Shuts down on battery, sleeping works fine

After disconnecting the power chord i typically have only several seconds until my PB G4 shuts down down completely, making a sound similar to a hard reset (pressing and holding the power button). Sometimes it will try to come back to life (fan spins up for < 1 second, then the reset sound again), it might repeat those sounds several times.

The funny thing is i can put it to sleep (close the lid), unplug it and leave it for hours before waking it back up, as long as i plug it back in beforehand. This rules out a faulty battery, which by the way i've only had for a few months.

To further complicate things, the DC power contact (the power socket in the PB) is wearing out: the yellow light ring will die when moving the power chord around and i have to fiddle with the connector slightly to establish proper contact again (without it my PB shuts down ). The issue seems very mechanical: leaving the power chord and connector untouched, it never breaks contact.

Can anyone tell me what hardware part is the culprit? If its not too expensive i will buy a new one and replace it myself. Could it just be the DC connector confusing the system when unplugged?

bartvh said:

...This rules out a faulty battery, which by the way i've only had for a few months.

Click to expand...

Well, it rules out a totally dead battery. Your battery is probably mostly dead. (Mostly dead is slightly alive. ) It's not hard for a battery to be alive enough to supply enough power to sleep, but not enough to actually power the computer. If it's the original battery on a PowerBook (the last of which were discontinued two and a half years ago) then it's probably a natural death from old age.

To further complicate things, the DC power contact (the power socket in the PB) is wearing out: the yellow light ring will die when moving the power chord around and i have to fiddle with the connector slightly to establish proper contact again (without it my PB shuts down ). The issue seems very mechanical: leaving the power chord and connector untouched, it never breaks contact.

Click to expand...

It's hard to say from your description, but if I were you, I would hope that the wear is on the power adaptor plug and not the PB itself. The adaptors are easy to replace (and they do wear out often.)

PowerBookMedic, iFixIt, and other sites sell replacement DC-in boards, but installing them is a chore. (PowerBookMedic and iFixIt have instructions and pictures online.)

I have replaced my battery in the past, the current one is about 1.5 years old and only has 87 load cycles according to coconutbattery. The capacity has dropped to a 57% already, probably because of my battery unfriendly usage pattern (keep using the power chord with the battery at 100%, left the PB it in the closet for a few months at 100% etc.)

At least i'm not convinced the battery has died of old age.