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Time for a new ibook battery?

GeneR

GeneR

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 2, 2003
708
0
The land of delusions, CA.
I am noticing over time my ibook battery drains down pretty darn fast. Now a full charge is gone in about 30 minutes. Is this normal? Or is it a battery thang? Or is it because of some internal ibook problem? Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks! :confused:
 
First off what kind of iBook do you have? Is it a ClamSell? Well if it is the battery is probably shot to hell, three years and the battery is now down to 30 minutes huh? Well same here. I bought a new iBook battery but my battery decided to stop working so I have to ship it back to the company. What kind of iBook do you have? This will make it easier for me to help you. If you have an iBook (clamshell) with a FireWire port you will need to look for a certian battery type to get the max charge out of it. If you get a battery that was made for the non-FireWire iBooks than the batteyr will not last as long.
 
Try with X-Charge. it shows you graphically how your battery behaves.

If the graphic looks like mine = above, it's NOT normal = ask for the replacement (if in warranty etc). Mine woes (blacks out, forced sleep, or shutdown, alaways without notice) any time when under 80 % charge. it started doing this at 56 % and now it happens in 80% ... great. calling for replacement now..

woe1.jpg
 
Mine is the original SE clam shaped ibook.

My girlfriend also has the original clamshaped ibook (no firewire on either of ours) and she still gets a couple of hours. Mine, on the otherhand, dwiddles after 30 minutes. It's like a ticking time bomb scenario -- you could be typing on it and your eyes have to keep darting to the power percent on the top right hand corner only to see that it is getting smaller... and smaller... and smaller... :(

And then desperation sets in and you break a sweat because you wished you had your ibook plugged in but there's no outlet nearby (because you're in a public place, etc.) and you have to finish your work pretty darn quick or else... POOF! You have to put the ibook to sleep.

RE: Discharging
I've tried discharging it several times -- Am I doing it right? Just letting the mac drain down to zero? I don't know. If not, please let me know. If I am doing it right, I've done it several times. Yeeeeesh. There must be a better way. I like my ibook ALOT and want to hold onto it for the foreseeable future for writing, budgeting and stuff, but this battery thing's a drag.

RE: X-Charge
What's that? Never heard of it. Is it freeware I could download? I'm beginning to think I'm going to have to get a new battery. But which kind should I get and how much would it cost? Anybody know? Thanks for all your help! :D
 
These links can be found in the thread link provided above.

VST used to provide a great combo pack, 1 iBook battery, 1 dual charger with smart discharge/rapid charge features, and an extra AC adapter for about the cost of one new battery.

Do not buy used, remanufactured, or from an unknown vendor. Many dealers and manufactures produce batches of batteries and don't reproduce any new stock until the old stock is sold. A batter that was charged on manufacture and has been sitting discharged for 3 years is not going to be any better than what you have. Apple still sells iBook batteries.

RadioShack will find what you need if you go through the Battery Finder and can't then find what your looking for. I don't know how they do it, but they seem to make small batches of hard to find batteries.

Try here - but remember cheaper is not always better!

Click on this link to see a thread on the same subject. It may help.
 
Well my Battery is acting up, I have a ClamShell Key Lime iBook 466mhz SE DVD FireWire, My battery is the original, only lasts about an hour I'd guess. I bought a new one but that only worked for a short time, so I'm getting a replacment. I meen our batterys are at most 3 years old. Apple won't sell batties at thier stores so it's hard to find them for a good price.
 
Apple finally pulled the older iBook batteries from their web store.
Wow, this is recent, as I just saw them there last month.
Perhaps if one called Apple, one could get one.

It looks like the price ranges from 100-130, and jumps to 150-180 dollars U.S.. A large number of iBooks were sold, capturing 5-10% of the market in their first year, so there is a need for replacement batteries. We are at an awkward point; the computers are not old enough to be obsolete, yet not new enough to be able to easily find replacement parts.

3 years is a good life for a battery, at least in my experience. I also think that good battery maintenance can extend the life of a battery, but at some point they will fail.
 
iBook battery

I bought a white iBook in 2000. It was the 500Mhz model with OS 9.1 & 10.0.1 at the time.

When I first got it, the battery lasted almost 5 hours (as Apple claims); I was getting around 4 hours per full charge. Slowly over the 2 last 2 years the battery became weaker and weaker. It got down to about 30 minutes and the battery would die at around 70%.

I shelled out ¥16000 (in Japan) for a new battery just about a month ago, and I'm back in business again :) I'm not getting 4 hours, but I can comfortably use it for about 2-3 hours and still have at least around 40% left.

The iBook is by far the best computer I've ever had (I like it better than my TiBook) and I really wanted to keep it working, so for me it was worth it to shell out for a new battery. Of course, I'm up to OS 10.2.5 now, and 576Megs RAM, so system usage can get pretty intense, and it can get pretty hot at times. I'm not sure if this machine was even designed to run the latest version of Jaguar, so that most likely could have an adverse effect on battery life.

I make sure the CD drive is empty, and turn the brightness down and mute the volume and it lasts for a long time.

If you really want to keep it for the future, you might want to take the plunge and buy a new battery. It helped me.

-5300cs
 
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