Okay, here's the deal. I'm kind of mad. I have the stock 12" iBook and when the battery says it has about 2 hours left, it goes all the way down to 1 minute. I've called AppleCare and they had me reset the PRAM, I think. It didn't fix it. Anybody have any ideas?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Battery Problem On iBook
- Thread starter zflauaus
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
bring it in to an apple store if your under warrenty. they should give you a new one. there is also a battery replacement program or some sort of refund.
https://depot.info.apple.com/batteryexchange/index.html?lang=en
also this
https://depot.info.apple.com/batteryexchange/index.html?lang=en
also this
It could be worth giving Apple a call Dandaman.
By the way, I'm assuming everyone here calibrates their batteries regularly.
It might be worthwhile doing it now too. My iBook's battery is about a year and a half (maybe even two years old) and it still easily gets 4.5 hours.
By the way, I'm assuming everyone here calibrates their batteries regularly.
It might be worthwhile doing it now too. My iBook's battery is about a year and a half (maybe even two years old) and it still easily gets 4.5 hours.
mad jew said:It could be worth giving Apple a call Dandaman.
By the way, I'm assuming everyone here calibrates their batteries regularly.
It might be worthwhile doing it now too. My iBook's battery is about a year and a half (maybe even two years old) and it still easily gets 4.5 hours.
I may need to try that first. On a full charge, my battery indicator on the menubar tells me i have about 1:45 hours left
I'll try recalibrating, I haven't done that in a looooooooooong time.
btw, how do you reset the PRAM?
daniel
Dandaman said:I may need to try that first. On a full charge, my battery indicator on the menubar tells me i have about 1:45 hours left
I'll try recalibrating, I haven't done that in a looooooooooong time.
btw, how do you reset the PRAM?
daniel
How many times have you cycled your battery (the actual count registered in system profiler or via a command like "ioreg -l | grep -i iobatt")? If you are using it very inconsistently, you might be able to get a lot of that back by using it more consistently. If it's had a lot of cycles, then it's just getting old, and that's a natural part of battery life.
Dandaman said:
A cycle count is supposed to be the equivalent of using the battery for a full charge cycle, counting partial cycles cumulatively, as far as I know. 240 is not the whole battery life, but it is getting old... Li-Ion batteries are supposed to, on average, be good for ~300 cycles.
Well, anyway, it sounds like you have used the battery liberally. How often do you follow the calibration procedure? If you don't usually do this once a month, try doing it two or three times in a row, as it may take a few calibrations to get it back to the normal level....
mkrishnan said:
I wouldn't have thought multiple calibrations would help. From my understanding of calibration, it just syncs up the laptops idea of how much charge the cell holds with how much it actually does hold. Have I got something wrong though? It's very possible.
mad jew said:I wouldn't have thought multiple calibrations would help. From my understanding of calibration, it just syncs up the laptops idea of how much charge the cell holds with how much it actually does hold. Have I got something wrong though? It's very possible.
I'm not sure...there are a number of people who vehemently suggest that there's nothing like conditioning a Li-Ion battery. But it does seem to be true, to me, that you get longer battery time (not necessarily battery life) if you use it in a deep discharge mode -- running it from 100 -> 0 and back again. I dunno. Might as well try if performance is already not acceptable!
mkrishnan said:Might as well try if performance is already not acceptable!
Very true. The only drawback is using up a cycle, but that doesn't really matter.
thanks for the help guys.
ok, so i heard that there are different ways that you can calibrate. you can do a long drawing out of power, which i heard is supposed to calibrate it better???? or is just normal usage 100 -> 0 good also? It would be great if i didn't have to get a new battery.
daniel
ok, so i heard that there are different ways that you can calibrate. you can do a long drawing out of power, which i heard is supposed to calibrate it better???? or is just normal usage 100 -> 0 good also? It would be great if i didn't have to get a new battery.
daniel
mad jew said:It could be worth giving Apple a call Dandaman.
By the way, I'm assuming everyone here calibrates their batteries regularly.
It might be worthwhile doing it now too. My iBook's battery is about a year and a half (maybe even two years old) and it still easily gets 4.5 hours.
Wow, maybe I should call Apple. My battery & iBook is about 2 weeks old and I'm getting about 3.5 hours surfing in Safari with iChat open. Computer is on full brightness-2 bars (hit brightness down twice) and reduced processor.
And yes, I have calibrated it a few times.Sorry guys. I forgot to update it. Well, last Thursday I called AppleCare and they ordered the battery and shipped it to me the next day, Friday. I got it Monday and it is much better. I went about 4.5 hours. Now the old battery is in route to AppleCare. Again, I love Apple!
ITASOR said:Wow, maybe I should call Apple. My battery & iBook is about 2 weeks old and I'm getting about 3.5 hours surfing in Safari with iChat open. Computer is on full brightness-2 bars (hit brightness down twice) and reduced processor.
I get 4.5 hours plus with full brightness, Normal battery settings, AirPort on and web surfing/music usage after 1.5 years plus (maybe two). I may get slightly better battery length since mine is only an 800MHz machine though. Give them a call.
ok, so i recalibrated twice last night. The first time, my time left went from 1:45 to 2:11. I did it one more time and now it is at 3:00. Looks like the recalibrating is fixing the amount of time left on a charge. Now i gotta see if i still have the problem where the battery will go from ~20% full to 0% in a matter of seconds.
daniel
daniel