My PB has a 64500Ah battery!

Is that value stored in the battery itself?
MKrueger wrote on :

and that's all wrong. Actually, the battery is close to dead, it had some 0,150Ah reading lately. After a further shutdown of the system, the reading came up with a stunning 65-thousand-something.

Looks like this value is stored in 16bit-register and the capacity algorithm computed a negative value... is that a bug or a feature?

How can I reset this value?

I tried resetting everything that is resettable: PMU, PRAM, NVRAM, reinstalled the system from scratch on a newly formatted drive. But the capacity value remains nearly unchanged (it went down to 64-thousand-something).

Is that value stored in the battery itself?? The LEDs that indicate battery charge function normally.

Any ideas?

Regards Martin

Stephen C. replied on :

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 3:33:34 -0700, MKrueger wrote (in message 1124188415.928999@redacted.invalid):

and that's all wrong. Actually, the battery is close to dead, it had some 0,150Ah reading lately. After a further shutdown of the system, the reading came up with a stunning 65-thousand-something.

Looks like this value is stored in 16bit-register and the capacity algorithm computed a negative value... is that a bug or a feature?

How can I reset this value?

I tried resetting everything that is resettable: PMU, PRAM, NVRAM, reinstalled the system from scratch on a newly formatted drive. But the capacity value remains nearly unchanged (it went down to 64-thousand-something).

Is that value stored in the battery itself?? The LEDs that indicate battery charge function normally.

Any ideas?

Regards Martin

AFAIK, the battery charge status is stored in a special sub board. I don't know of a way to reset this value, other than letting the battery run down until the laptop will not wake from sleep. For example, if you put in a high capacity battery, the battery charge board will not recognize the higher capacity of the battery. But after you put the laptop through a few full discharge cycles, then the charge board will recognize the larger capacity. Perhaps some Googling along this line could turn up further info.

Stephen C.

Martin replied on :

Thanks for the info. I already Googled for weeks about that, and could not find anything useful.

In a german NG someone told me, the capacity is indeed stored in the battery. But I'm a little bit sceptical about that, although it sounds logical. Consider you had two batteries, the laptop should read a new capacity value each time you swap batteries.

Did someone who has two batteries try this?

I did several charge-discharge cycles with my battery. But every time the resulting capacity value is nonesense (as per today its 64.681Ah)

Regards Martin

Stephen C. nobodyNOSPAM@redacted.invalid wrote:

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 3:33:34 -0700, MKrueger wrote (in message 1124188415.928999@redacted.invalid):

and that's all wrong. Actually, the battery is close to dead, it had some 0,150Ah reading lately. After a further shutdown of the system, the reading came up with a stunning 65-thousand-something.

Looks like this value is stored in 16bit-register and the capacity algorithm computed a negative value... is that a bug or a feature?

How can I reset this value?

I tried resetting everything that is resettable: PMU, PRAM, NVRAM, reinstalled the system from scratch on a newly formatted drive. But the capacity value remains nearly unchanged (it went down to 64-thousand-something).

Is that value stored in the battery itself?? The LEDs that indicate battery charge function normally.

Any ideas?

Regards Martin

AFAIK, the battery charge status is stored in a special sub board. I don't know of a way to reset this value, other than letting the battery run down until the laptop will not wake from sleep. For example, if you put in a high capacity battery, the battery charge board will not recognize the higher capacity of the battery. But after you put the laptop through a few full discharge cycles, then the charge board will recognize the larger capacity. Perhaps some Googling along this line could turn up further info.

Stephen C.

MungoBBQ replied on :

I have the exact same problem! My battery reads something like 65000 mAh and the biggest problem with that, besides never knowing when the battery is about to run out, is that the charger won't kick in until the battery is dead or almost dead. My PB is constantly reporting that my battery is at 99-97% (since the fake value is so high) and it's not until it's about to run out that it starts reporting actual values - this usually happens around 100mAh, so I have about 30 seconds to connect the charger or power down the computer.

I can not figure out why the charger won't charge the battery until it is completely dead, but I guess the screwed up value reported makes the charger think it's already full.

If anybody has any ideas on what to do to fix this, I'd be very grateful. Tried zapping PRAM, NVRAM, Open Firmware, PMU and even a few gridbugs - nothing made any difference.