battery trouble

[Tim Seufert]

On Thursday, April 10, 2003, at 07:28  AM, Beartooth wrote:

> On 10 Apr 2003 00:26:57 -0600, Dan Burcaw
> <dburcaw@terrasoftsolutions.com> asked:
>
>> Were you running in plugged in mode a lot? I know that batteries can
>> start to degrade after long periods this... they really need to drain
>> and recharge to last a long time.
>
> 	Ouch! Yes. I imagined that'd be good for it. :-(
>
> 	So -- VDQ #1: is there any hope of resurrecting the dead one?

I had a similar thing happen to me on a PowerBook 2400, which I used 
(running YDL) as a gateway server for about a year.  Thought I was 
being clever, since it had a built-in "UPS".  When I removed it from 
service, I unplugged the power cable without shutting it down, and it 
instantly died because the battery could not sustain it for even 1 
second.  I would have had a rude awakening if I'd ever needed the 
battery backup.

What was interesting was that the battery would not begin charging.  I 
think (but have no way of verifying for sure) that it was discharged 
and somehow in a state that fooled the PMU into not charging it.

The situation fixed itself when I installed and booted MacOS 9.  9 
probably knows about the cases where the PMU doesn't do the right 
thing, and kicks it if one of them happens... or something like that.  
As I mentioned in my other email, with at least three complicated 
programs interacting (battery firmware, PMU firmware, and OS) it's 
often hard to know from the outside what is going on.

> 	VDQ #2: When you do want to run the ibook 24/7 for some time,
> should you just do it plugged in and without battery?

Probably.