15" powerbook g4 500mHZ will not charge and will not run without a battery

my powerbook will no longer charge a battery while plugged in.
aaagropus wrote on :

This is an ongoing struggle for me... my powerbook will no longer charge a battery while plugged in. When my pb was plugged into the wall it would show the charging icon at and say "calculating time until full" eternally. I took the PB apart down to the logic board to see if the power jack was loose, damaged, etc... Lodged inside the jack was the tip of a charger (you know, the gold prong that looks like an 1/8th inch). The wierd part about that is neither of my chargers are missing the tip (but i did buy it used heh). So i reassembled, plugged it in and the thing booted! my battery icon said 0% charging. It will run for about 5 minutes but then put itself to sleep. You can turn it back on for a few minutes but it does the same thing. I'm wondering if anyone else has had smimilar power experiences with their machines?

also, the computer will not run plugged into the wall and without a battery. The color of the powerplug is an amber color, not green, always.

John Johnson replied on :

In article 1133208324.299487.151010@redacted.invalid, "aaagropus" aaagropus@redacted.invalid wrote:

This is an ongoing struggle for me... my powerbook will no longer charge a battery while plugged in. When my pb was plugged into the wall it would show the charging icon at and say "calculating time until full" eternally. I took the PB apart down to the logic board to see if the power jack was loose, damaged, etc... Lodged inside the jack was the tip of a charger (you know, the gold prong that looks like an 1/8th inch). The wierd part about that is neither of my chargers are missing the tip (but i did buy it used heh). So i reassembled, plugged it in and the thing booted! my battery icon said 0% charging. It will run for about 5 minutes but then put itself to sleep. You can turn it back on for a few minutes but it does the same thing. I'm wondering if anyone else has had smimilar power experiences with their machines?

also, the computer will not run plugged into the wall and without a battery. The color of the powerplug is an amber color, not green, always.

Do you know that your battery will even take a charge? Have you tried charging/running on other batteries? You might just need to replace the main battery.

aaagropus replied on :
i did try another battery, borrowed from a friend. the fact that the computer won't run without a battery is the thing that has gotten me confused. is it possible that the computer needs an entirely new logic board?
John Johnson replied on :

In article 1133245596.131886.278580@redacted.invalid, "aaagropus" aaagropus@redacted.invalid wrote:

i did try another battery, borrowed from a friend. the fact that the computer won't run without a battery is the thing that has gotten me confused. is it possible that the computer needs an entirely new logic board?

How old is the machine? After 3-4 years, it's possible that the PRAM battery is failing, and that can cause problems similar to some of yours.

aaagropus replied on :
its probably around 4-5 years old. What is this PRAM battery you speak of?
John Johnson replied on :

In article 1133419201.125344.218100@redacted.invalid, "aaagropus" aaagropus@redacted.invalid wrote:

its probably around 4-5 years old. What is this PRAM battery you speak of?

PC people usually call it the mobo battery or the BIOS battery. It's a small battery (rechargeable in Powerbooks) that allows the clock and various other things to remain while the machine is shut down. On most PowerBook models, the PRAM battery also allows you to swap out the main battery while the machine is asleep, instead of having to shut it down.

4-5 years is about the time that these batteries start to fade, IME, but it's often difficult to diagnose without actually replacing them. I'm not familiar enough with your model to know how hard that would be. I suspect that places like pbfixit.com or some such have more info. HTH

btw, it's really helpful to include the material that you're responding to (preferably with correct attribution) so that people just jumping in (or people coming back after a busy week or two) can remember what's going on.