iBook Battery Issues

[zach]

Hey all,

Noticed last night that my iBook wasn't seeing its battery.. Instead I get the nice little battery icon with a big bad X in the middle.

Tried all the solutions (resetting PRAM, booting into open firmware and trying reset-nvram), but nothing seems to do it.

Sometimes it will appear upon restart as a battery with 0% charge.. but it goes away in a few.

Yesterday I was using the iBook all day while it was plugged in..

This morning, I borrowed my friend's iBook battery and tried it out.. It worked fine.

I guess all the symptoms are indicating a dead battery, but I can't let go

Anyway, just seeing if any of you guys have any ideas and/or feedback

 

[janey]

hey zach
reset the power management thing, and if that doesnt work call AppleCare for a new battery.

 

[zach]

hey jane

Eh reset that a while ago.. But my warranty's over..

I guess I'll just have to buy a new one.

 

[Jennifer]

Hey all,

Noticed last night that my iBook wasn't seeing its battery.. Instead I get the nice little battery icon with a big bad X in the middle.

Tried all the solutions (resetting PRAM, booting into open firmware and trying reset-nvram), but nothing seems to do it.

Sometimes it will appear upon restart as a battery with 0% charge.. but it goes away in a few.

Yesterday I was using the iBook all day while it was plugged in..

This morning, I borrowed my friend's iBook battery and tried it out.. It worked fine.

I guess all the symptoms are indicating a dead battery, but I can't let go

Anyway, just seeing if any of you guys have any ideas and/or feedback

How old is your iBook? I have a Clamshell that was having similar issues a while back and the battery, which was fairly new, was still under warranty. I discovered that I had inadvertantly purchased a 3rd party battery (Battery Tech) from Fry's. Thus, Apple wouldn't help and when I tried to get Battery Tech to replace it they told me that they do not support OS X (!!!) and that what they recommend is that when on battery power I use OS 9 and when connected with the power cord I use OS X. Pretty ridiculous, right? When I pursued it further with Battery Tech, they kept quoting me a non-existent article from Apple that stated that batteries don't work right with OS X.

Long story short . . . I was able to convince Fry's to take the battery back (even though more than 30 days) and purchased a new (or refurbished?) Apple battery through an Apple service provider. But even this was a strange and scary process. One service provider wanted to charge me extra because I didn't have the old battery to trade out. Another said that Apple didn't make them anymore and that I would have to buy 3rd party (Battery Tech was even recommend!!!).

Moral of the story: (1) always buy Apple branded batteries otherwise Apple will blame the machine disfunction on the battery and say there is nothing they can do; (2) always keep your old battery because you may need it to purchase your next one at a discounted rate; (3) never buy from Battery Tech (any company who would state the above to a customer should be avoided!).

What I've learned recently about good battery conditioning: to what they call calibrate a new battery well--at least as I understand it--one should charge it up completely, let it drain out completely (until the machine shuts itself off), charge it up again = all that is one calibration, so to speak. This you should do every once in a while. A battery only has about 300 lives or so, meaning that it can only drain out and charge up about that many times. Any time off the power cord will thus start using up a "life". SO after its initial calibration, keep it on the power cord when you can and at other times, enjoy it sans cord.

Jennifer

 

[nate13]

almost the same problem

my moms comp ( a 500 MHZ i Book not clamshell) has ad almost the same problem. Only the battery will only last for ten minutes at a time. maybe a new battery?? but it happened very suddenly...
any ideas?