Annoying battery problem

[GeeYouEye]

My iBook 500Mhz, has an odd battery problem. It still gets quite a while out of the battery, but lately I'd noticed that the indicator was going down faster than normal, as well as recharging faster than normal. When I left it off AC power, and the indicator dropped down, I found that, though I got the 10% warning, the level dropped all the way to zero. The interesting thing is that it stayed at zero, still awake with the airport card active and the screen at minimal backlighting (but not off) for nearly 1/2 hour! Does anyone know what's going on? This is the second time this has happened.

 

[BenderBot1138]

iBook'm Dano...

A good first step might be to make sure your battery is Calibrated. If it is, it is possible that your Power Manager has become unstable - indicated if your portable is showing some strange power related issues. Apple has very good coverage of how to reset your Power Manager (step two below).

Two Steps

First
Try to reset your portable computer's battery by using the Apple Knowledge Base recommendations in this document. If recalibrating your portable's battery doesn't work, the second step (below) which discusses resetting your portable's Power Manager (an onboard integrated circuit).

Second
Try looking at this Apple Document relating to resetting your Apple portable computer Power Manager that may work if the step above didn't work.

WARNING Apple says: Resetting the Power Manager on any PowerBook or iBook will permanently remove a RAM disk, if present, and all of its contents.

I'm not sure about your exact model of iBook, but click here to see some relevant iBook sections (for the 500 Dual USB and Later 2001 Models) within the above Apple Knowledge Base Document.

AppleCare Knowledge Base ID Documents:
First Step: 58616
Second Step: 14449