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G4 Powerbooks] Resetting battery gauges...

Submitted by DoctorClu on February 25, 2010 - 9:26pm. PowerPC Macs

On my G4 Powerbooks both computers have their battery gauges off so that the computers shut down wayyy before the battery levels indicate that the batteries are out or even low.

One, with a newish battery, knocks out at 50%, another with a older but good battery knocks out at around 30%.

Apparently I need to reset the gauges of the battery levels somewhere, how do I do that?

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Dr. Webster's picture

I'd start by zapping the PRAM

Submitted by Dr. Webster on February 25, 2010 - 11:35pm.

I'd start by zapping the PRAM and performing a PMU reset:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431

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dankephoto's picture

maybe try resetting nvram

Submitted by dankephoto on February 26, 2010 - 3:21am.

try the nvram reset thing* (with the battery in place of course,) I recall that having an effect with some new world 'Books' batteries.

As Doc W mentions, the PMU reset is the first thing to try.

These batteries controllers are accessible from the Mac over a serial interface, but I've never found any sort of generic utility to rewrite a battery's memory. The Battery Reset Util for Lombard/iBook/etc. does just that for their batts, but sadly I've never found any other similar util that will work with any other machines.

Also, consider that the batteries may simply be faulty (usually a sub-par cell or two.)

dan k

* drop into openfirmware**, "reset nvram" rtn, "reset all" rtn

** hold O, F, cmd, option keys on startup

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DoctorClu's picture

Thanks!

Submitted by DoctorClu on February 26, 2010 - 12:10pm.

Thanks for the input!

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DoctorClu's picture

reset, unknown word

Submitted by DoctorClu on February 26, 2010 - 8:20pm.

Trying the "reset nvram" I get "reset, unknown word"

That is with a 10.3.9 model and a 10.4... model

(Ok, found out you need to have a hyphen in there...
"reset-nvram"
"reset-all"

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cwsmith's picture

you might also try this

Submitted by cwsmith on February 28, 2010 - 1:38am.

reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all

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DoctorClu's picture

Thanks once again!

Submitted by DoctorClu on March 1, 2010 - 12:23pm.

Thanks once again!

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