Is my iBooks battery dead ?

[zer0army]

I have an iBook 700MHz running OSX 10.2.6 which now has a serious battery issue. The battery use to last at least 3 hours until the other day when I ran it on the battery. It was at 100% battery charge as I used it for about 15 mins at which point the battery had about 87% left. Suddenly it went into sleep mode then followed with a power down. When I turned the computer back on (now plugged in) the battery was at 0%. It seemed to take forever to charge back up, after 15 mins it was only about 2% charged. I powered the machine down and let it charge for a few hours till it was at 100%. Again I attempted to run on battery power but the same thing happened.

I researched this a bit and found out that I should try resetting the power management. I did this and was sure it was successful since my time and date were reset. Charged back up to 100% again I tried running on battery power. Again same thing happened around 85% charge.

Has this ever happened to anyone else ? or does anyone have any suggestions ? I really hope the battery is not shot. The machine isn’t even a year old yet.

I also ran X-charge to monitor what was going on. Here is the events log:

1969-12-31 23:18:50: --- X-Charge started
1969-12-31 23:19:35: Charger unplugged
1969-12-31 23:29:41: --- System going to sleep... (battery charge = 0%)
1969-12-31 23:29:45: Charger plugged
1969-12-31 23:29:45: Battery started charging (current charge = 0%)
1969-12-31 23:30:05: --- System waking up... (battery charge = 0%)
1969-12-31 23:30:10: Battery stopped charging (current charge = 0%)
1969-12-31 23:31:05: Battery started charging (current charge = 0%)

 

[mhar4]

Probable

my iBook's battery lasted about 2 months. It suddenly wouldn't hold a charge for more than about 10 minutes.

Apple replaced the battery under warranty, and now it runs out to five or more hours.

 

[zer0army]

My iBook is almost a year old now I think. Should I call Apple up about this then ?

I dont have Applecare though, but I guess this should be covered under the 1 year warranty.

 

[mhar4]

Battery

Certainly start with Apple; they were very good with my battery. I would consider getting Applecare, though, because iBooks have a design weakness in their displays. Various things break and they will start to work erratically when opened beyond a certain angle. There's a long discussion list about the issue at Apple's support site, under "iBooks" and "displays". Mine also failed, and was recently repaired, but they change the entire screen, so it is a very very expensive repair.