10.3.6 Battery problems

At 7:39:30 pm I have 96% battery and my Titanium PowerBook G4 has been running on battery for about 15 minutes. I will attempt to track it and report when it suddenly drops to 0%.

94% 7:43:50
93% Never reached. Shut down. Had to put it on charger. Only got 27 min 35 sec

00% 7:46 On charger

01% 7:54:50
02% 8:01:37
03% 8:08:49
04% 8:16:17
05% 8:25:41
06% 8:36:43
07% Never reached. Jumped to 100%.

100% 8:37:02

Is this the software or a bad battery? The battery was working fine under 10.3.5 and started to act up immediately after upgrading.

Previously, Robert Peirce wrote:

Is this the software or a bad battery?

There have been threads about battery issues here and comp.sys.mac.system for several days. Can't you see them?

Previously, Barry Margolin wrote:

Previously, Robert Peirce wrote:

Is this the software or a bad battery?

There have been threads about battery issues here and comp.sys.mac.system for several days. Can't you see them?

I have posted here and in comp.sys.mac.apps about this for several days. I don't read comp.sys.mac.system, but I will check it out. My thought was this is a software problem but some think it is the battery. I don't want to buy a new battery unless I can be sure. Mine is almost exactly two years old.

Previously, Robert Peirce wrote:

Is this the software or a bad battery? The battery was working fine under 10.3.5 and started to act up immediately after upgrading.

Did you try resetting the PMU?

Previously, Robert Peirce wrote:

Previously, Barry Margolin wrote:

Previously, Robert Peirce wrote:

Is this the software or a bad battery?

There have been threads about battery issues here and comp.sys.mac.system for several days. Can't you see them?

He's the guy who started them.

I have posted here and in comp.sys.mac.apps about this for several days. I don't read comp.sys.mac.system, but I will check it out. My thought was this is a software problem but some think it is the battery. I don't want to buy a new battery unless I can be sure. Mine is almost exactly two years old.

AFAIK, the only feasible way for you to test whether the issue is software or battery is to do one or more of the following: revert to 10.3.5 and see if the problem disappears. If the problem disappears, then it was software. If it does not, then you haven't narrowed it down at all. Swap your battery into another machine that is working just fine (and put their battery in your machine, if possible). If the problem travels with the battery, the fault lies somewhere in the battery.

Now, even if the fault is in the battery it might be fixable, as your charge reports are just taken from the battery's onboard charge controller. The actual cells might be just fine and the controller is freaking out. I wouldn't know how to go about dealing with that situation though, and I don't know of anyone who will replace charge controllers (or do much of anything with Li-ion batteries, really

Previously, John Johnson wrote:

Previously, Robert Peirce wrote:

Previously, Barry Margolin wrote:

Previously, Robert Peirce wrote:

Is this the software or a bad battery?

There have been threads about battery issues here and comp.sys.mac.system for several days. Can't you see them?

He's the guy who started them.

It didn't even occur to me to check first. Why would he start a new thread, and not even mention it?

Previously, Barry Margolin wrote:

Previously, John Johnson wrote:

Previously, Robert Peirce wrote:

Previously, Barry Margolin wrote:

Previously, Robert Peirce wrote:

Is this the software or a bad battery?

There have been threads about battery issues here and comp.sys.mac.system for several days. Can't you see them?

He's the guy who started them.

It didn't even occur to me to check first. Why would he start a new thread, and not even mention it?

Sorry. I had some new information and it seemed like it needed a new thread. I actually started this in apps before I realized it really only applied to portables. Then, as I saw responses from others and tried some ideas myself, it just sort of grew. By starting a new thread I figured I could ignore some of the messages in the old threads, except I read them anyway. Oh, well.

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:39:04 GMT, Robert Peirce wrote:

Is this the software or a bad battery? The battery was working fine under 10.3.5 and started to act up immediately after upgrading.

Some other strange behavior that I observe after upgrading:

When I unplug the iBook (G4), it may complain after some short time that I'm on low batt, although it's about 96 % charged.

Maybe it's something completely different - mor maybe it's related to your problem.

It's annoying that I have to confirm this message, but that's all up to now.

Martin Trautmann wrote:

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:39:04 GMT, Robert Peirce wrote:

Is this the software or a bad battery? The battery was working fine under 10.3.5 and started to act up immediately after upgrading.

Some other strange behavior that I observe after upgrading:

When I unplug the iBook (G4), it may complain after some short time that I'm on low batt, although it's about 96 % charged.

Maybe it's something completely different - mor maybe it's related to your problem.

It's annoying that I have to confirm this message, but that's all up to now.

Thanks for the head-up though. I got the update message today and declined. Is there any significant _improvement_ in 10.3.6 that makes the upgrade worth the risk?