iBook power management

[e²Studios]

Just curious if i can change this, ive looked through the energy saver settings but cant seem to find anything. When my battery meter says its at around 20-22% the iBook automatically sends itself in to a sleep mode, clicking on the icon reveals that i had "0:45" left on the battery. Is there anyway to change when the iBook puts itself to sleep or does it do this by default so i dont lose what im doing at the time?

Ed

 

[skubish]

yes under energy saver there is a slider bar in the middle
of the screen that tells it when to put the computer to sleep after X minutes of inactivity. At the top of the screen you have to select battery because you can set it differently for power adapter or battery.

 

[e²Studios]

yes under energy saver there is a slider bar in the middle
of the screen that tells it when to put the computer to sleep after X minutes of inactivity. At the top of the screen you have to select battery because you can set it differently for power adapter or battery.

Around 20-22% of the battery left the iBook sends itself in to sleep, it really doesnt matter if i am active or not. I was wondering if there was a place to set the threshold manually when it puts itself to sleep in relation to how much batter power is left. This isnt an inactivity thing, i see the slider for that.

Thanks
Ed

 

[mkrishnan]

No, if this is happening consistently -- sleep automatically with 20% of the battery left -- then something is wrong. Try resetting the Power Management Unit. Use this knowledge base note to determine the proper procedure for your iBook.

 

[e²Studios]

No, if this is happening consistently -- sleep automatically with 20% of the battery left -- then something is wrong. Try resetting the Power Management Unit. Use this knowledge base note to determine the proper procedure for your iBook.

Thanks, I reset the PMU for my iBook. If this doesn't work then ill take it to the apple store for repairs as maybe something is wrong with the iBook and since its under AppleCare still may as well use the coverage. It didnt seem right to me to go to sleep at 20-22%, thanks for confirming that its not normal behaviour.

Ed

 

[grapes911]

Have you calibrated the battery lately?

 

[mkrishnan]

Have you calibrated the battery lately?

If he was using the iBook on battery, and then it automatically went to sleep on him, whether or not it did it at 0%, he *did* recalibrate it, by definition, didn't he? That's the only way (let it run till it falls asleep automatically) that I know to do this.

 

[grapes911]

It only correctly calibrates if you let it go to sleep because of a low battery then charge if fully. If the iBook went to sleep, charged 50%, then was unplugged, it was not calibrated correctly. And if the battery wasn't charged completely before it drained to sleep, then it didn't calibrate correctly.

 

[e²Studios]

It only correctly calibrates if you let it go to sleep because of a low battery then charge if fully. If the iBook went to sleep, charged 50%, then was unplugged, it was not calibrated correctly.

The past 2 times it did it to me this weekend i made sure it was fully charged before i turned the iBook back on. It just didn't seem normal to me to have a battery with 20-22% left on it in the meter and then the laptop goes to sleep automatically. I figured it would do it at 5-10% normally.

Ed

 

[mkrishnan]

It should give you a pop-up warning at approximately 5% and then fall asleep automatically at 0%. It has a built-in reserve in the calculation, so that even at 0%, it can still survive awake for a fairly large amount of time (maybe a day or more...I've never pushed it).

But while I agree that what Grapes says may be true, I'm not sure what you can do about it, since you can't get it to stay on long enough to drain the battery...

 

[grapes911]

Seems you did calibrate it correctly then.

Get a program called coconutBattery. It will give you some info on your battery. You can get the Current battery capacity and the original battery capacity. Honestly, I don't think this is your problem, but it can't hurt to check.

 

[e²Studios]

It should give you a pop-up warning at approximately 5% and then fall asleep automatically at 0%. It has a built-in reserve in the calculation, so that even at 0%, it can still survive awake for a fairly large amount of time (maybe a day or more...I've never pushed it).

But while I agree that what Grapes says may be true, I'm not sure what you can do about it, since you can't get it to stay on long enough to drain the battery...

I've never even seen a pop up warning, it just goes to sleep

Ed

 

[e²Studios]

Seems you did calibrate it correctly then.

Get a program called coconutBattery. It will give you some info on your battery. You can get the Current battery capacity and the original battery capacity. Honestly, I don't think this is your problem, but it can't hurt to check.

The battery is at 98% still as far as what it can hold. Maybe its time to let Apple service it under AppleCare. I just really hate dealing with my local apple store, 9 out of 10 times they think they know more than what they really do.

Maybe resetting the PMU will fix it *crosses fingers* if not ill be at the apple store sometime this week. Hell it would be nice even getting a warning, but i dont even get that, it just goes to sleep.

Ed

 

[mkrishnan]

Maybe resetting the PMU will fix it *crosses fingers* if not ill be at the apple store sometime this week. Hell it would be nice even getting a warning, but i dont even get that, it just goes to sleep.

So now you let it run down again. If it gets down to ~ zero, you're okay. If it doesn't, you need to go to the Apple Store.... *crosses fingers too*

 

[e²Studios]

So now you let it run down again. If it gets down to ~ zero, you're okay. If it doesn't, you need to go to the Apple Store.... *crosses fingers too*

It got to 21% then without any warning it went in to sleep mode. Oddly this time when i plugged it in and it came out of sleep the meter read 0%. I shut it down and i am letting it charge again. Maybe the battery is bad, but odd that it never gives a warning before going to sleep.

Guess i will have to deal with the idiots at my local apple store...

Ed

 

[e²Studios]

I called in to applecare today hoping to get an idea of the issue without having to go in to the apple store. They said it sounds dead on like a battery on its way out. The battery usually charges "full" around 96-99% but i dont think i can recall a time it said 100% and the fact that it just drops off to 0% charge from 20-20% in the meter.

Now here comes the kicker.... The woman i am on the line with tells me that the battery is only covered for 1 year from the purchase date. So i have my laptop with my applecare still valid until January 2007 and yet i am still left holding the bag when my battery dies.. wonderful..

Ed

 

[mkrishnan]

I called in to applecare today hoping to get an idea of the issue without having to go in to the apple store. They said it sounds dead on like a battery on its way out.

Hmmm... Maybe a battery going bad, but not a battery dying in the normal way. Normally what should happen is that the scale should keep going from 100% to 0%, but the maximum charge in mAh will go down and down, so 100% will mean less less. This is still sketchy to me.

 

[grapes911]

Now here comes the kicker.... The woman i am on the line with tells me that the battery is only covered for 1 year from the purchase date. So i have my laptop with my applecare still valid until January 2007 and yet i am still left holding the bag when my battery dies.. wonderful..

I don't know how the agreement reads, but either way I'd try to fight that one.

 

[e²Studios]

Well i went in to the store today and was wow'd for once. The person i was talking to actually knew what he was doing and he was pretty friendly about the whole situation.

We tried it with another battery and it still dropped off and went to sleep at 20-22%, at that point he checked it in and said it could possibly be a logic board issue but that he hasn't seen this particular kind of reaction to a logic board failure. He did something with disk warrior too, but i really didn't understand why and i didn't catch the whole reason why he was doing it as i was trying to listen to him and watch my daughter playing on the iMacs at the same time.

Hopefully it comes back from Applecare actually working correctly

7 days is the estimate... *starts countdown*

Ed

 

[maxigalaxy]

Hey guys...what's the loadscycle thing?
I got cocnut running on my 3 years old PB and it shows over 500 hundre cycles????????? Is that bad or normal???? In Ed H's coconut report it show only 72! And my battery has 80% left off the original...Does that sound pretty normal to you...
Thanks for yor help

PS
If that is wrong ( like I'm starting to believe...) any advice on how to improve it?

 

[calebjohnston]

your coconut readings are fine, don't worry. the top meter is just your charge while the bottom is the overall life charge of your battery. it can hold 80% of what it was made to. This is normal, batteries die slowly.

 

[mkrishnan]

I got cocnut running on my 3 years old PB and it shows over 500 hundre cycles????????? Is that bad or normal????

A cycle means using 100% of the battery's capacity once, essentially. How much do you use your battery? There isn't any "bad or normal" for this statistic. If you've had the computer for three years, and you've used the battery for an equivalent of about once every two days or so, then yes, this number sounds about right. And these batteries are typically good for 300-350 charges. So if you're at 80% of original capacity after 500 charges, you're exceptionally fortunate.

 

[e²Studios]

I just got a call from the Apple store, my iBook is ready for pickup. When i asked them what they did to fix it the guy said they that they replaced the battery. I made sure to ask them if it was all covered under warranty, which it all is, Yay for applecare

Ed