January 25, 2003
iBook Battery Issues
From MacInTouch: More reports on low battery life in iBooks.
In December, Jason Kottke wrote about the problems he was having. Near the end of December, I started to experience the same issues. After the the battery shortages began to become increasingly worse, I called Apple to send me a replacement battery. It's been replace and the problem is fixed... for now.
Any others experiencing this problem? How old is your iBook?
79 Comments
I have a iBook purchased in September of 2001. It's been doing the one hour or less battery thing for a while now. I though it was just me...
Meg's iBook recently had the same exact problem. My new battery is working fine, but if it craps out on the other side of my warranty, I'm gonna be pissed. If Apple's having production problems, I shouldn't have to pay for it.
And Cory calls his iBook "the single biggest lemon I've ever owned".
My 500 Mhz, iBook that I bought well over a year ago has had
1. Modem problem under OS X
2. A keyboard that wasn't properly popped in and kept waking the ibook when it was asleep (was my fault when cleaning the keyboard)
3. The battery now will last roughtly about 2 hours before it goes to sleep. It will stay at 0% for 15-20 minutes sometimes and then sleep. Note that I use Airport exclusively now so I wonder if that affects life, been using airport for well over 6 months now.
4. The battery will lose a decent amount of power when asleep, not sure how much though.
I'll do some more experiments about the battery life and post em here. I bet tho it's the typical Lithium Ion battery issues. The Gateway laptop I had had a battery that would last 45 minutes so I had it replaced....
I love my 500MHz iBook, despite the weakened battery. I've dropped it twice and survived unscathed. After the last drop, I do get a weird flicker on the screen about 2-3 times a week, but it goes away after a few seconds. My battery now lasts less than an hour, but I also run Airport almost all the time and I take my iBook everywhere w/ me (in the cold, cold Michigan winter, which is bad on battery life).
I wish Apple could invent a true 5-6 hr battery. But I still get more battery time than most of my wintel friends.
Oops, I meant to say that my iBook battery lasts just under TWO hours, not one.
I have a fairly old iBook, the black tie edition 333. About three months ago the battery just died. I was using the computer, with a full battery (I barely ever have it away from its adaptor) and after about five minutes (still showing a full battery meter) the whole thing suddenly shut down.
Now the battery doesn't work at all. It constantly shows as having a 0% charge.
I would send it back, since I bought an extended Apple Care warranty. But it's less hassle just to buy a PC at the crazy low prices lately.
So much for my experiment with Macintosh. My $5000 (CDN) souped up laptop can't be moved away from an electrical socket.
I've had a 600 Mhz iBook since last April. By December, battery life dropped down to about an hour per charge. I took my computer into the NYC Apple Store in December. After fiddling around with resetting the power manager, and a lot of paperwork, I walked out with a new battery in my computer, and I now get 3:30 (with Airport) to 4 hours (no Airport) of battery life with this new battery.
I should also point out my iBook has been in the shop before for another problem.
I've been contemplating "the big switch" and have my eye on a 15" PowerBook. Does anyone have a battery issues to report with that class of machine?
Well mine is 3 hours old so I'm hoping the issues have been sorted out since the older models.
This happened to our 12-inch iBook too.
Same thing with my iBook/500 battery, which is a little over a year old. Apple overnighted me a replacement, which was covered by AppleCare.
I've been experiencing similar problems. I bought my 500mhz ibook in August 2001 and I'm now lucky to get 50-60 minutes life from the battery.
I presume it's now well out of warranty and a new battery is looking expensive. Would Apple still consider sending a new battery?
My just over 1 year old tiBook is also experiencing a dramatically shorter battery life than when I bought it (4 hrs vs. 2). Then again, I've experienced this sort of battery degradation with every laptop I've ever worked with. Whether the iBook battery problem is a production problem specific to the model, or just a generic problem with batteries remains to be seen.
Bad batteries are not exclusive to Apple. My relatively new HP ZT1130 used to go 2-3 hours without the need for AC power. Now I'm lucky if I can get 45 minutes.
Apple says that the use of the Airport card shouldn't drastically affect the battery life. With my iBook the battery'o'meter drops considerably when I switch on Airport. This added to my already less than ideal 2:15 battery life at full charge (and that's only running Finder). I also mention that the light on the charger is broken and only glows green. Not sure if this is related to crappy battery life (doubtful), but it's annoying as well.
I'll be visiting my Apple Store this week, looking for help, as my AppleCare runs dry on Valentine's Day.
As others have already mentioned, battery degradation is a problem that has affected every notebook pc I've ever owned.
One of the things I've noticed that reduces degradation is to always run the battery down to the "plug in AC power to continue working" message before putting it back on charge. Although this is not always convenient, hooking it into the mains when you've got >50% charge remaining really seems to hurt the battery, especially if you do this a lot.
The other thing is to unplug it from the mains after it's finished charging; this is to stop the battery from getting overcharged, although (in theory) the power management circuits should prevent this. I just don't trust those circuits... 8)
If you're getting really bad performance from your battery, it's usually best just to buy a new one. Some places claim to be able to recondition degraded batteries so that they become useful again, which might be worth investigating, although I've never used that service myself...
Notebook batteries do tend to be fairly expensive unfortunately, and Apple replacements are no exception (although they come in about average).
I've owned an 800MHz ibook since November, and it certainly has the best battery life of any notebook PC I've used.
Folks, this isn't just an iBook problem. It's been affecting Powerbooks at least since the Lombard era four or so years ago. There was a thread on the Apple discussion boards that ran to more than 100 messages of identical problem after identical problem on all sorts of apple laptops.
When I first started having the problem, after my warranty had ended, I spent a lot of time looking for reasons and solutions. There weren't any other than either replacing the battery or replacing something expensive inside the computer. I've given up on using the battery altogether--most places I actually want to sit and work have an outlet anyway.
My wife owns a PC laptop which is about the same age as my Powerbook G3, but it's never had any battery-power loss problems.
I have an iBook 600/combo that I bought in November 2001 which gets approximately two hours of battery life with AirPort, a little longer with AirPort turned off. Last August I was able to get two hours of DVD playing on a flight. Battery life has been fading, as I once got a notice of four hours remaining before I got wireless, and was regularly getting three hours a bit less than a year ago, but nothing so dramatic (yet) as what others have reported here.
Does it make a difference if you calibrate the battery when the machine is new? It's my understanding that the owner's manual suggests you do that to prolong battery life.
what are you all talking about? I get 10-12 hours of battery life on my iBook, while editing full-screen video the whole time. Sheesh.
Steve must be running those new nuclear fuel cell batteries "not yet released"...
I own a 700Mhz ibook (with the 14.1 inch screen), and absolutely love it. It's been almost a year, and So far, I have'nt experienced anything wrong with my battery, but then again, I really baby this thing. I even take the battery out when using the adapter. Someone who had owned an earlier version of the ibook once gave me this suggestion and it seems to have worked!
I purchased my iBook in May of 2001 and have been experiencing the same battery issues. The message boards on Apple's website are full of customers with the same problem. My battery started out with a five hour charge, but within monthes the charge was down to an hour. Now, it is completely gone. I call tech support, and they are sending me a new battery. Call if your computer is on warranty; it is most likely a hardware issue.
iBook 700mhz, battery died after three months, got it replaced. My friend Damon (one of the original Switchers, ironically enough) had the exact same problem, got his replaced. Both were replaced through the local Apple Store, both of us were sworn to that they've had no reports of widespread problems.
I think this is more of a general laptop problem. My Vaio battery was good for about a year and then rapidly lost its ability to hold a charge. The fact that Apple batteries are half the price of Sony batteries is one of the reasons why my next laptop will be an Apple.
I talked with a battery serviceman who warned me against Sonys because most manufacturers are "open" about their battery specs -- you can take a battery to a specialist like him, he can look up the specs, and replace the "guts" of the battery, effectively making it as good-as-new. Sony doesn't release these specs though, and I don't know if Apple does either. Regardless, I think this is worth looking into.
I have a 700mhz iBook purchased in July of 2002, and the battery started at a solid 3 hours, and now is less than that, but not so much as to be disruptive, yet. Yet. :)
The battery on my iBook 700Mhz only runs for 20 minutes before immediately switching into sleep mode. And that time seems to be dropping.
I wonder if I should just take the battery out to save some weight -- i never go anywhere without my adaptor anyways. ;)
If I cough up the bucks for a new battery, how can i make it last longer than 6 months?
My 6 month old iBook battery lasts only 5 minutes now. I believe this is a manufacturing defect. I have been a fairly static Mac User, seldomly using the battery prowess and this is why I feel frustrated: battery life is measured in charge-discharge cycles which I can count with my right hand in this computer.
Although I've had powermanager problems in my late 2000 PowerBook G3 "Wallstreet" and one of the batteries in my 1997 520C also failed and replaced one battery in my former PowerBook 145B. On this one I never unplugged it from the poweroutlet and seldomly used the battery.
However, there are no specific instructions in battery management in the owners manual. No advise on weather you should charge your new battery for 24 hours or so, all these rituals seem to be in the past now.
I have an iBook 600, purchased last September, that has been experience battery problems also. At first, battery life was in the 3 - 5 hour range. Now, I typically get less than one hour. My menubar indicator as well as the lights on the battery will indicate a full charge for the first 30 minutes or so, then the iBook will die completely.
I know that I can get a replacement battery, as my iBook is still under warranty. However, since I've recently upgraded my CD-ROM drive to a DVD-ROM drive (yes, the internal drive) and it's very obvious that the iBook has been dismantled at one point, I'm not certain if they'll let me exchange batteries - I very obviously voided the warranty, though the battery issues happened long before I opened the case.
Yep had a few problems at first but now all is well, seems to have fixed itself.
My friend Matt had this problem with his 700 mhz 12" iBook. The battery was replaced under warranty and his new one is fine. Until recently, I've been a solely PowerBook-powered girl--ever since the Lombard came out. I ran off solely off a of a Lombard, then a Pismo (kept for nearly 3 years), and a PowerBook G4/667, which I hated for other reasons. Overall, about 6 years of PowerBook usage, and none of those ever had battery problems, though I went through about 4 yo-yo power adapters on the Pismo before I sold it. I hope my iBook doesn't develop battery problems...
I forgot to mention this tip to improve battery life (as in how long til it craps out): DO NOT constantly run off the power adapter, or if you do, remove the battery. This is the number one premature killer of li-ion batteries as far as I have read/seen.
same here, my iBook 700mhz, bough last june, decided to stay alive only 40mins with battery. Worse thing was that the battery indicator instead was "lying" and giving completely higher figures.
Many inquires with Apple techs and newsgroups readings followed and eventually i ended up replacing the battery and, yes, now I let the batter go down to 5% before plugging the ac in and removing it when at 100%, hope this will make the batt last longer.
I have a 500mhz ibook that is just about 1.5 years old. enough time to be out of warranty. I am now down to 20min or less on the battery.
I am going to buy a new battery but would hope this is not going to happen again, plus I am very dissappointed in Apple for not dealing with what appears to be a widespread issue.
Does anyone know if my machine is out of warranty and I get a new battery, is the batery covered if it craps out again?
Mena...what did you wind up doing in regards to this?
This is just anecdotal, but I've read a few accounts of users buying "new" Apple batteries only to have them arrive effectively DOA. Someone experienced in interpreting Apple serial numbers determined that the batteries with this issue were as old as the batteries they replaced, just never used. Some think that this effectively means that there is a limited shelf-life to this battery technology...
iBook!?
What about the PowerBook Titanium G4?
My battery life has progressively been sucked away by Apple's magic iPixies.
The exceptionally expensive batteries (although, maybe free under the AppleCard warranty), seem to clog-up after a few charges.
After reading a few Apple tech note's, I found a trick which is guaranteed to work...
First, with the machine open and running (running off the battery), leave it until the battery has reached 0%, and it forces itself into sleep.
Now, with the machine in forced sleep, close the lid, and attach the power. Leave for a few hours (make _really_ sure it's fully charged, by leaving it longer than normal).
Open the lid, and off you go!
You'll need to do this 1 or 2 times a month, after you've had the machine for 8 months or so, you'll need to increased that to 3 or 4.
But don't worry - you can continue to use the machine until you have to close the lid and leave it to recharge.
Already, after doing this 3 times, the battery has gone from 1hr 50 minutes after a full recharge, to a grand 3hrs 11 minutes!
I could explain the technical reasons; but bascially the Lithium Ion batteries that Apple uses, are super-advanced. The benefit is the longer life, and greater storage; but the downfall is the neccesity to 'refresh' the battery a few times a month.
Of course, if you leave your machine off for longer than a month - remember to deplete the battery and remove it! Never leave a fully charged battery in for long durations, and never leave a fully charged battery disconnected!!!
Follow these simple rules, and your PowerBook or iBook will be a happy, healthy Mac.
It's just a Li-ion battery problem in general. My iBook has been OK so far (purchased in Dec), but a Thinkpad I use has gone through 3 batteries. Each time the battery lasting roughly 4 or 5 months before it barely holds a charge. Various newsgroups/forums were screaming recall. It's everywhere folks. Enjoy your notebooks/laptops.
i just bought the 12" powerbook through macwarehouse and managed to get a a free extra battery along with the deal (via rebate). i "conditioned" both batteries and get different results from each. just over 3 hours on one and almost 4 hours on the other.
thank you to everyone for all the advice. i think i'll switch back and forth between batteries in case it is a shelf life issue and remove them from the pbook once they're charged.
The finest article on this subject I know of is available here: http://www.powerpulse.net/powerpulse/archive/pdf/aa_103000c.pdf
The dirty little secret is: Lithium Ion batteries just "wear out" after about a year of normal laptop use. It doesn't matter if it's a Mac or a ThinkPad. Major things that do help extend lif to almost two years are:
1. Taking the battery out when you are using the power adapter.
2. Keeping the charge at about 70%.
3. Doing a "calibration" or full discharge and charge as Adthrawn suggests above.
However since most people do not do any of these three things (including me) they need a new battery after about 12 - 18 months. There's simply no way around this. Lithium Ion batteries are only rated for a max of 500 cycles anyway.
Thanks Adthrawn and Barry, I'll try that. But to further complicate the situation, my meter now tells me that I have 2 hrs 37 mins left or some similarly generous margin, then the machine just drops into sleep. No warning. What's up with that?
li-ion batteries will get progressively poorer charge results. as was the case with my 466mhz ibook se (the last of the old ibooks) and the problem got solved with 46$ for another battery. you can also get a technology warranty at compusa so if the life of the battery on the machine goes down they will replace (and also allow you to trade in at full value for the newest technology :) )
If my ibook battery is a goner and I don't want to replace it (running it off the adaptor instead), should I remove the dead battery from the machine or does it matter? (My adaptor glows orange much of the time, even though the battery indicator falsely indicates a full charge!)
Hey there, I just skimmed through the comments on this page and thankfully realized "Its not just me!" I bought my ibook around November 2001: the battery was performing just fine. For the last few months the battery only lasts about an hour -- or an hour and a half if I'm only wordprocessing. I was thinking that it was the battery, as was the case with many of the similar battery issues on this message page. I'm under a care package, although its not through apple -- instead its through the store where i bought the ibook and it actually seems to cover more of the "hardware" than an apple care plan... but thats an entirely different issue :)
So, in theory I could get a replacement battery... but I'm not quite sure if the battery is my only problem. My power adapter has also been acting strangely, as it never lights up "orange" any more. Instead, It stays green when charging, when fully charged... its green all of the time :)
I wasn't sure if something was wrong with the adapter, and thus the battery wasnt actually being "fully" charged. As OS X is known to have battery-life-reading-issues, when it says 100% charged, I'm left to wonder if a)it is 100% charged, but the battery is defunct so the capacity has dwindled or b)the battery isn't actually being charged to its capacity because the adapter is defunct and OS X just lies about the 100%.
Well that was a mouthful.
If anyone can get back to me -- through this Log, or by means of email, it would be greatly appreciated.
I have had similar probs with my 700Mhz iBook.
Sooo many mac-owners with similar battery problems. A bit scary. But even more scary is the wall of silence from Apple regarding their crap batteries, OR at least their total lack of information regarding how to keep battery life up.
It's a disturbing state of affairs. I hope my second battery will work better than my first. I'll pamper it as mentioned above. Thanks for the info.
Steve -
10-12 hours????
what do you have in that thing? one of those "8x10" full size things that fits under the whole ibook? :)
my daughter's ibook 600 (purchased dec 2001) has NEVER gotten more than maybe 3.5-4 hours of life on a full charge (which i considered normal)
and now (actually probably for many months since she didn't bother telling me) - it's exhibiting the same symptoms as all the other posters... a "full" charge gives me "maybe" 40-50 minutes of life - with 10 of that being after a battery warning and the screen dimmed to barely visible...
she's always had the ibook plugged in on her desk - it's only been run on battery power "maybe" 30 times over the past year and a half... she rarely removed it from her desk
apple really needs to let us know the "proper" way to keep the battery alive
if we're gonna have it on a desk for weeks at a time, should we remove the battery only put it back in when we're planning on using it OFF the ac adapter?
should we leave it plugged in WITH battery?
should we UNPLUG it from adapter if it's gonna sleep for a few days?
if we DO need to remove the battery, should it be at a full charge? or 50% charge? or 10% charge? or does that matter?
inquiring minds want to know!!! :)
morelater
the show doctor
I just bought a brand new battery (saturday). Battery life is now reported at less than 1/2 hour. Machine just turns itself off completely.
A pissed apple customer. And don't even get me started on the "must revert time to 1969 issue". Doesn't Apple know to have some power for the clock? I've never had that problem with a PC laptop.
I know they have a life cycle but not "Saturday to Tuesday". Pathetic.
My wife's 500 MHz dual-USB iBook battery (M8403) lasts for an hour or less and seems to be getting worse. My son has the same model computer and battery and his runs for about 3-hours. We switched the batteries to make sure it had nothing to do with the computer and sure enough, it is definitely the battery. Does anyone know of a recall or a notice indicating a problem with iBook batteies?
It seems to be a problem endemic to all rechargables. I use AA NiMH rechargeables in my digicam (Fuji Finepix). I kept them as full as possible, recharging after almost each use. They rapidly diminished in capacity. Then one time I forgot and left them in the camera for months. After recharging what were pretty close to completely empty batteries they now hold nearly as much charge as new ones. So although it is counter-intuitive, it does seem to be better to run rechargables all the way to the bitter end, than to tease them with persnickity little half-charges.
I am now running my 600 mhz Apple iBook (used, bought on Ebay) to the bitter end. I'll report on whether the battery life, currently only an hour, improves.
[The next day] Nope: completely draining and then re-charging the empty iBook battery did not repeat *NOT* extend my battery life. It used to last an hour; now after twice running it all the way down to a forced sleep and then recharging, it is less than an hour.
I remember reading that if you use a rechargeable the same way over and over--that is run an hour and then recharge, time after time--it develops a kind of bad habit of expecting a recharge after one hour. The reason has to do with the way the chemicals react to hold the charge. It is like each use cuts a little deeper rut, like passsing wagon wheels on a dirt road. Eventually the rut is too deep to get beyond.
Anyway, whatever the reason and whatever the fix, Apple does need to educate people how to care for their battery. And used laptop buyers like me need to remember they are buying somebody else's battery abuse problem.
PS--Apple has their own recipe for fixing misbehaving ibook batteries--which may be a power management problem and NOT a physical deterioration of the battery--at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449
I read on another board that you can charge the battery till it turns green, then unplug, then plug it back in 30 times or so, and sometimes the battery will be ok recharging on it's own. I'm trying it right now, hope it works.
I made the mistake of letting my barely used iBook sit gathering dust for a year or so, bad idea.
While I do not discount the possibility of additional problems, the issue of dying lithium ion batteries after about 12 months of use is very unsurprising to me. This is not an unreasonable life expectancy for such a battery, especially with the heat generated by a laptop.
A laptop battery is a consumable, they simply die after a while, especially if you don't carefully follow advice regarding ideal charge cycles. I've gone through 4 Li-Ion batteries on my Dell Latitude in 2 years simply because I don't have the inclination to perform battery conditioning rituals in my work schedule. While there is no "memory" problem per se with Li-Ion, non-ideal charging cycles seem to simply damage the battery.
Even in ideal conditions, determining the charge level of a lithium-ion battery does not share the comfortable reliability of a digital problem like, say, calculating remaining hard disk space. More accurate (2-5%) methods require periodic recalibration (a previous post mentions an Apple KB document about this) while other methods vary much more than laptop users would probably care to see (10% or more).
Li-Ion FAQ
Battery University
My 700mhz 12' ibook battery is playin up, it says 100% when i disconnect the adaptor, i use the comp for 5 minutes n it jus goes 2 sleep n wont do anythin, as soon as I plug in the adaptor it starts workin again at 0%. I hardly ever use the laptop out, its pretty much a desktop n now i need 2 use it as a laptop its playin up, do you reckon i can send the battery bck 2 apple coz my laptop is only 6mnths old if that. Thanks
I have a 800 mhz 12.1" ibook and I'm a little relieved, but amazed, to hear that I am not the only one whose battery crapped out on them. I use it off the adapter, otherwise it just goes to sleep after about 3 minutes of being on... and my 1-yr warranty JUST expired two weeks ago, so I'm not too happy... anybody have luck getting Apple to send them another battery after their warranty was up?
Oh, and I agree with Rafaelo a few posts up; letting your battery drain first before recharging it still does not increase life expectancy of the battery...
I had a problem like this on my 700mhz iBook, the battery life dropped from 3 hours to 5 minutes, in the space of 8 months. I have read that this may have been caused by something in 10.2.4, but anyway I was surprised how easy it was to claim a new battery from apple when I gave them a call.
Something to consider is that we (I include myself here!) tend to want to keep all portable computers plugged in when possible. This is really a mistake becasue we are not allowing the battery to ever completely discharge which is where I think the problems begins. The battery life gets progressively shorter over time. So-oo the morale of the story is to let your battery discharge completely at least one a week. Then complelely charge and remove you AC adpater until it is dead. DON'T LEAVE YOUR AC ADAPTER PLUGGED INTO THE COMPUTER ALL THE TIME!
Mine too. It's a 700 I bought in August of 02' around January of this year I turned it on and it only charged to 87% it breifly went back to %100 after that and routinely only charges up to between 70% and 85%. I have not timed it's actual uptime on only batteries, but I usually use it off the Main and let the batteries drain until the laptop shuts down. Then I charge it back up. I have reset the power manager I know not how many times. I had no Idea until now that this was such a widespread issue.
I have a Graphite iBook. The battery died... so I replaced it. I followed the instructions with the replacement battery: fully charge the battery, then let it run until the computer shuts down, repeat up to four times to ensure the battery now understands its own charge time. After I did this, the battery crapped out and wouldn't recharge again. I got a replacement to the replacement and have noticed that the battery again won't recharge. The light where the adapter plugs in is always green. I haven't seen an orange "charging" light in days. Pretty frustrating to have a laptop that needs to be plugged in. I'm going to see if I can get another replacement. AGAIN! What a pain in the...
One comment to add to the battery problems now afflicting me. In the old days of NiCd batteries, I recall it was recommended not to begin using them while still warm from re-charging.
I wonder if this should be added to the other good advice offered on prolonging battery life--advice that was also consistent with NiCd TLC Protocols.
Hi Folks!
It seems to me that everybody here is accepting too well the batteries trouble.
I have an old IBook Clamshell Blue & white , still working fine!
And my almost brand new IBook (2002) , just out of warranty ,has a battery for 5/10 minutes at the most .
Do you all really believe in coincidence?
People there is a congenital problem here , and we should unite and DO SOMETHING!
I have researched on the net and found hundreds of cases alike , if under warranty Apple changes the battery or adaptor quickly , no questions , after that they just sell lots of booth items .
At least we should have been warned of this ,before buying this model , I think that we have a case for consumer goods here , I am not a lawyer , but anyway I propose that we all join forces and make Apple do something about it !
Maybe someone here can help making a site or a petition that we could all sign and send to Apple.
There is a precedent , Apple made a recall of the Airport Base Station ,after the warranty , and exchanged thousands of it .
Are we going to keep buying batteries and AC Adaptors forever , or getting disapointed with Apple and WHAT?
Buying a PC , Never! Apple must solve this and keep all Macusers happy as they have always been .
So let us move and organize , I feel cheated with a battery and an AC Adaptor that malfunction just after a year , as I mentioned my old IBook works fine!
I have all my research saved ,and all the symptons are alike ,no coincidence but MALFUNCTION !
Hope we can DO SOMETHING !
Hi.
I'm the tech support guy at MacResQ - you know, the largest retailer of new, used, rare & hard-to-find Apple parts?
Anyway, there's a 50/50 chance you can bring that battery back from the dead!
First, reset the Power Manager (there are directions on Apple's Tech Support site).
Then, boot into Open Firmware (hold Command-Option-O-F at startup, immediately after the chime) and type the following line:
reset-nvram reset-all
Then press return. The machine will reboot and the battery will begin to charge.
You may also want to run your battery all the way down before doing this.
Sometimes, you can bring a totally discharged battery back from the dead by plugging in the AC adapter and pulling and replacing the battery in 5 second intervals about 10 or 20 times. It "tickles" a totally discharged battery into charging again.
For more info, send me an email at jason@macresq.com - I'd be more than happy to help you guys out.
Oh! I almost forgot:
UPDATE YOUR FIRMWARE!!
It's available via Software Update. If Software Update doesn't find a firmware update, then you're probably okay.
A lot of things "weird out" if your firmware isn't updated, especially if you're running an OS or extensions/devices that assume you already have the updated firmware.
~Jason
I got my iBook 2001 model in march of 2002 it is slighty over a year old and I use it every day and sometimes drain the battery twice a day and rarly 3 times a day. I have ahd this problem as well. I am running 10.2.6 with a combo drive and I use airport and havn't noticed a difference in battery life when it is off. Did apple just send people free batteries? I find that hard to believe. My warrenty is long up and I am getting about and hour but it is getting shorter as the days and weeks go by. When I get to 14% the reserve in Jaguar it will sometimes just jump to 0% in like 30 seconds and it will then fall into the (death sleep) where it wont wake up unless you plug in. I would love some (again please no junk mail) feedback on this issue please send me an email @ I am very mad at apple at the moment because the reason I got the iBook ws because my 1 year old Blue 350 mhz iMac had a video card failure and it is now broken. I got this and I am not going to get a new one for at least 2 years so I would like a battery that is decent for a change. I have to plug in again!!! This drives me crazy! I can't stand having such a short battery life, and I don't want to do the frirmware thingy because I don't like messing with openfirmware because if you mess up you got a computer that wont boot and is no good. My battery will take a charge but will go through the %s faster than the minutes go by. When this was a new computer it took 27% to burn a full cd. Now it takes around 50%. This is an outrage! What was apple thinging when they put the Lithum ion batteries in the 2001 iBooks. What REALLY pushes my buttens is I HAVE NEVER GOTTEN CLOSE TO 5 HOURS and if I did I would kiss Steve Job's feet. Also my key board is very worn from typing and if I rest my elbow on the left side or right side of my computer on the plastic (8mb video memory model iBook) my mouse will click its self and do lots of stuff I dont want. Also some people have a squeeking problem when they move their screen, I don't have that. Also I had the chrager also do the green only thing when I was on warrenty and I took it to my local mac dealer and they sent it back and gave me a new one free. Then a little wile back the new one had the cable have a tincy short and I had to fix that my self and tape the charger back to gether because apple wont replace it because it isn't on warrenty (I mean they will charge me) I also have an iPod 10 GB (the new one) and I dont get near the 8 hours advertised. I get more like 3 or 4. Does your iBook battery take forever to charge, mine does. I guess that covers it. Oh and when I play games I get a horrid frame rate (like 8 or less) with everything on low detail.
Wewe (not my real name, just a nick name)
I don't know why this didn't work but email me @ wili@storm.ca and I am very angery at apple right now. Let me tell you this I have NOT over charged my battery if we are going on a camping trip I unplug it and put it to sleep (and yes it eats about 10% of battery overnight for those wondering, in a sleep) Now I would like to know what this all flat battery (the whole bottem of the computer) is like I don't like the weight of the iBook but hey if it will get me 10 hours I'mm willing to lug the xtra pounds. Also I have a 20GB harddrive in it and it makes a lot of grinding sometimes. Have people noticed that os x uses way to much swap? I averge at least a gig in swap. While were on the subject my internal clock gets messed up from time to time and I don't like it. I am going to time it from 100% to death sleep 0%, while watch TV. and is there anyway that apple will send me a new shell? (the clear plastic) because mine is really scratched up at the rear (near the metal grittle at the back). Oh and my iBook got dropped once from about 2 1/2 feet onto linolum. And I have found that 1 pismo with older airport card 64 bit encription and a 500 mhz 2001 iBook with older 64 bit encription card get much more range than my 128 bit encription. But I'm getting off the point. My system prefs change my energy saver prefs from Custom to Automatic and are always on power adapter. Also My hard drive spun down for the first time sence theis computer has been using mac os x (I started with 10.1.2) today, and took a very long time to spin up then made a strange kinda loud clicking noise.
Wewe
apple you gays was my hero but now shame of you,i just bouhgt my ibook ,now I have to return to the store, the same issue w/ the battery
At least your still on warrenty!
I'm NOT!
Wewe
I recently bought the 12 inch 900Mhz iBook with 380MB RAM and combo drive. I have been fighting with the Authorised Dealer to replace the screen as there are two dead pixels right in the middle and with my line of work, comprimises my data (Visually). After a long winded process, they decided that they will replace my screen and while they attached an external HDD to it via firewaire, found that the firewire port was faulty. I have always bought apples and PC's, I have preference to both, but after this incident and the fact that when I had problems with my PC, the company's I dealt with honoured thier warranty. Which is good because consumers make the company. I still have the old (new) iBook until they call me to let me know that the new iBook has arrived. I will ask them to test the firewire port, check for dead pixels and check USB, LAN and Modem ports before I hand over my current one.
I could not believe what I went through to get to this stage. If I didn't kick and punch (bitch and cry) then I would be stuck with a faulty firewire port (which I would have found out about a day after the warranty) and still have two dead pixels smack in the middle of the screen.
I have also noticed that the first day I got it, I charged it overnight (about 12hours) and used it the next day, unplugged, gotr about 5.3hours, and was really happy. Right now I have had it for exactly 2 weeks and the battery only charges to 3 hours, unless I dim the display right down to the final setting before it goes black (almost). This gives me 3.5 hours but hard to see images.
Hopefully the new machine arrives and "works". I bithced that the iBook I got doesn't resemble the same ones on display and that their policy about the dead pixels is so vaige that its like reading my stars in the paper everyday.
I am glad they are replacing it, seems I made an impression. Or scared them. But I will be wary next time as Apple are not what they use to be when it comes to quality, service and advice.
Hey, Steve (Jobs), might wanna come down under to Sydney and have a look at your operation over here. I could say that I was happier dealing with your people 5 years ago then now. I found the whole two weeks since I got the iBook an ordeal I never want to go through again. Being run around, told different 'opinions' instead of facts, policies and regulations. Fix it up man. Your computers look better then before and perform better too, but sad to say, the service has gone the other way and like a lead balloon.
Steve Cosentino
1. I HATE APPLE! I just called and a very uptight person told me that my computer was bought 1 month before I came along and bought it. 2. That even though I am a STUDENT, hear a STUDENT I would have to buy a new battery. I DON'T HAVE THAT KIND OF MONEY! So Steve when you look at your bank account and see it is rapidly falling THINK OF US WITH OUR BATTERIES! When you hit the bottem, THINK OF THE STUDENTS that can't afford a new battery if it punched them in the face!
WEWE
No point in getting upset at Apple sopecificaly about this. After reading about Li-Ion batteries IN GENERAL, I have reached the following conclusions:
* 1-2 years of carefull use are all you are going to get from a laptop or digital camera battery.
* They don't store well - keeping them stored fully charged is bad.
* Most are 'smart' batteries - once they have stopped working, they are probably knackered. A 'refresh' may work, but don't plan on it.
* Keeping a battery in the laptop when using the adaptor is bad, BECAUSE:
* * The battery will be stored fully charged, not good over an extended period!
* * Li-Ion batteries need to be stored in a COOL enviroment, and we all know how HOT laptops get when being used.
So, my conclusions are this:
1. Don't keep a battery in the machine if you use it on the adaptor all the time, charge it to about 40% and put it somewhere cool insted.
2. EXPECT to have to fork our a pile of cash for a new battery after 1-2 years.
3. Lobby the manufacturer for better information, cheeper battery replacement, and realistic lifespan advice.
4. When buying new, research and ask about battery performance and warrinties. If possible, get a second battery in the deal, and keep is stored correctly, and swapped monthly.
Nik
12.1" iBook battery problems.
Nil charge. (10 minutes max)
AC power adapter trouble.
interment operation.
keyboard quality poor
(replaced)
just out of warranty by a week and
refused help by local apple store.
any suggestions appreciated.
who can i email @ aapl for help.
ready to join a class action lawsuit.
All I can say is me too.... I bought my iBook in Singapore with 2 batteries, about 1 year and 1month later 1 died, about 1-2 month later the other no longer lasts more than 2 hours. Starts from full charge saying 3 hours, but when it gets down to 1 hour is turns off and can't be turned on again till pluged in.
I must give an update on my problem!!! My problem was looking better (longer time) but it was to good to last!!!! It now lasts about 10-20 min!!! Gte this at 81 percent the 4 lights on the battery go from 4 lights to flashing 1 (reseve)! NOTHING IN BETWEEN!! Just 4 to flashing!!!! I HATE THIS PPL IT SUCKS AND I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL!!!
Wewe
P.S. I tried calling apple, told then I was a student... Guess what I got in reply... "Well you'll have to buy a new one sir" HELLO DON'T WANT TO WANT TO HAVE A GOOD ONE RIGHT NOW!
Wow... I have an old iBook G3 (clamshell) that I've had for about 5 years. I found this tread because my battery just decided to die on me and I was checking out if that was normal. Guess not. I've had the same battery for all those years and done everything wrong and it's only just lately (past two monthes) decided to go bad on me.
Here's hoping that the next one lasts as long...
So...
I haven't read ALL the posts, but I've got a 500mhz G3 with a dying battery as well. My question is, Will Apple replace it if it is still under the 3 year AppleCare Warranty I paid for? I called Apple Support, and the guy on the phone said the battery was a 'consumable' item, and I'd have to buy a new one....but at $129.00...why did I buy the warranty?
Thanks,
BJR
Someone asked if anyone had had any luck getting a new battery out of Apple after the warranty was up - I did, 8 months after the warranty expired. In my case, I had had a life-threatening illness requiring awful treatments over long periods, and explained to the customer service rep that this had led me to neglect sorting out my domestic stuff, and not asking for a battery within warranty. They rang me back saying they would give me a new battery; so they can be really nice.
I believe they recognise that everyone's battery is going to die within a year or so, so: you just gotta ask for a new one within warranty period, preferably well within just in case the new one packs up too quick!
It would be great though if they could give some sort of care guide to these fancy batteries, really I've known snowflakes less frail and fleeting.
xxxxxxxxx x Jonathan x
at least y'all have an apple dealer down the road. try being stuck in the countryside of the philippines with an ibook that lasts about 15 min. symptoms are pretty much the same as described by others. the deceitful little indicator will announce, oh yeah, lots of juice left, 80% of battery life left! but then it suddently goes into death sleep. which means i have to find a socket amidst the coconut trees and banana bushes. should i build myself a bicycle that i can pedal to generate 100 V? hmmm... anyway i'm selling the ibook and buying a notebook + pencil + eraser.
i have a problem with my iBook 800 the just started last night when i realized my 4 hour battery now does not hold a charge at all. The battery monitor when it acknoledges a battery even attached stays at 0%. I have tried reseting just about everything, but I have heard that the battery has its own firmware so maybe if i could reset that. Note that i just have installed the Apple Battery Update 1.1 and this could be the issue. But as i said before it updates the Batteries firmware also. Does anyone know how to fix this?