10.2.4 Killing Battery Life

Milanek writes "The iBook/PowerBook battery seems to be permanently incapacitated by the 10.2.4 update. " I had this problem as well - had to get my battery replaced last week. It was a painless exchange, but still annonying.

Comments

I had the same happen to me

[davesag]

I swapped my new laptop battery for an older one that was working a-okay. The old one, although reporting full charge, was run down to absolute flat in about an hour. I charged it again overnight and retried and after a few tries it runs flat now in under 30 mts. So i swapped back to my new battery which is lasting me a good 3 hrs or so. I was happy to blame the old battery (it was made in 2000) but it does seem odd that this behaviour should coincide with upgrading to osx10.2.4 - and so many others are also reporting this problem now.

What's happening?

[2nd Post!]

I just got my PowerBook battery replaced, and this was the situation:

Charge to 100%
Unplug
At about 70%, the battery would instantaneously go to zero and sleep.

Rinse and repeat.

However, what the article *seems* to describe is batteries not charging fully, or batteries with reduced lifespan.

My new replacement battery has a lifespan of 4 hours and 20 minutes
My old spare battery has a lifespan of 3 hours and 40 minutes
The dead replaced battery had a lifespan of about 20 minutes before dropping to zero, even though it reported a full charge.

Is this what others are seeing? The 10.2.4 problem doesn't seem to sound like any of these. The new battery is fine, the spare battery just sounds old, and the dead battery sounds like it was broken.

Original Pb G4 doing fine.

[Tjp($)pjT]

I still get 2-3.5 hours off my original G4's battery. I do find the annoying fan noise has gotten louder over the years and the fan seems to run more, but battery life is still pretty close to the day one figures. Most lithium battery tech wants the batttery "topped off" frequently for maximum life (unlike some older NiCd technology). I've only deep discharged (below 20%) maybe 5-6 times. If you deep cycle your batteries, then expect periodic replacements. It is much better today than when 1-2 hours (if you were lucky) was enough to drain a laptop a few years back. Now I hook into the airplanes power when flying, the hotels when I travel, the cars when driving... And obviously the houses when home. As the battery technology gets better look for easily removable ones to disappear. (My cell phone/pda does not have an externally replaceable battery already.)

Same old story

[jcbphi]

These claims seem to crop up everytime Apple releases a new update to OS X. I remember reading the exact same claims when 10.2.3 was released, in the Apple support forums.

Lithium Ion batteries (the type used in the iBook/TiBook) simply don't last very long. Best estimates I've heard is 300-500 charge cycles. Depending on how often you charge your battery, its easy to go through this problem.

I had awful problems with my iBook battery, after only 5 months. In a matter of weeks, it went from 4 hours of battery life to under an hour. But when I did the math out, my estimated charge cycles in those 5 months was around 400.

Nothing to do with the OS update...just a battery at the end of its life. Good thing it was still under warrenty...after a few calls to Apple tech support I got a new battery.

what version of the update?

[Anonymous Coward]

there appears to be 2 "camps" of updaters

those that performed the 10.2.3 --> 10.2.4 update are now complaining about modem issues, battery problems

those that performed the "combo" update 10.2 --> 10.2.4 don't seem to have any of these problems

I wish people would mention WHICH update they performed

I did the "combo" update on my iBook and have had zero problems so far.

Something is wrong here...

[CottonEyedJoe]

I'm typing this from my iBook dual USB (2001 500 MHz) on the original battery. I was about to buy a new battery until I saw this article because of recent rediculously short battery life I've been getting (30 mins or less) Well, I tried something after I saw this article and, lo and behold, I've been running on 0% battery life (incl the green LED's) for the past 30 minutes. I'd be curious to know how many of those who report very short battery life have tried going beyond the system warning... cause mine is still running.

how to maximize battery life?

[zarqman]

okay. i'm seeing several comments about battery life and that liion batteries should be treated differently from nicad and nimh batteries.

i know in nicad days, it was best to let them run down and then charge them fully. from my experience with cell phones and nimh batteries, that's a relatively good idea there with them too, although their propensity to develop memory was weaker.

but, what's best with modern liion batteries? should i keep my laptop on the charger whenever possible? let it run down to xx% and then charge it? is there a difference in how i should treat them in my cell phone vs. my laptop?

Re:how to maximize battery life?

[Jon Abbott]

According to the Apple KB document 10970, lithium ion batteries should be depleted fully before recharged. It also says that fully depleting the battery isn't absolutely necessary, but is recommended.

Other useful Apple KB articles to follow are 18241 and 88104 (PowerBook Power and Battery Frequently Asked Questions, Parts I and II).

Apple's Knowledge Base can be found here.

maybe they're not the best afterall

[sonicsft]

While I haven't had this particular issue with my iBook, its logic board promptly ate its self this weekend when I plugged in the AC adapter(no it wasn't surged.) I got an email from a freind with a similar experience this weekend also. While the iBook is a great laptop when it works I can't help but think in the PC world if batteries acted up like this, and logic board randomly failed we would be talking class action lawsuit not discussing it calmly on slashdot.

-sonic

Re:More lessons in the reasonable world

[rhombic]

Damn, I knew there was a reason I carried around that $PC. And I am totally polite to the staff of businesses that treat me well (like $PC_maker) and that take care of me (like $PC_maker), and Do The Right Thing(tm) (like $PC_maker). When a business treats me well, I mention it to my friends. And when a business treats me poorly, you can bet I'll mention that to my friends as well. When I had a battery replacement under warranty w/ $PC_maker, they overnighted a replacement to me, and after I received it I sent back the defective one. So as far as I can tell, the turn around for a mail-order company in the middle of Texas is doing better than the fuzzily referenced apple store in my local mall.

"any retailer worth their salt wouldnt take a return..."

I always check return policies before I purchase hardware. With the major retailers (BB & CompUSA), the open box, non defective return policy is two weeks minimum, 15% restocking fee. If I really need the battery, I'll consider that a ~$20 rental of the battery for those two weeks. Not bad. And if the retailer doesn't want to honor their published return policy, I'll have no hesitation to dispute the charges w/ my credit card company. I've never seen a retailer not honor their return policy, and I'd never buy from a hardware dealer that had no refund within two-weeks policy. Guess I won't be getting that Apple. BTW, if I'm not happy with my system or anything else I've bought from them, $PC_maker will take it back within 30 days, no questions asked, no restocking. I just have to pay shipping.

I see no reason to ever be mean to sales or service people, or impolite. But if their store's policies are not satisfying me, I'm going to (politely) go somewhere else. And if that's how Apple chooses to treat their customers, I'm sure glad I'm not one of them. My God man, you're actually proud that they don't take returns? That is the worst attitude toward customers I've ever heard of.

Insufficient battery voltage?

[cryptochrome]

I tried something like that too. When my iBook dual usb 2001 battery was starting to run down faster and faster, I lowered the screen brightness to minimum and turned off all programs except bbedit. Lo and behold, it ran for hours even after it reached 0%.

My theory is that the battery is somehow not providing enough voltage to run the computer (or the computer is requiring more voltage than the battery can provide) which shuts itself down, even though its capacity is not terribly diminished.

I tried that again recently (now that my comp gets about 2 minutes of battery life) but it didn't work. My battery only shows a green flashing light on the bottom indicating it is empty.