Battery problems with clamshell iBook

1. zoara - 20 January 2008

   About four or five months ago I replaced the completely dead battery on our clamshell iBook with a third-party one, before the machine was donated to extended family.

   Recently it's stopped holding charge properly, but despite it being from a Chinese eBay seller, I am not completely sure that it's just a crappy quality battery.

   Troubleshooting it, I have discovered that after a reset (using the little penhole reset button, not just a power cycle) it will happily charge for approx one percentage point (ie 12% to 13%) then stop. The light surrounding the power cable goes green like it's fully charged, and it no longer takes in more power, but both battery diagnostic software (I forget which, now) and the battery meter in the menubar show it as only partially charged.

   This behaviour happens whether the machine is on or off. I can even have the machine turned off on the table, watch the power ring turn green, hit reset, and see the power light turn orange and stay orange for a few minutes. Doing this and then turning on will show it to have increased charge by two percentage points.

   This machine has a history of funniness with charging. Sometimes it won't power on unless the reset button is pressed and held for a few seconds while connected to power, and the power ring is always glowing slightly green when unplugged from the power (a short somewhere?).

   Aside from resetting the PRAM (which I have already done) or throwing good money after bad by buying a new battery only to find the fault lies with the iBook, an anyone suggest what I might try to either fix it or at least work out whether the problem is with the battery or the iBook?

   -z-

   No 3G. Fewer megapixels than an N95. Lame.

2. D.M. Procida - 20 January 2008

   Not necessarily crappy quality, but perhaps just not very good any more.

   This machine has a history of funniness with charging. Sometimes it won't power on unless the reset button is pressed and held for a few seconds while connected to power, and the power ring is always glowing slightly green when unplugged from the power (a short somewhere?).

   Still sounds like a battery issue to me.

   It is in the nature of batteries to change their behaviour over time. It isn't in the nature of most other electronic equipment.

   Daniele

3. David Kennedy - 20 January 2008

   Does it behave the same on another charger?

   David Kennedy

   http://www.anindianinexile.com

4. Mark - 21 January 2008

   There is a utility on the Apple website to recondition *certain* clamshell iBook batteries (may be just early ones though as my iBook is/was one of the first 300MHz ones, and its serial number was in range) - and of course it may not work with non-Apple batteries...

   However, the bloody thing kept coming up with an 'Insert disc' dialog every time I tried to run it (there being of course, no disc *to* insert). The instructions on the Apple website also never mentioned this step. I posted here & on the Apple forums, but no joy.

   Mark