Bad DC in board or just bad luck?

[TheWhiteFalcon]

Well, my recently acquired PowerBook is still giving me issues with the batteries. The battery it came with will charge, as normal, and Coconut Battery says it's still capable of holding 76% of it's charge. When it says it's fully charged, it lasts twenty minutes at best, no matter what the settings on the laptop. No warning of a dead battery-the remaining life is usually in the 1:30-2:30 range, then it just shuts down without any alert.

I purchased a 'new' used Apple battery. Holds about 71% charge. Battery life is the exact same-twenty minutes or so-and I ran it on 'Better Battery Life" with brightness almost at a minimum, doing very little. Shuts off just like the other battery, no warning.

I've already reset the PMU. The thing that makes me suspect it's not the batteries is that the battery life is almost identical, despite very different charge cycle counts on both (221 on one, 650+ on the other). OS X says both batteries are "Good".

Suggestions? Taking it apart to replace something, while it will be annoying, isn't beyond my skill set.

[TheWhiteFalcon]

To add a little more info, I put back in the old battery, OS X gave me a charge time of 10 hours, and then I watched the battery slowly trickle charge to seven percent, after which it jumped to 100%. I'd have to assume the other battery does this as well.

Thoughts?

[harryb2448]

Careful. Not worth spending too mucu on a G4. The 1GHz model is now well over ten years old.

[pigoo3]

The thing that makes me suspect it's not the batteries is that the battery life is almost identical, despite very different charge cycle counts on both (221 on one, 650+ on the other). OS X says both batteries are "Good".

Suggested max. battery life on these is around 300 cycles. Anything beyond that I think is considered "bonus"...where you start getting reduced total runtimes on a full charge (less than Apple's original claims when the computer was new).

Although the cycle count on both of these old batteries is much different...each may have "lived" very different lives. Thus runtime on a full charge for each of these batteries may be similar at 20 minutes each...even though the charge count is much different.

Also...be very careful when quoting "charge percentages":

- 75% charge on a brand new battery (that's supposed to be good for 4-5 hours of runtime when full) would be equivalent to 3 hours+.
- 75% charge on a OLD battery (with 650 charge cycles...that only gets 20 minutes on a full charge)...is only around 15 minutes.

So saying a battery has a "75% charge"...can mean MUCH different things depending on the condition/age of the battery.

- Nick

[TheWhiteFalcon]

Yeah, I'm going to try to return this other battery, and either way, buy a new battery.

Tell me about not spending too much-the batteries usually cost more than I paid for the PowerBook...

[pigoo3]

Yeah, I'm going to try to return this other battery, and either way, buy a new battery.

Tell me about not spending too much-the batteries usually cost more than I paid for the PowerBook...

Unless you are really really really attached to your Powerbook G4...and new Apple battery may cost you upwards of $129.

To put this in perspective. I purchased a 2008 MacBook about 18 months ago for $150. This is not a typical price for a 2008 MacBook (I just got a great deal). It runs great...and does everything I need it to do.

So you can put $129+ towards a new battery...or put $129 towards a much newer computer.

Just something to consider,

- Nick

[TheWhiteFalcon]

I'm probably getting a Chinese battery-the most reasonably priced one without being too junky. This thing was only $38. And it actually does just about everything I would have expected from it. I might have spent more, but I bought this one because it was cheap and it was supposed to be 'broken', as the SuperDrive was 'dead' (it's just really noisy). I will eventually get a decent MBP in the future, though I'm pretty attached to the idea of having a 17" screen, and those models always cost more.

My clamshell iBook could use a battery as well, but it doesn't really leave the house too much-I just use it for a few things, and to sync my MessagePad 130 to it.

Yes, I have some random old Apple 'junk'.

[pigoo3]

Yes, I have some random old Apple 'junk'.

I have "random old Apple junk" from 1985-1986...which makes your "random old Apple junk" look new! lol

- Nick

[rustyk123]

Check your power cord, You should be using a 65w adapter, if you are using a 45w weird things like this can happen. It should be labeled on one of the sides, assuming you have an original adapter