My laptop died this morning - the battery refused to charge, even though there had been no sign of any problem up till then. Normally when my battery starts losing the will to live, it doesn't hold its charge and keeps cutting out at progressively higher levels. But this one was fine until... nothing.

Fortunately I've got a back-up battery, but what do you think - is the other one beyond redemption or is it a simple problem to sort out?

New Apple-brand batteries are £80-£90 - has anyone tried a look-alike and has it been OK? Normally I wouldn't buy a look-alike, but then normally I wouldn't expect my Apple battery to just die without any warning...

They can "die" without warning, with an electrical fault (permanent) or confused electronics in the battery or laptop or both (temporary).

Depending on the model, the battery might just need a reset or recalibrate (yes it's not just a battery - there's some horrible complicated electronics in the battery as well). If a reset doesn't work the battery's developed an electrical fault and needs junking or selling on eBay for spares or refurbishing, which is what the "look-alike" makers do - they buy them (or manufacture new plastic shells), and fit new cells. The problem with refurb batteries isn't that they don't work (usually) but getting them returned (normally somewhere far far away like China) if they die again. They are much cheaper though the quality of workmanship varies. Having slated them thusly, I must confess to having one in my Macbook which has worked well for a year or two. If you decide you want to buy one, go with a big refurb outfit with lots of customers _and a warranty_.

The way to reset the battery (if it's possible at all) varies with the laptop model. You might need to download some software. For instance, some Macbook batteries have an update which can help in some cases. Google might be your friend - try "<whatever your laptop model is> battery reset" or "battery recalibrate". Also the power management unit (It's called the SMC in modern ones - look up "PMU reset" or "SMC reset") in some of them remembers stuff about particular batteries that have been plugged in.

Which laptop do you have (model, month or season and year - some Apple laptops have more than one per year)?

_nm (church Organist and occasional part time laptop engineer)

Thanks for all that information, nowhereman. It's an iBook G4, 10.4.11. I'll do a search for reset/recalibration tomorrow as you suggest and see what comes up


Welcome to the forums, by the way!

At least you don't have one of the new MacBooks, the battery cannot be removed from them, without sending it to apple

Thanks for this bit of information. I'd been thinking that I'd get another new battery as another back-up whilst I looked into re-setting the current one, and then I wondered if I might as well get a new laptop rather than spend £100 on a new Apple battery. But maybe not, that sounds very inconvenient if you can't change a battery yourself. I might just get a cheaper non-Apple battery as back-up. Li-ion seem to be the largest manufacturer in this market. In the meantime, the old back-up I'm using now is OK... just a little unpredictable

Thank you kindly

Li-ion (lithium ion) is the chemical technology that makes the cells inside your battery work (or in this case not).
I don't think Apple produced any specific battery reset software for the iBook G4 models. As the battery is (sort of) working it might have a duff cell so trying the other reset stuff (pull battery out, perm from reset PMU, zap PRAM, perform open firmware reset and plug battery back in) a) probably won't work and b) definitely will reset other things like date, time, time zone et c.

You can keep an eye on how your battery is performing from the Apple System Profiler (Apple menu -> About This Mac -> More info... and click on Power). They should run for 300ish charge/discharge cycles from new to their normal slow demise.

Skylark. did you ever check to see if your iBook battery was one of those involved in the "bursting into flames" scare some time ago? If not and it is in the range of serial numbers given on
https://support.apple.com/ibook_powerbook/b...ange/main?id=qp
you may have a free replacement available.

Otherwise, if the lights on the battery don't come on when you press the test button, I would suggest it has had it and re-calibration won't help.

Ah Thanks!



I checked it at the time and I've just checked it again on the link you gave me, but sadly mine's not one of those affected.



I don't think I've got a test button on mine...


I've looked into resetting the battery and it says on the Apple web site: "Warning: Resetting the Power Manager on any PowerBook or iBook will permanently remove a RAM disk, if present, and all of its contents." That sounds a bit scary

A RAM disk is just a piece of memory acting as file storage. Unless you have set one up manually, there won't be one (and if you're a user rather than a geek I'm pretty positive you won't have). See:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA21631?viewlocale=en_US

Are you sure there isn't a row of LEDs and a little push button on the battery pack?

I personally don't think resetting the battery will have any effect. As far as I know that's simply to get the mac's power management (%age charge left all that sort of stuff) aligned with the battery. I'd be happy to be wrong though.

YES!!! It has, it has!!!

Right, so I press the button and all four lights light up for about 4 seconds and then go off. Is that a good sign or not


(thanks for helping me through this, I'm not very good at the technological end!)

Well actually that looks OK to me. Try nowhereman's recalibration which I previously ######-pood.

I don't know whether to scream or sob...


I needed to upgrade my computer anyway because some of the software I want to use won't work with G4 so I got a new MacBook Pro (in spite of the replacement battery problem that Jacobi mentioned, it was the only suitable model), but I thought I'd get my G4 working again as back-up, particularly as the MacBook has to go to a dealer for a battery replacement

So to cut a long story short, I ended up getting both a new Apple battery and a new Apple recharger unit for the G4. The new battery has just arrived, so I confidently fitted it - discovered it had been sent with only a 40% charge so I confidently attached the new recharger.... and it still won't charge

So there must be something else wrong other than the battery/charging system itself. Has anyone else come across this sort of problem?

I turned it on long enough to see what emails I'd got and when I've got my thoughts together I'll get the email settings off the G4 to put on to my new MacBook, but at the moment I can't face any more computer sort-outs (I've had other computer problems as well this week, eg with printers and software compatibility, and virtually the whole week has been spent sorting out computer problems and sourcing new equipment. It's all come at once ... )

Does the G4 work if you put the new battery in and leave the new power supply plugged into the mains?
You could also try no batter but just the charger plugged into the G4 (that is just an idea-might be worth trying)

When charging it, are you sure you don't need to leave it a while to charge to full?

If the battery and charger are both new then the only thing I can think of is that the connector on the G4 for the battery charger is damaged?

You could try searching on the web via google for someone with a similar problem eg on the Mac forums?

No, 'fraid not. When the power supply is connected, it prompts the battery icon to appear (the one with 2 prongs and a cord), but the icon doesn't change to the "charging" icon and you can see the battery power draining.



In the past I've always been able to use it even if the battery is charging from zero. With the current problem, because the battery isn't charging at all, if I leave it plugged in, the next time I look, it's drained still further. If I turn the machine off and leave the charger connected, it's made no difference when I next turn on.



I think that must be the case, although I don't know how it's happened. I think I'd better take it in to a dealer for repair.


Thanks for your help Jacobi.