Ok, I have a blueberry iBook running OS 9.2.2. The battery is known to last as long as 192 minutes of active use (not sleep time) on this machine. I had the unfotunate occassion to need to reset the PMU. Now, the battery reads low voltage when it is almost fully charged.
Symptoms of the behvaior are as follows:
When plugged in, the system indicates battery charging on a limited basis - the adapter LED turns amber and the control stip module shows charging, but this only lasts for eight to eleven minutes and then the LED goes green and the control strip module indicates battery and AC adapter present but not charging. This charging scenario is only triggered by removing and then reseating the battery while the system is plugged in and booted up. Leaving the system alone for hours on end results in the LED staying green and the control srip module indicating no charging occurs. Turning the system off and attempting to charge has no apparent effect on the LED timing and is triggered by reseating the battery as described above.
After a day long session of reseating the battery, I obtained a enough of a charge to be off my tether, BUT the control strip module has the following behavior:
- The battery level indicator shows a near dead battery
- The consumption meter stays green or near green
- The time remaining shows 2 to 8 hours (depending on what I am doing - right now it is showing just under two hours remaining)
Now, this being said, I could survive if the only problem here was the battery indicator, but as soon as I unplug the AC adpater and run on just the battery, the system THINKS the battery is low on charge and gives me the warning pop up AND dims the screen. Some two hours (or more later) it FINALLY runs down enough that it actually needs to go to sleep. My only clue that this is actually about to occurr is the 10 second warning pop-up message which gives me about 5 seconds before "passing out" on me.
I have reset the PMU when charged and when dead, I have tried the open firmware reset-nvram deal the same way, Same with resetting the pram. What can I do to correct/retrain the computer to prperly charge the battery and to at least not dim the screen when it is not really low on charge? I do not know what bugs ne more, using a dimmed screen for up to two hours or fiddling with the battery all day so that I can get enough charge to use it with a dimmed screen for up to two hours.
Isn't there some sort of way to force the macine to not dim the screen or to make it charge? Can I somehow manually set the voltage values or paramters for the battery so that it will charge right? After all, this is a good and working battery.
TIA
--doug-doug the mighty
Holy cow! All this time I thought I was the only one with this EXACT SAME PROBLEM! I've got a 366MHz clamshell that has been doing this for about a year now. Just one day it decided to quit charging. Same deal. You plug it in, and it charges for almost exactly 10 min, then the light goes green. Reseating the battery or resetting the PMU is the only way to get it to charge for another 10 min (or 5%). Mine will also drain the battery if you leave it installed and not connected to power. I've tried every trick I know without luck. Everything short of buying a new battery. I finally got tired of it and picked up a 12" Powerbook to use as a travel Mac. I would like to get the Clamshell usable again though. Hopefully someone here can help us out.
Oh, here is a link to the thread I made about it. Almost exactly a year ago.
http://www.applefritter.com/node/21575