Battery Life And Tiger Os

M

michinoku1

Registered
Hi don't know if this is an issue but I suddenly have short battery life after upgrading to Tiger. When working off the battery I can only get about 20 minutes and then goes into sleep mode or just shuts down. When charging it can suddenly charge back to 100% in a matter of 20 minutes. Is this just a lone battery issue or is there some connection with the new OS?
T
he battery came with the iBook when I bought it in October 2002 so maybe it's just a battery-gone-dead and solve it by getting a new battery. I do use the battery a lot so it might be on its way out. A new one is expensive though. Just thought I'd get some advice before making a purchase. Thanks.
Jonathan
 
It could be your battery...2.5 to 3 years is the average life span for one (esp. one that's used). How often have you cycled it?

[[Tiger Only]] Launch System Profiler (Applications>Utilities ~or~ Apple Menu>About This Mac>More Information) and open the Hardware tree if it isn't already. Towards the bottom of that list is Power, click on that. In the larger main window you should see a list of System Power Settings...scroll down a bit and there's a section called Battery Information. What does it say for Full Charge Capacity (mAh) and Cycle Count? Also, what model iBook do you have (12" G3 500, 14" G4 933, etc..)?
 
mdnky said:
It could be your battery...2.5 to 3 years is the average life span for one (esp. one that's used). How often have you cycled it?

[[Tiger Only]] Launch System Profiler (Applications>Utilities ~or~ Apple Menu>About This Mac>More Information) and open the Hardware tree if it isn't already. Towards the bottom of that list is Power, click on that. In the larger main window you should see a list of System Power Settings...scroll down a bit and there's a section called Battery Information. What does it say for Full Charge Capacity (mAh) and Cycle Count? Also, what model iBook do you have (12" G3 500, 14" G4 933, etc..)?
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help and for showing how to get that info. Here's what it says.
Battery Information:

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 1218
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 1218
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 16617
Cycle Count: 487

Cycle cound is 487? Yeah ok I'm guessing that I've used the battery 487 times? Or charged it that many times? Maybe I do need a change. I do use the battery a lot for presentations and when I'm traveling. I've got an iBook G3 700 MHz 14".
Again thanks for you help and hope to hear from you again.
Jonathan
 
Full Charge vs. Remaining sounds good, though... I'd go buy a new one and let the old one be checked at the same time. Worst case, you have a new battery. Best case, you have two working ones. :) ...
 
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your battery is toast. Your at about 30% of the original capacity, which is 4000mAh, when your battery is fully charged (1218mAh "Full Charge Capacity). Disregard "Remaining Charge", as it only drops when if you're not 100% charged and not connected to the charger.

Cycles are full charging cycles. It's how many times the battery has been fully charged. It's hard to explain, but it's cumulative. You don't always run the battery to nothing left, so say you ran it to 50% remaining. Doing that twice and charging afterwards would be one cycle. If you discharged to 80% remaining each time and then recharged, it would take 5 times to equal a cycle. Each cycle causes a slight loss in capacity...so eventually you have to replace the battery.

Your best bet is to grab a new one from MacSales/OWC. They have two options for your model; one is a 59 watt hour (4000mAh) for $119 and the other is a 71 watt hour (4800mAh) for $139. Your stock was a 55 watt hour (4000mAh). Apple's current replacement for that is a 61 watt hour (4000mAh) version and costs $149 (might want to double check Apple's price...it's been a few months and I've heard they're cheaper now).


I just bought the 71 watt hour version MacSales has and I'm waiting on FedEx to get it to me. My current stock battery is at 66% remaining (2652mAh) on a full charge after 126 cycles. It's barely enough to get me through a day on light use (4.5 to 5 hours).
 
mdnky said:
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your battery is toast. Your at about 30% of the original capacity, which is 4000mAh, when your battery is fully charged (1218mAh "Full Charge Capacity). Disregard "Remaining Charge", as it only drops when if you're not 100% charged and not connected to the charger.

Cycles are full charging cycles. It's how many times the battery has been fully charged. It's hard to explain, but it's cumulative. You don't always run the battery to nothing left, so say you ran it to 50% remaining. Doing that twice and charging afterwards would be one cycle. If you discharged to 80% remaining each time and then recharged, it would take 5 times to equal a cycle. Each cycle causes a slight loss in capacity...so eventually you have to replace the battery.

Your best bet is to grab a new one from MacSales/OWC. They have two options for your model; one is a 59 watt hour (4000mAh) for $119 and the other is a 71 watt hour (4800mAh) for $139. Your stock was a 55 watt hour (4000mAh). Apple's current replacement for that is a 61 watt hour (4000mAh) version and costs $149 (might want to double check Apple's price...it's been a few months and I've heard they're cheaper now).


I just bought the 71 watt hour version MacSales has and I'm waiting on FedEx to get it to me. My current stock battery is at 66% remaining (2652mAh) on a full charge after 126 cycles. It's barely enough to get me through a day on light use (4.5 to 5 hours).
Click to expand...


Great! Thanks for explaining that info. That cycle information is neat and I didn't know about it. I did look at the Apple site (Japan). I live in Japan and yes the prices have gone down a little. Will check out Tokyo and see what they have in the electronics district. You can always find some kind of bargain there. Again thanks for letting me know and thanks to fryke too for the suggestion in the thread before.
 
mdnky said:
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your battery is toast. Your at about 30% of the original capacity, which is 4000mAh, when your battery is fully charged (1218mAh "Full Charge Capacity). Disregard "Remaining Charge", as it only drops when if you're not 100% charged and not connected to the charger.

Cycles are full charging cycles. It's how many times the battery has been fully charged. It's hard to explain, but it's cumulative. You don't always run the battery to nothing left, so say you ran it to 50% remaining. Doing that twice and charging afterwards would be one cycle. If you discharged to 80% remaining each time and then recharged, it would take 5 times to equal a cycle. Each cycle causes a slight loss in capacity...so eventually you have to replace the battery.

Your best bet is to grab a new one from MacSales/OWC. They have two options for your model; one is a 59 watt hour (4000mAh) for $119 and the other is a 71 watt hour (4800mAh) for $139. Your stock was a 55 watt hour (4000mAh). Apple's current replacement for that is a 61 watt hour (4000mAh) version and costs $149 (might want to double check Apple's price...it's been a few months and I've heard they're cheaper now).


I just bought the 71 watt hour version MacSales has and I'm waiting on FedEx to get it to me. My current stock battery is at 66% remaining (2652mAh) on a full charge after 126 cycles. It's barely enough to get me through a day on light use (4.5 to 5 hours).
Click to expand...

mdnky
Ok instead of spending more money by going down to Tokyo I
did the order as you suggested and opted for the larger battery. Hope to get it soon through fedex international. Looking forward to it.
 
Not via the System Profiler...it's a new option for that I think, but don't quote me on that. If you don't find it there, then no.

The company that created TinkerTool has a neat little app called Hardware Monitor which will give you that info, but you have to pay the fee first to unlock the battery info part which is locked in the demo. I wound up doing that before I learned about it being present in Tiger's profiler...go figure (that's my luck)! The only other feature of that program that worked on iBooks was the hard drive temp.

There's another one called iTattle by someone else that will supposedly show this. Not sure how much info it provide for Panther users though...but you'll want version 1.6 of it.

Other options could be xBattery or possibly this terminal script from the 10.2.x days.
 
FedEx is just great. Ordered it two days ago and it was here in Japan by this morning. Thanks for the info mdnky! The battery doesn't quite fit flush as the original but no worries it should do its job.
 
Yea, mine came Wednesday morning. It was supposed to be overnighted and arrive on Tuesday but my credit card didn't take through there system for some reason. I got a call Tuesday from OWC and had to give them the number again.

Not too happy about the fit/finish myself either, but it's not a huge deal. I am extremely happy about the 7.5 to 8 hour off charger time though. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top