sudden Mac battery failure

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DougL - 26 Nov 2006 01:02 GMT

Walked up to my G4 iBook today and found battery indicator with an X
over it. Unplugged the power cord, and it instantly died. Whoa. I had
100% yesterday, and as of a few days ago documented several hours worth
of time available on this battery. I did the usual PMU resets, etc. as
recommended by Apple, and the battery indicator merely ended up with a
rock hard 0%.

Ran out to get a new battery (wondering about the cost of logic boards
as I did ...), and everything is fine.

Now, OK, this was a 2-3 year old battery, but my understanding was that
these things die more or less gradually. Now, the thing didn't swell,
or go up in smoke (it is not on the recall list) but just cratered
relatively suddenly. Is this the norm? I really don't want to keep an
extra battery around in case it dies on Sunday nite and I have a big
need for the machine on Monday.

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Fred McKenzie - 27 Nov 2006 01:55 GMT

> Now, OK, this was a 2-3 year old battery, but my understanding was that
> these things die more or less gradually. Now, the thing didn't swell,
> or go up in smoke (it is not on the recall list) but just cratered
> relatively suddenly. Is this the norm? I really don't want to keep an
> extra battery around in case it dies on Sunday nite and I have a big
> need for the machine on Monday.

Doug-

My experience with several laptops plus other battery powered equipment
over the years, is that your failure is not the norm. I have a couple
of batteries for my old Wallstreet PB G3 that do not hold a charge for
very long when not used. They still work fine if recently charged.

It might have been a random event like a fairly new light bulb burning
out. Unless you bought a quantity of similarly defective light bulbs,
you would not expect the next one to fail so quickly.

One unlikely possibility is that something has gone wrong with your
iBook that made the battery go bad, perhaps by continuous over-charging.
If that were the case, then it certainly could happen again. I suggest
you pay attention to the battery temperature when it has been on-charge
for a day or so. After it has reached a full charge, which might
initially take several hours, it should not be any warmer than the
surrounding parts of the computer.

Fred

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DougL - 27 Nov 2006 02:19 GMT

> > Now, OK, this was a 2-3 year old battery, but my understanding was that
> > these things die more or less gradually. Now, the thing didn't swell,
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
>
> Fred

Thanks. That's a good point. The new battery seems to be behaving fine,
though, and the temps seem reasonable.

It occurs to me that a sudden failure of the battery could mean not a
failure of the cell itself, but of the interface electronics that the
cell comes equipped with. That could basically shut the whole module
down.

Still brings up the same question, as to whether this is a common
failure mode for an iBook battery or an unusual one.

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John Johnson - 27 Nov 2006 05:14 GMT

> > > Now, OK, this was a 2-3 year old battery, but my understanding was that
> > > these things die more or less gradually. Now, the thing didn't swell,
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
> > out. Unless you bought a quantity of similarly defective light bulbs,
> > you would not expect the next one to fail so quickly.

??? The thing's 2-3 years old, and the OP never told us how many charge
cycles he had on it. Hard to say whether or not it's failed "quickly" or
not, IMO.

> Still brings up the same question, as to whether this is a common
> failure mode for an iBook battery or an unusual one.

While it's somewhat unusual, it's not immediately indicative of a
problem. For example, if you fully drained your battery every day over
those 2-3 years, I would chalk it up to use and move on. If all the
battery has ever done is sit on the charger all the time, that's a bit
stranger, but still not conclusive.

Signature

Later,
John

johajohn@indianahoosiers.edu

'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

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Mac Forum / General / Portable Macs / November 2006

sudden Mac battery failure