Powerbook G4 power issue

[sasiki]

Good evening and my first post =) I'll try to start out on the right foot and sound half-way intelligent.

I acquired a gimped Powerbook G4 from one of our 'daughter' companies. The laptop works fine when using the A/C adapter. If I unplug the A/C adapter while the power is on, the screen/keyboard lights will go off. However, the hard drive is still spinning. If I plug the A/C adapter back in, the LCD backlight comes back on, but it does not display what was on the screen. I have to hold the power button down for a few seconds to power it down completely. Upon turning it back on, everything works fine again. Does this sound like a battery issue or motherboard problem? I have checked the battery serial number against the recall list and this one is supposably good.

Thanks in advance!

 

[disconap]

To me it sounds like a hardware (or even possibly a software) problem. Run a permissions repair (using disc utility) and make sure that all your software is up to date (use software update to check). A fresh install of OSX may solve it too, I had a similar problem with my ibook and that sorted it, but it may be a motherboard issue; if you have the hardware test disc, run that as well...

Also, download CoconutBattery and run it if you're worried about the battery. It will tell you the capacity and the current state of it. But I doubt it's a battery issue if you can restart and it runs fine. My ibook sometimes just dies when coming out of sleep; I've tried everything and it still does it, but it works fine after a restart and I rarely sleep it, and everything runs fine otherwise, so I just ignore it. Might just be a quirk, and a small price to pay for a free laptop!

 

[sasiki]

I tried the PMU reset and one other reset mentioned on Apple's website. Neither of these worked. Right now, I have the Powerbook running on battery power. Only the hard drive and fans are on.. not the LCD panel. When it shuts off totally, I will charge it to full and cross my fingers. Coconut battery shows the age as 2 years with like 37 cycles. 96% capacity remaining. I'm not sure if 2 years is the battery age or what. I know the laptop is 2 years old, but the battery is not included in the recall, so it could be a newer one.

Any other ideas?

Edit: And I do not have a Superdrive on it. The person i got it from wanted it for hers because it was starting to act up. If I can figure out this power problem, I'll buy one to stick in the thing.