Power off clock resets

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Jan 14, 2007
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Your Mac's Specs
1.67ghz powerbook G4, 1GB RAM, 100GB HD.
For some reason, when my PowerBook G4 goes flat (I leave it on and battery turns off) it resets the clock to 1.1.1970 - is there any way to stop it doing this (apart from not letting it run flat...)

Also, is it possible to exclude the CD drive from spotlight ? Just curious,

Thanks :)
 
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For some reason, when my PowerBook G4 goes flat (I leave it on and battery turns off) it resets the clock to 1.1.1970 - is there any way to stop it doing this (apart from not letting it run flat...)

Also, is it possible to exclude the CD drive from spotlight ? Just curious,

Thanks :)

I was able to dig up the following info which may/may not really apply to your particular incident. I hope it does help, though.

Not long after getting a replacement battery under the recent apple safety program my Powerbook would intermittently, and unpredictably suddently shut off - not sleep, but full instantaneous shutdown (unplugged, but with enough battery juice left to go for a while). Clock reset to 1970.

I had some luck resolving it, so for what it's worth, more background and detail below.

Short form: the repair permissions / check disk / reinstall most recent system update COMBO version seemed to do the trick, along with trashing the power preferences. There are more extreme solutions out on the web, which were not needed.


I took the following steps and no shutdowns in over five days with heavy use.

-Repair Permissions;

-Check disk (fsck) in Single-User Mode (Press Command-S during startup Start up in Single-User mode (command line));

-Backup! (I used superduper);

-Trash preference com.apple.PowerManagement.plist in disk/library/preferences/SystemConfiguration/ (You will lose power preferences, take note of anything critical);

-Reset Power Management Unit (how to linky);

-I may have repaired permissions / fsck again here, probably unnecessary.

-Reinstalled the battery upgrade (1.1) - probably excessive;

-Reinstall most recent system update - I used the COMBO updater, highly recommend just in case. Restart as per instructions;

-Repair permissions, then check disk in single-user mode;

-Reboot.


Some of this might be overkill, but it seems to be working. From a lot of web searching, and a bit of guesswork, the critical steps may be trashing the power preferences, possibly the PMU reset, and re-applying the combo updater. Backup always essential!
My best guess is that the power preferences somehow had a problem, perhaps due to the recent system update, but this was serious enough with potential data loss that I did everything as a precaution.
 

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