Brand new battery gone wrong?

Hi there, I have a powerbook G4 (yes, I'm old school). I recently bought another battery pack to replace the old one (it wouldn't work unless it was plugged to the wall).

Anyways, the battery's been working fine for the past month, but yesterday I saw that after charging my battery overnight, the bar indicated that it was only 5% charged. I unplugged it and it was up and running for about 2 hours, then it died again. Now that I've recharged it, it still says that the battery is only 5% charged. What can I do to solve this dilemma?

this may seem like a minor glitch in my notebook's system but I would like to know how to fix it because I never know now when my battery is about to die. Lost a really important document just awhile ago because there was no indication that my battery juice was almost out.

thanks,
slim

Reset the SMC - you can find the apple article with a quick google.

If that doesn't do it, think I'd be asking for an exchange.

yup i have tried resetting, first thing I always do when I'm faced with a situation like this. But it still says it's 5% charged. Got this battery pack through ebay so I'd really appreciate any other advice you could give me since I can't return this pack. thanks!

slim91 said:

Got this battery pack through ebay so I'd really appreciate any other advice you could give me since I can't return this pack. thanks!

Click to expand...

This could be part of the problem. If this isn't a genuine Apple battery...we hear of folks having more problems with non-Apple batteries purchased off e-Bay...than folks having problems with genuine Apple batteries. So it could simply be a poor quality battery.

By the way...was this a new or used ("new" to you) battery?

Don't "give up the ship" yet...maybe we can still figure the problem...just mentioning that tidbit as a possibility.

Good luck,

- Nick