iBook G4 1.2Ghz Battery charging issues

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coius's picture
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iBook G4 1.2Ghz Battery charging issues

yes, and good day.
I have a battery charging issue with my iBook G4 1.2Ghz  I did a reinstallation of OS X and once I did that, i noticed that my battery said it was charging, but it wasn't .  so i pulled the plug and let it drain all the way down till it slept, and took the machine and reset the Power  manager.  The next time I tried to charge it, i would get up to 79%, then would stop charging (using a battery utility is said it stopped charging)  So, i would pull the cord and wait till it gave me a time, then plugged it in, and it went up to 83%.  so I pulled the cord and let it give the time again and then plugged it in.  No dice.  Wouldn't charge any higher. 
I am wondering what to do at this time.  I have reset the power manager with and w/o the battery in it, i have reset the NVRAM, the PRAM and anything else I can think of.

Any Guru out there that can help me? this is the first time this laptop has done this. 
Other than that, the battery holds the charge for about 1:30 hours (which is about normal for this age of battery and this iBook)

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radical approach to solvation:

iBook battery stuck at 0%
Authored by: andrewmacrae on Monday, April 05 2004 @ 09:56 AM PDT
I can offer a more radical/drastic possible solution to batteries that refuse to 
recharge (on my iBook the battery monitor would report that there was no 
battery!). First try to deplete the battery as much as possible (it probably 
already is at this point) by running the laptop. Then remove the batter then 
short out (yes, that's right) the two outermost contacts on the battery. I had 
to slip in a couple of razor blads to make contact, the wire I had was too thick 
-- which is probably a good idea in any case. If there is any appreciable juice 
left, there is the possibility of the wire "welding" to whatever you touch it to 
-- if that is the battery contact then you could be screwed). In my case i got a 
small spark. Henceforth the battery has performed normally.
Like I said, a radical, last-ditch solution, but worth trying if the only other 
option is to throw the battery away.

Worth a shot?

And when they mean the outer most pins, do they mean the end ones on each  side.  Like

[x's represent the short]

|  x||||||x     |
|_________|

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ok, i shorted the pins

let's hope all goes well *crosses fingers*

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not even

stuck at 74%. I am out of ideas guys.

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Standard iBook troubleshooting ...

Have you tried the token PMU reset, pram zap, and open firmware reset? Also, do you know how many cycles are on your battery? If it's more than 300, be grateful for what you get. To check your cycles, you can check it in Apple System Profiler under Power if you are using 10.4, if you're not - you'll need to hunt down a third party app. (can't think of the names of any as I use 10.4 for the most part around here.

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I know the time

it's 300 some charge cycles. I know that. It's just that before this, the battery count would hit 100% when charged. now after this, it only hits 78~83% tops. Do you think it was a botched install or something?

I will test this theory by trying OS X 10.3 on an external FW HDD. If it fixes the problem, i will know then...

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Re: Standard iBook troubleshooting ...

Have you tried the token PMU reset, pram zap, and open firmware reset? .

done, done, done and done. No affect so far. I got it booted from an external HDD with 10.3
I let it go to sleep last night, and when i woke it up (this was unplugged, i let it drain overnight) it said it was at 25%, so i will see how this goes

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Update:

I booted to 10.3, and it works fine. now sitting at 85% at climbing. I just got a botched install Beee

Jon
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It's a LiON battery, I'm sure

It's a LiON battery, I'm sure. Fully discharging LiON is not a good idea. It can work for NiCD and NiMH, but LiON is a very different technology. Troublershooting and repair procedures are very different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_Ion

A stand-alone Li-Ion cell must never be discharged below a certain voltage to avoid irreversible damage. Therefore all systems involving Li-Ion batteries are equipped with a circuit that shuts down the system when the battery is discharged below the predefined threshold

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seems to work well now

no problems, battery is at 100% and is doing great!

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