (mV): 12597

[cypher]

Sorry... double post

[chrisbeebops]

Full charge capacity is listed as down to 805mAh... modern MBP batteries are like 5000mAh+... I have to assume that replacing the battery would definitely help make the charge last longer.

[deadpixels]

yes, battery needs replacing.

[cypher]

Thanks for the info!

Also what wold have caused the battery to malfunction only after a 1.5 years? And with not that many charge cycles? If get a new battery would you recommend getting an original apple charger as well?

The charger for the powerbook from Apple costs around $80 and I think the battery would be around the same. Should I just go ahead and buy a macbook at this time? Is there any talk about macbook updates at the WWDC in June?

[deadpixels]

Maybe both wires frayed and then there is a possibility they lightly shorted from time to time on the battery and charger side, that could have caused the early damage on the battery. Any charger should do fine as long as the wattage is correct. Don't know about updates, no one really knows. Maybe wait to WWDC and check the rumors sites.

[jacobly]

I'm having similar problems with a 15" Aluminum G4:

Battery model #A1148

Battery Information:

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 1432
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 0
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 10842
Cycle Count: 239

AC Charger Information:

AC Charger (Watts): 65
Connected: Yes
Charging: No


As you can see, the battery still has capacity. And yet... it isn't charging!!

I just tried taking out the battery to look at its serial number and I opened and closed System Profiler so it would refresh its info. The strange thing is that it shows as having the battery "Installed" even though I have the battery in my hand.