Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

brand new iPod only charges to half-full!!

A

anneleonard

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 21, 2003
140
0
Reading, UK (a.k.a. Strongbadia)
has anyone else had this problem?

i've put it in the dock (connected to my iMac, but not communicating with it, switched off, just showing the big battery icon in the middle) and it says "charged"... i take it out of the dock and switch it on-- its only a quarter full.

i get annoyed

i try and charge it straight from the mains, switched off, again it has the big battery icon and says "charging". then hours later it says "charged". i hope for the best, pull out the plug, switch it on, and its only half charged !!!!!!!

have i got a dud or are all ipods this crap?

i was sooooooo excited about having one and now i'm well annoyed
 
I'v Had that same problem happen a few times, in fact it just happend to me five minutes ago, it said charged i pulled it out and it was only half charged less, then i put it back in the dock and it started charging up again, it pisses me off when this happens but unfortunatly i'm look for the excact same answer as you.
 
I hope you guys are running the ipod all the way down before charging it. This is the First Law of rechargeable batteries. If not then you are screwing up.
 
well yeah thats in an ideal world but if the battery's flat, you charge it, it says "charged" and its only half full, you can't expect to just use it from then on, otherwise it will never be full. my ipod told me "charged" the other day and i only got 90 minutes listening out of it, if this carries on, its a joke.
 
My iPod does NOT behave this way. Lithium-Ion batteries don't care when you start charging them or what the existing state of charge is before charging begins. The notion that you need to run it all the way down is incorrect, and applies only to the ancient Ni-Cd technology that's rarely used anymore.

My iPod is charged whenever I have time to fill it up and the charge indicator always behaves predictably. I would suggest exchanging the iPod for another one and see if that improves things. My opinion is that your device is defective.
 
Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
I hope you guys are running the ipod all the way down before charging it. This is the First Law of rechargeable batteries. If not then you are screwing up.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately thats incorrect. Apple suggests doing this only so the battery display is propery calibrated. If it isnt calibrated correctly, then the display will indicate that the battery is dead, when really it could have 25% or more power left, but your computer will still go to sleep (very aggravating). Its a display/calibration thing only. (thats why they call it battery calibration, duh) Here, have a link

Speaking of which, my iPod does the same thing as the thread starter mentioned. However, after using it for a few minutes, the battery indicator on the iPod shows full power. I think it takes it a bit to figure out how much battery power it has.

Hope this helps
 
Originally posted by veedubdrew
My iPod does NOT behave this way. Lithium-Ion batteries don't care when you start charging them or what the existing state of charge is before charging begins. The notion that you need to run it all the way down is incorrect, and applies only to the ancient Ni-Cd technology that's rarely used anymore.
Click to expand...

It's not entirely true that LiIon batteries "don't care". Discharging them all the way before recharging them will actually shorten the battery's lifetime if done on a regular basis.
 
My apologies for copying another post of mine, but it will save time:

Is it one of the newer iPods, and are you using firmware version 2.1?

It gives unreliable battery reads. I bought a newer model, but used, iPod on eBay last month. I was used to my first generation model with a much more reliable battery meter. But I asked around and found out that odd readings, such as low power after a full charge, are common.

The point is that your battery is probably fine and has a full charge. The best way to find out is to test it. Give it a full charge. Turn off all battery draining features like equalizer, sound check, backlight, clock in menu bar, random play (actually random probably doesn't wear your battery down any faster, but it doesn't hurt to be safe). Then start it playing ALL your songs. Lock it and let it play. Don't ever change which song is playing because the iPod will have to read the drive and load all new songs to the flash memory--this drains the batter faster. Then watch it and see how many hours it goes for. I did this and my iPod lasted 7 hours, 55 minutes. Since Apple advertises 8 hours battery life for 3rd generation iPods, I was fairly pleased. Now I mostly ignore the battery meter and try to remember how much I've played it between charges.


Also, every time you plug a new iPod in, it will show the Charging graphic on the screen. That doesn't mean it's really charging if you just gave it a full charge. The charge graphic is merely set on a timer. Every time you plug it in, it will show the charging graphic for a set amount of time. 4 hours, I think.
 
Right. Welcome to the wacky world of the 2.1 firmware update.
 
Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
I hope you guys are running the ipod all the way down before charging it. This is the First Law of rechargeable batteries. If not then you are screwing up.
Click to expand...

As stated before.. if you discharge your iPod battery frequently its life will be shortened. You do not want to do this. I have noticed with my iPod that when it says it's "charged" and I take it out of the dock it's about 1/2 full.. but as I use it the meter increases, eventually to all the way full.
 
Well, it could be worse...you could download the 1.3.1 iPod updater from Apple's site for an older iPod model to discover that you just installed version 1.3 firmware.

Either that, or we could be in the world of five day battery drainage (which expried about 12 months ago) by turning on the clock function on your iPod instead of leaving it at midnight. "You save some time, and you save some battery..."

But in this case, you might want to work your way through P2P and get yourself a copy of older firmware...ONLY as long as it's no lower than the version of firmware that came with your iPod.
 
thats sucks .. .cause mine kept on showing as bearly charged and then i played a few songs and the thing started moving up to a full charge - it's just the firmware ...

The lasting two hours happened to me and then i let it discharge, and then charged it again, and it was fine to play for the 8 hours
 
Mine did that for a few days (the quarter charge thing) but then I synced it and it started behaving again. I haven't used it to the ground yet, but it lasts more than two hours.
 
Kingsnapped, after two hours, approximately where was your battery meter?

I got the ipod literally last tuesday, and I charged it for the first 4 hours, and ever since then I've basically had it plugged in, except for maybe a total of 20 minutes. When I unplugged it, the battery indicator looks like it's a little less than full, as in 95%. (But maybe the it's not supposed to be all the way to the right of the indicator, and it's actually at 100%?)

But anyway, when i saw that it was "fully charged", I messed around with it a little bit with the backlight on, and after a few minutes of that, I let it play an album on repeat without backlight or anything fancy and I made a little log..

Percentages represent about how full the meter indicated. This is the first I have ever let my ipod run that low, so maybe that could be why? Or because I was playing with the backlight on for a few minutes? I'm just wondering if this is normal. It seems a little bit unusual....although I'm not entirely sure. I'll do a full recharge tomorrow and see if it acts the same.

10:23 PM - 95% (start)
12:03 AM - 65%
01:02 AM - 35% (I didn't completely let it discharge, so It's charging right now)

Update: 11:53 AM - I just took it off the charger and now it's battery indicator is telling me 100% full. I guess that's a good thing?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back