Powerbook suddenly going to sleep.

I did a brief search on this but didnt really find something I could use. I was using my 17" powerbook to check my email and the forums, etc. this morning. I had about 30 minutes of battery left so I figured it would be ok and I would just shut down before I left for my first class. Well after a minute or two of being on my computer just went to sleep like there was no battery life left. I tried closing it and reopening, pressing the F2 key to turn the brightness up to try and wake it from sleep. Nothing worked. So I got the power adapter out and plugged in thinking the battery was dead. I plugged it in and it came right back on, but after a little bit, maybe 30 seconds it went back to sleep. So I hit F2 and it came back on and started working and charging and it seems to be ok. I still have 121 days of my limited year warranty left so im going to take this to the apple store hopefully this weekend and have them check the battery and anything else that could be going wrong.

Can anybody think of anything that might be causing this, usually the battery will run down to about 10 minutes or so and then give me the pop up saying im running on reserve battery power, but that didnt happen this time. I also still had 30 minutes which is kind of weird because I use the computer all the time when I have that much battery left, and when I plugged in and it started working it said I still had 30% battery life left. Hopefully I can get some good ideas on whats going on here and when I go to Apple, hopefully they will say nothing is wrong.

Thanks for any help.

I would do a Pram rest along with a full battery drain and recharge to re calibrate your batter meter, also check updates there was a powerbook battery update a while back. If i remember right the install CD that came with your powerbook when you start it up holding down the C key to do a diagnostic test i think it has a battery test but dont quote me on that.

I have the latest updates so I should have the battery update. This may sound crazy but I reset the pram a week ago or so, ill probably drain the battery completely this weekend and recharge. So far the rest of the day is been working fine. I did notice when I started the computer earlier it drained about a half hour off the battery when it started, then it came back a little while after it started so im thinking that could be it. Ill still check out the options. thanks for the info.

Have you form a resolution yet? I just started encountering the same issue.

Hey, new user here, I just stumled upon this forum while looking for information on the very same problem. Last night my Powerbook G4 starting just spontaneously going to sleep while plugged into the power adapter. The preferences were not set for the computer to sleep at all. After I woke it up, it stayed awake for a minute or so and then fell asleep. This happened over and over again and this morning I called Apple and spent an hour on the phone with a service rep having me remove the batter, and resetting the computer a few different times, but the problem persisted. I then went to the Apple store nearby where they ran a DiskUtil, and the problem didn't occur while I was in the store, the guy said that everything looked fine to him, but if it keeps happening to send it to Apple. I have the Apple Service Protection Plan, so hopefully they'll be able to help me. But I need my computer for school, any suggestions in the meantime?