I am using OS 9.1 on the first clamshell ibook, airport card installed, ram maxed out.
I recently bought a replacement battery as my original battery stopped charging, but I think the battery may not necessarily be at fault. The apple authorized dealer that sold the replacement battery said to drain the lithium ion battery completely then recharge to capacity on the first charge, but I think the problem lies in the power management needing to be reset.
I have found...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449
But it really doesn't describe my ibook- the closest illustration is one for the 2nd gen clamshells, that had Firewire. (mine does not, nor is it dual USB). I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but there does seem to be some voodoo involved with resetting the charging system.
I used the instructions as the tech note suggests below.
iBook and iBook (FireWire) computers
- If the computer is on, turn it off.
- Disconnect the AC power adapter.
- Remove the battery.
- Press and release the reset button (shown in Figure 1) located above the Power button at the base of the display. Use a small, blunt instrument such as a paper clip to press the button.
- Wait 5 seconds.
- Reconnect the AC power adapter.
- Put the battery back in the computer.
- Press the Power button to restart the iBook computer.
But the battery will not recharge, in use, in sleep or when off completely. Perhaps I need to try a different approach?
I have also tried resetting PRAM to no avail.
The AC adapter is from an earlier Powerbook series-- the yo-yo style charger shorted out in the first year, this less stylish charger has successfully charged the old battery many times however. But the lighting bold symbol never comes on to say the battery is charging, and the adapter plug never pulses amber.
Any tips? Power management settings? Another way of doing the hardware reset? Swapping the battery out differently?
Is there an external charger available for the batteries? An old usenet message said VST made one, but that link is dead.
Thanks in advance for any help.
In article 20030829070030.08154.00000124@redacted.invalid, grapeape@redacted.invalid (GrapeApe) wrote:
Any tips? Power management settings? Another way of doing the hardware reset? Swapping the battery out differently?
Those clamshell iBook batteries are made so that if their voltage drops to a certain low level, they turn themselves off and can't be used again. I forget the details but it's done this way to prevent a dangerous situation from occurring.
It's possible that the replacement battery that was sold to you has been sitting on the shelf for a couple years without being recharged. If this is the case and it "turned itself off," no amount of time with the charger plugged in will get it to charge. In other words, you can have a brand-new battery that's dead out of the box.
I would track down someone who has a working clamshell ibook and ask to borrow their battery for a few minutes. If it shows that it's charging, it's not your iBook. If that happens, I would return your replacement battery and tell your dealer to get you one that is more recent in manufacture.
I know all this because I had a situation similar to yours.
You can tell how old the battery is by googling up the model number, and/or I think the date of manufacture is printed on it.
If this turns out to be the case, please post here, because I'm curious. Thanks.
Those clamshell iBook batteries are made so that if their voltage drops to a certain low level, they turn themselves off and can't be used again. I
forget the details but it's done this way to prevent a dangerous situation
from occurring.
It's possible that the replacement battery that was sold to you has been
sitting on the shelf for a couple years without being recharged. If this is the case and it "turned itself off," no amount of time with the charger
plugged in will get it to charge. In other words, you can have a brand-new
battery that's dead out of the box.
The battery, from a third party, not apple branded, did have a charge, but it was sold with the verbal warning from the retailer to drain as completely as possible (until the lightning bolt comes on in power management in the menu bar) before recharging. Which isn't going to happen, if the power management itself was not working.
I took the drain as completely as possible too literally and left it on to drain overnight. I don't know if the powermanagement problem is on the motherboard or in the battery itself, but the apple tech info seemed to skip the original ibooks, going to the second gen clamshell iBooks at least.
The same may have happened with the original battery, but it was original to first day of sale, when I bought the ibook, and the recharge problem had been in that state (no pulsing amber feedback at least) for some time. I tried to ask if other li-ion batteries of similar age had been coming in recently.
Usenet has little if any useful discussion of this problem... maybe I will check the ibook forum at macintouch or macfixit.
Thanks
I will take powerbook into dealer as battery, and explain... maybe they can do something.
In article 20030830155142.13308.00000196@redacted.invalid, grapeape@redacted.invalid (GrapeApe) wrote:
I took the drain as completely as possible too literally and left it on to drain overnight. I don't know if the powermanagement problem is on the motherboard or in the battery itself, but the apple tech info seemed to skip the original ibooks, going to the second gen clamshell iBooks at least.
the power management logic that we're talking about is in the battery itself. if these batteries get drained too much, they turn themselves off and never turn on again. it's possible that this is what happened when you allowed it to drain overnight (i.e. "deep discharge.").
there is a thread on this at www.macintouch.com that I started a couple years ago.
the power management logic that we're talking about is in the battery itself.
Which makes the instructions to reset the ibook with the battery completely out of the ibook rather baffling. How could that possibly do anything to powermanagement on the battery itself?
Apparently it is only the original iBook that has the power management in the battery itself?
I find it odd that the Apple Tech note skips the original iBook completely, although many people reading it might think one of the other iBook descriptions fits theirs.
In article 20030904085949.21971.00000340@redacted.invalid, grapeape@redacted.invalid (GrapeApe) wrote:
Which makes the instructions to reset the ibook with the battery completely out of the ibook rather baffling. How could that possibly do anything to powermanagement on the battery itself?
Apparently it is only the original iBook that has the power management in the battery itself?
I find it odd that the Apple Tech note skips the original iBook completely, although many people reading it might think one of the other iBook descriptions fits theirs.
I don't know enough about it to comment intelligently. From memory, I thought that all laptop lithium ion batteries have this safety circuit on them that turns them off if they get too low in voltage. But I don't think that equates with "power management" in the more formal sense of the word. I think "smart battery" might be a better term. But since the time of the original iBook, maybe they've changed the way that batteries work. Again, you can find a kind of long thread on this at www.macintouch.com.