ibook instantly shuts off while on battery, at ~60% charge

[TheNorthWaves]

I recently purchased an iBook used from someone locally. I got a good price because he said the battery was weak. However, I want to make sure that's actually the case. The power cord connection is not loose.

Coconutbattery says my battery is 36% health, but it also says it's not plugged into the charger when it actually is, so I don't know how reliable this program is. It says my mac is 27 months old, i have 367 cycles on the battery... etc. And I am running Tiger.

The problem is that the power meter on the top bar will say i've got a full charge... so I run the computer (on battery) down to about 60% according to the meter, but the computer instantly shuts off. I try to reboot, and it shuts off while rebooting. It's like the battery works fine and suddenly dies. I get about 30-40 minutes use out of the battery.

Is this the battery or do I have other problems? This only happens when using the battery.

Thanks all

Tim

 

[Fleetwood Mac]

Try calibrating your battery.

 

[TheNorthWaves]

I have actually done this without knowing it... I've charged it fully, then taken it off and used it until it runs down. The thing is, my computer doesn't go to sleep, it turns off at the point I'm describing.

When I press buttons it won't wake up, I have to press the power button and it tries to boot back up, but it fails - there is no power left. I plug it back into the charger, boot up, and all is well. It runs forever on the charger.

 

[Hockeypuck]

Sounds like it's only a bad battery.

Normally, when the battery is low, the computer will go to sleep, but if the computer doesn't expect the battery to run out of juice, like when it's reporting 60% charge, it will die out like it does.

This can mean a couple of things, but you probably have a bad cell or something in the battery. Time for a new one! Over 300 cycles on that thing is a lot.

 

[TheNorthWaves]

know where i might find a quality new battery on the aftermarket scene?

Apple's $130 price is a laugh... I see various ones on ebay for around $75 USD shipped, but I realize they come in varying qualities...

 

[Kamikaze]

NewerTech from macsales.com $119 and it'll have more capacity than Apples Original.
I get 5-51/2 hours out of this battery in my iBook.
Good luck

 

[TheNorthWaves]

has anyone tried the cheap ones on ebay? If so, what seller did you get it from?

 

[karimo40]

I tried a cheap one

has anyone tried the cheap ones on ebay? If so, what seller did you get it from?

I just bought two iBook G4 12" batteries from seller "only1presto". One for me and one for a coworker. Mine reports that it has charge for around 4 hours or so when full, which it what it was when my iBook was new with its original battery. However, I have had the issue where it suddenly shuts off when on battery power sometimes, even though there is plenty of charge left both in the menu bar indicator and the battery LED display. I don't know if it is the battery or some calibration issue. I don't think I've gotten it to go to sleep by running out of charge (part of the calibration routine after charging it fully) because it turns off instantly at some point while draining the battery. I tried the CTRL-Option-Tab-Power thing (press the combo when computer is off and then turn it back on, at least for my kind of iBook) and no noticeable change. (By the way, if you press that when the computer is on it will shut off instantly!)

Better post this as it could go off again at any moment. Frustrating.

 

[TheNorthWaves]

see that's the kind of post that keeps me from buying a battery right now. I wonder if it's really the battery. I wish i had another one laying around that I could experiment with. YES! The sox just won the world series right now...

 

[sturigdson]

I almost guarantee it is the battery, and not some other power management problem. 95%. Having gone through it, myself, a few times, actually, with older ibooks.

Another thing you might want to consider is checking out Apple's ibook battery replacement program. It was a pretty big deal about 1.5 years ago, and word on the street is that they may still honoring battery exchanges online...
I got an old ibook battery replaced under the program as late as this past June- well past their advertised sunset on the program.