Powerbook Battery

davorg on 2004-03-02T21:34:31

I may have done something a bit stupid.

I was in my current client's office yesterday when one of the chaps there mentions that the battery in his 15" Powerbook seems to be broken and he can only run it off the mains. When I mention that I have a Powerbook at home he asks if I could bring in my battery and try it in his Powerbook. As I'm going back to the office today I put the battery in my bag and take it with me.

We try my battery in his Powerbook and it doesn't make any difference. It still only works on the mains. He gives me the battery back.

But when I get home and put the battery back into my Powerbook disaster strikes. Now my Powerbook won't work from the battery. The four lights on the battery all light up when I press the button but if you pull out the power lead, it all goes dead.

As I see it there are two options. Either I was given back the wrong battery (and we then have to decide if it was accidental or deliberate) or somehow putting my healthy battery into a broken Powerbook has broken my battery.

I know little of Apple hardware so I'm not sure how likely the second option is. Maybe one of the iGeeks out there could give me some advice.

A replacement battery is £100. I really don't want to have to pay that much.

---

power ram

rjbs on 2004-03-02T22:22:02

There's some dedicated processor on pbook mainboards and some other voodoo that goes on. Here are my suggestions:

1. Zap the PRAM. Do this by holding cmd-opt-P-R during boot. I think it'll BONG more than once if it zaps. I'm not sure about that.

2. Enter openfirmware by holding cmd-opt-O-F. At the openfirmware prompt, run "reset-nvram"

I make no guarantee that these will not cause your Mac to explode, but I do suggest that it's unlikely. I had this problem once, and PRAM-zapping would help for a while, but not permanently. I replace the battery and all was well. (It was free, too, under warranty.)

Battery Update

blech on 2004-03-02T22:50:53

Did both PowerBooks have the reasonably recent (January, iirc) Battery Update installed? Does installing it now help?

If the answers are 'yes' and 'no', then this will have been useless. You never know, though.

Re:Battery Update

davorg on 2004-03-03T09:58:50

I know that mine doesn't have it. I'll try installing it.

Re:Battery Update

davorg on 2004-03-03T10:03:56

Tried it. The installer says "this software is not necessary for your computer".

Warranty?

ask on 2004-03-03T12:54:59

No more warranty on either powerbook?

  - ask

Re:Warranty?

davorg on 2004-03-03T13:49:35

Don't know about my client. My Powerbook was second hand when I got it last May, so I doubt it's still under warranty.

Re:Warranty?

drhyde on 2004-03-03T15:06:12

Applecare is transferable.

Re:Warranty?

davorg on 2004-03-03T15:48:46

So I understand. But isn't the warranty just for one year? What I'm saying is that the machine is almost certainly over a year old. I guess I need to check that.

Re:Warranty?

pdcawley on 2004-03-09T17:00:10

And it didn't ever have any (and was outside the period of available Applecare at the point when I bought it I believe).

Try reseting the power manager...

Adrian on 2004-03-03T22:45:22

... the process is different depending on what model you have. See this knowledge base article for more info.

You might also see what the command line tool battery thinks is happening.