Mac G4 dying or not?

[Pilgrim1099]

Hello,

I have a G4 Mac (on Tiger OS) with a dual-mirror drive from 2002. This past several months, the power button died out a few times and I had to replace the battery on the PNU chipset and reset it.

It worked. However, lately as of this month, almost each morning, the button would die out again and on the startup screen, the Date and Time would revert back to default and I had to reset it to the current time and day. It's frustrating.

Does this mean the computer itself is dying out or is the PNU clock just acting weird again? I thought the new battery would resolve this, but apparently it has'nt. I'm still considering getting a new Mac anyway to replace the G4.

Thanks,

-A

 

[Dave H]

It might be that the new battery is bad.
Could it be in backwards?

 

[Pilgrim1099]

It might be that the new battery is bad.
Could it be in backwards?

The battery's in the right spot facing up and it's brand new that I just bought it several months ago. The battery I replaced has been in the machine since 2002 which is a loooong time. Hopefully the power button won't die out again the next morning or so.

 

[Makosuke]

It does sound like maybe the battery is bad (or not installed all the way, but it sounds like that's not it). You could also triple-check to make sure it's the right battery--I once installed a battery that looked right into a motherboard only to realize it was actually lower voltage despite fitting in the socket.

If you have or know someone with a voltmeter, it only takes a second to test the battery.

The other thing to try is a PMU reset; I've never seen this be necessary after replacing a battery, but you never know, and it could cause symptoms like that:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=95037

No harm in giving it a shot, anyway. Resetting the PRAM can't hurt, either, though I don't expect that would cause those symptoms.