On Nov 20, 2010, at 7:38 AM, Yersinia wrote: > Yup that's what Bruce said, that that battery was dying. Alas, though, I > can't buy a new battery right now so I actually went back to the original > battery (the one the "dying" battery had been purchased this summer to > replace!), which, though it has less "health" than the dying one which was > giving me the surprise shutdowns at between 50-60% but when I rebooted after > plugging in wall juice, was reading in the 40-50% range, which made me really > not understand, since in the past I'd gotten a good deal lower than that and > got a warning about needing to plug in wall juice! -- is not suddenly > shutting down (for NOW anyway. It would be illogical to assume that all > conditions remain stable... ;-) )
Laptop batteries fail in two general modes, and lucky you, you're experiencing both of 'em. 1) The battery is old, and all the cells have degraded so that only 40% of the original charging ability is present. This is your 'old' battery. You charge it up, it only lasts a certain amount of time, and fails gracefully. 2) The battery has some cells that failed completely, and others that hold good charges. The charging system THINKS it's taking a 100% charge, but is in reality only taking 40%, so the meter shows 40% and the system shuts down because there's no juice left in the batteries. This is most likely what's happened to your 'new' battery. If the new battery was purchased this summer, it may still be under warrantee. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Books, a group for those using G3 iBooks and PowerBooks (we run a separate list for G4 'Books). The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g-books Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/
